The child’s parents or caregiver know the child best. You understand what the child is trying to say through every cry or every point to an object. You can even anticipate what the child needs at a certain moment.
For example, a parent might give a child’s favorite food at a certain time because it is the child’s routine snack time. One way to help facilitate language use in this situation is by making the child’s favorite food visible but out of reach. This way, the child will be required to communicate with you to request for the food that he wants. Here, you can ask your child to ask for the object using a specific language form, like saying “please give me cookie” or by using gestures, depending on what he can do with his current set of skills.
This strategy of providing obstacles can also be used with toys. It is a common scenario that caregivers provide all the toys in easy-to-reach areas so the children can choose and get the toys they want to play with in an instant.
We suggest that you take a look at how toys are stored at home. Are they easily seen by children? Can they be reached and accessed without difficulty? If you’ve answered yes to these two questions, we recommend that you rearrange the child’s toys in places where it still can be clearly seen by the child but not easily accessible, like in a shelf that is not within the child’s reach. This way, the child will be given the opportunity to ask for help to get the toys or objects that he wants to play with.
For more tips and strategies to improve social skills, set an appointment with us at happyplays.net. 😊
