Formation of language begins at birth, believe it or not. When a baby cries, they're communicating the need for help and attention. Later, babies begin to produce sounds when they want certain objects or even family members; they are naming them: ba ba (bottle), ma ma (mother), da da (father), etc. We don't recognize this as the beginning of the development of grammar and syntax, but it actually is. Children are "speaking" and we are responding, appropriately! When we respond appropriately, we are teaching them (slowly but surely) how to talk. As a child's language is developing, parents can help children learn grammar (classes of words, their forms and functions) and syntax (the arrangement of words and the sequence in which we put them together to create meaning). Children with speech and language difficulties often have problems understanding the even the simplest and smallest units of words (-ed, -ing, -s). So, sometimes their sentences may come off as immature dependent on their age.
Children realize early on that the more words they hear and repeat, the more the world around them is expanding, or rather, their understanding of it. As early as two years old, children are trying to use prepositions, nouns, pronouns and verbs altogether to make meaning; "Me up mama," want my ba," "you go dada." Even though children put together sentences that may lack sense to a parent, they should respond appropriately using correct grammar in order to teach the child appropriate use of language. Responding with baby talk is cute up until a certain age, but there comes a time when it only reinforces inappropriate use of language. You see, when we respond using baby talk, we are telling a child that this type of talk is appropriate (we may not directly see the innate thirst to learn language in our toddlers, but it's there). Use appropriate language and children will follow ("Suzy hitted me!" - "Did Suzy hit you?")
Children with speech and language difficulties often:
- Use words in the wrong order (their sentences don't make sense or are misleading)
- Struggle to use pronouns correctly (identifies self as 'she,' 'her,' or 'me' when 'I' is correct)
- Cannot grasp how to use word endings (-ed, -ing, -s) correctly
- Do not understand how to connect sentences or thoughts using conjunctions (and, but, or, yet)
- Do not understand verb tense (past, present and future)
- Need practical experiences to understand some concepts
- Need to use concrete materials to understand plurals (one doll, two dolls)
- Play sentence games. For example, cut out pictures from a magazine and verbally reenact the scene. This can help a child understand nouns, verbs, adjectives and where they belong (syntax). (Picture of a dog playing catch with his owner - "What is/was the dog/owner doing?" "The dog is/was/will..., His owner is/was..., The ball is/was... " As you can see, this can also helps children understand tenses. And it will be fun!
- Play sentence games. Cut pictures of individual items out of a magazine and paste them on cards. Mix them up, have your child describe the object to you and guess what it is. ("It has icing you can eat and candles that tell how old you are!")
- Scramble! Write words on small notecards, punctuation marks: everything that makes a sentence. Scramble them up and have your child put them together in the right order. Correct them when they're wrong, but in a way that challenges them to correct it themselves. If they're wrong about where a comma goes, ask "should the comma go here, or there?". This will engage them and help them pay more attention.
- Mad Libs! Word searches, and puzzles galore!
- Use everyday objects around the house to teach plurals. "Jerry, how many spoons am I holding in my hand?"
Resources
Spivey, Becky L., M.Ed. Super Duper Publications © 2009 Handy Handouts. "Teaching the Fundamentals of Grammar and Syntax at Home"
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