Language Development

As volunteer reader at a public library I see all kinds of children, and the ones that I tend to remember are the ones that are 3 to 4- years-old who toss books at me that are not at their skill level and grunt. This happens a lot...believe it or not. While there are children that truly cannot speak with regular language, most of these children have been "trained" by their parents to do this. How? You may well be asking. When a child is around/close to 1 year of age they begin to vocalize sounds/words that they hear repeatedly. Of this group, some will point and grunt and the parent then interprets what their grunting means. Unfortunately the parents think they are helping their children to communicate when in reality they are inhibiting the child's language development. When a child tosses a book at me and grunts I always say to them "use your words" "what do you need from me". Parents must be able to do this type of training in order for their child to do well in school. If a public school teacher has to take time out of her already busy class schedule to retrain the child all involved will lose out. In addition, the child will usually not be able to catch up in time to the rest of their class which in turn creates other problems as well. It's okay to say to the child "I don't understand the sounds that you are making, use your words." I've had parents become angry at me in the library because I will not allow their child to grunt at me, but it's the only way to handle a delayed language issue. Also, these children are more prone to run around and not be able to focus. As a volunteer reader, I simply cannot chase a child around the library trying to read a book to them. Parent's can solve this one rather easilly by reading to a child at bedtime consistently. By the time the child enters school they are trained to be still while a book is being read to them. It can be a simple board book to start out and then work up to books that are a bit longer with more pictures. Talk to the child about what is going on in the pictures. As the child progresses, chapter books can be introduced. I've actually see some pre-k children listen to and remember a story that is from a chapter book. It's even better when the book becomes a movie that the child can see. Hope I've taken the mystery out of language development and how to solve some delays.