Any tips on speech development?

[wintersdawn]

My dd is 26 months old and has a great understanding of words but when it comes to speaking she uses one word only to get things as much as she can.

I know she understands the concept of linking words as she sings songs (in her own way but I know what song she's copying). But if for example she says 'drink' and I say back 'drink please' she just copies back the please, hope that makes sense.

So my question is any tips on encouraging her to link words or is this something she'll just get in her own time?

Just keep doing what you're doing - modelling and asking her to repeat back. Give her time to repeat both words, continue to repeat the phrase until she does, not for hours and hours but a few times until she can see that they go together. Praise her excitedly when she says the words together! This will come in it's own time.

I think the general rule is not to ask children to repeat something back to you. DS has been having speech therapy for the last four years and as a general rule, speech therapists prefer if you model and wait for the child to say something/give them time. Use lots of expressions that will use more than one word (for example, use a lot of 'ready steady go' and One two three, and lots of nursery rhymes. If she says for example 'cat' you can say 'yes, black cat, nice black cat - you add words, only a few words at a time. Also, one good thing to do is to sing a popular nursery rhyme a few times with her, Row row row is good for that, then after a few repetition skip a word and see if she will say it. If she does, praise, then try to see if you skip a few words in a row she will say them. It takes a lot of repetition but generally children quite like that game.

Thanks for the advice I'll keep at it and hope it clicks for her

My DS is 26m and doesn't have many words. But last week, out of the blue, he said 'nanou ttt' (yellow light) as we were driving past some street lights. It was so sudden. Now he's naming 'yellow car' etc and appears to have very suddenly got the idea of linking words. This is despite many months of modelling words etc. I wonder if they really just do it when they are ready?