There is a time in the growth of your child when you feel a little worried if the child does not talk or at least utter some gibberish. There is little cause for worry as such. However, parents are a little flustered and begin to see some warning signs in orange if there is absolutely no effort on the child’s part to talk.
Only a speech therapist can tell you for sure if the age for your child to talk is already in or you need to wait a little longer. Usually, some children actually begin to talk a little later in their life. When they latch up, they will make you forget the silent period pretty soon!
Coming back to the worry part, speech therapists at our end at Speech Plus suggests a couple of speech therapy techniques that you can try at home. Of course, there is no and cannot be an alternative to actually consulting a speech therapist. While doing so, you can check out two methods called Self Talk and Parallel Talk.
Let us describe them one at a time. Self Talk is the art of speaking about what you are doing in front of the child. You should describe your actions in a simple manner with words that your child can pick up. For example, if you are cleaning the fridge while the child plays around, talk aloud what you are doing. It will help the child associate your words with your actions. Also, the child will feel enthused to do the same when they do something on their own.
Parallel Talk is somewhat similar to Self Talk. The difference is that while in Self Talk you are describing your actions, in Parallel Talk, you are describing the actions of the child. Talk about what the child is doing. For example, the child may be drawing something on the paper or floor, with colors or simply with pencil. Talk to them about the things they are doing in the second person narrative. Like, ‘Oh, you are drawing a bird!”
These are techniques that will help the child pick up a normal speech routine. Our Speech Pathologists here at Speech Plus warn that you have to be patient in this matter. You cannot rush things or even expect the child to pick up the words that you speak or repeat them in imitation. It will happen gradually and these techniques are definitely steps in the right direction.