How to teach toddler about pronouns?

[FragrantBumFluff]

My DD will be 2 in a few weeks and we've had this questionnaire through from the HV. A couple of the questions are about her use of I/me/you which DD doesn't do. She will say 'Mummy do it' instead of 'You do it' or 'Her name hold it' instead of 'I hold it' etc.

It doesn't really work trying to show her because if I say you do it, I want her to say I do it but she will just copy me like usual and said you do it

It feels a bit early to be worrying about it but as it was on the questionnaire thing I thought I would try.

Would love to hear how others did this!

just keep talking to her, she will pick it up

Goodness, I don't think my 23mo is even using any pronouns yet!! We just about get "Mummy down" "No cot" etc.

You don't need to worry about this. The screeners aren't a test that you need to study to pass - the "pass" rate on a lot of them also tends to be about 3/4 of the boxes, so not hitting all of them doesn't matter. All children develop at different rates. It is only when there are problems across the board which is when they would look into further support.

I'm actually wondering if she's given you the right one, though. The only language checks at 2yo should be something like are they saying at least 50 words and are they putting 2 words together, IIRC.

Or did you make a typo and she's nearly 3?

Also forgot to add that this is a really normal stage for them to go through.

It's on the questionnaire because it CAN (big big big CAN there) be something that is a feature of some Autistics' speech (overplayed a bit as I see a lot of Autistic people's speech and I think I've seen it a couple of times in a year as a SALT) as pronouns really generally require a bit of mental linguistic gymnastics to get right (what's "me" to me, isn't "me" to you... same as with yesterday/today/tomorrow being slippery little linguistic bastards).

DD2 had a nightmare with he/she and getting them right (and god forbid you try to research a way to sort THAT out in modern day internets) - in the end it was lots and lots of modelling "look at that man on the bike, HE is riding a bike" type activities, and buying one bloody demanding doll where suddenly she cracked telling me exactly what SHE (the ugly doll) wanted me to do (doll had a bigger list of demands than Beyonce).

Oh totally normal - they all talk about themselves in the third person at that stage and it eventually clicks later. It’s very cute!

My DS (already two) can mostly say I now, but he finds me/mine a bit harder (because he just copies when we say you). He can say we/he/she but is less good at you as a subject pronoun, again probably because it's what he hears said to him all the time. I think it's pretty normal - doesn't the questionnaire just say 'can your child use two of these types of words correctly?' which is not the same as being able to do all of them?

Yeah, it's just a normal developmental stages thing, and why in 'parentese' with small tots we naturally talk about ourselves as 'mummy' or 'daddy' and the child by name rather than using pronouns much at all when talking with them.

Don't they all speak like that

I wouldn’t worry about it at all. By the time your dc can formulate a complete sentence society will have returned to normal and realise that there is absolutely no need to be using pronouns at all. We have pandered way too long and people are now getting their knickers (male or female pants ) in a twist.

It'll come with time. Mine is 3 and still sometimes says her instead of she, or he instead of her. It's a developmental thing.

What are you talking about giggly, OP isn't talking about gendered pronouns, she is asking about a toddler (normally) mixing up I and You because they copy what they hear used towards themselves.

And of course we will continue to need pronouns in that context.

The fact she puts two words together is advanced in my experience, I had one talk at 2.5, one at 4!

Btw my asd dd didn't use the third person, my "normal" dd did until way into primary school

My DS still says "mummy do it". "Johnnie get it". He's 28, took a 1st in Classics and has a PhD. He loves winding me up.

I blame the HV. She told me her role was to make sure I talked to my baby enough for him to develop speech. I therefore read him the Iliad and the Odyssey. We had a lovely chat on Saturday about the Odyssey and James Joyce's Ulysses. He never stopped talking once he started and I have no recollection at all about his use of pronouns at 2.

I didn't deal with any HV's after that. It did him no harm at all. You should ask your HV why the question is being asked. Bet they won't know.

If you narrate your day 'im going to put this in the bin' 'im going to put that here' etc then she will pick it up

Oh thanks all, I won't bother worrying about it then!

Also: when they do it, they will make mistakes. My toddlers are nearing 3 and still mess up him/her/he/she fairly frequently. Totally normal.

My 4.5 year old struggles to remember I'm not male and that his uncles are not aunts. I say rock on, keep talking to your LO.

They also may deal with verbs first by copying but then conjugating logically leading to mistakes in the common irregular verbs until they figure those out.

@ErrolTheDragon yes - I remember a friend saying that it felt like her son’s speech was going backwards because he started making mistakes with verbs (“I drawed a picture” etc) which he’d previously got right. But it was because initially he’d just copied what he heard, but then he learned enough verbs to recognise the regular pattern, and tried to apply it. It’s fascinating!