Speech & Language

Speech in early years is crucial as it fosters cognitive development by enhancing problem-solving and critical thinking through language-based interactions. It supports social-emotional growth by enabling children to express feelings and build relationships, laying the foundation for empathy and cooperation.

Additionally, strong speech skills promote literacy development, as verbal communication strengthens vocabulary and comprehension, essential for reading and writing success.

The Importance of
Word Exposure

By age 3, children from higher-income families are exposed to about 30 million more words than those from lower-income families, significantly impacting vocabulary and cognitive development

Children need to hear approximately 21,000 words per day to develop robust language skills, achieved through conversations, storytelling, and reading.

By age 2, children typically understand 200–300 words and can say about 50–100 words; by age 5, this expands to understanding 2,100–2,200 words and using around 1,500 words

How Children Learn Speech

Children learn speech primarily through interactions with caregivers, who model language, provide feedback, and engage in back-and-forth communication, fostering neural connections for language.

Babies imitate sounds and words they hear, with positive reinforcement (e.g., smiles, responses) strengthening their attempts to communicate.

The Power of PEC Cards and Gestures

Picture Exchange Communication (PEC) cards and gestures are great at helping children (especially those with communication challenges), understand and express language by providing visual and interactive cues that bridge verbal communication

Encouraging Language at Home

Here are simple ways to help your child develop strong communication skills:

Talk often: Describe what you're doing and label everyday objects.

Read together daily: Books build vocabulary and attention.

Sing songs and rhymes: Rhythm and repetition support memory.

Follow their lead: Talk about what interests them.

Limit screen time: Interaction is key; conversation, not just exposure to words, matters.

What does a speech therapy session look like for a toddler?
Written by:

Alissa Glowacki, BSc Psychology, MSc Speech and Language Therapy, Cert. MHCPC

Speech & Language Therapist

Poppie Speech & Language Therapy

www.poppiespeechtherapy.com

Playful, adventurous, & full of curiosity. These are merely a few ways in which we can describe a child

under the age of five. Now, although we love these qualities in children, how exactly do we support

speech and language development in a way that both appeals and resonates with our little ones long

term? The answer lies in something we speech and language therapists like to call play-based therapy.

Sounds pretty straightforward - playing with your child, right? Well…it’s a bit more layered than that.

What Is Play- Based Therapy?

Play-based therapy refers to the way in which we approach interactions with children. During a session, the therapist will follow the child’s lead in order to facilitate opportunities for engagement, enjoyment, & of course, communication! The aim is to help children establish a positive association between communicating and engaging across interactions and contexts. You can embed a multitude of clinical targets when incorporating a play-based therapeutic approach. This could include expanding a child’s receptive vocabulary, increasing the frequency of single-word approximations to request, or learning how to incorporate new elements into play.

The therapist will scaffold language through the use of evidence-based therapeutic techniques. Expansions and Extensions are two of the primary types of early language recasting. Recasting is used to describe a broader inventory of tools utilised to add or correct a child’s utterance without interrupting the flow of conversation. Let’s break it down together:

Expansions

Takes what the child says, but adds grammatical accuracy and/or semantic

meaning to form an adult-like utterance.

Child says: ‘pink lolly ’

Adult Expansion: ‘the lolly is pink!’

Extensions

Takes what a child says & enhances it by adding new information. You might model a phrase with a new idea or vocabulary.

Child says: ‘pink lolly’

Adult Extension: ‘the lolly is pink! It looks like a heart'

Another one of my favourite tools to incorporate with young children is pause - wait time. It can be quite tricky to introduce moments of silence when with our children. We want to speak to & engage with them as much as possible, right? Well, sometimes if we do too much of that, we are not providing them enough time to both process what we have said & then allow them to formulate a novel response.

While it might look like your therapist is simply playing with your child, rest assured there is layer of strategies & approaches they are utilising to best fit your child’s needs & learning profile in a given moment. If you have questions or concerns about your child’s communication skills, email: alissa@poppiespeechtherapy.com

"The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences"

- Loris Malaguzzi (Reggio Emilia Approach)