5 Parameters to Follow to Help Your Late Talker Learn Their First 50 Words
What if I told you as a speech-language pathologist (SLP), I don’t care about your child’s first word.
Now, as a momma to late talkers, oh my goooodness the joy and excitement I’m all for it!! I remember back to one of my humans who never even made sounds. At 8 months old I heard a “da” and was overwhelmed just knowing what his sweet little voice sounded like. In true kid fashion, it was months before he even made another sound...but the heart-swelling joy of hearing your child’s voice is unmatched.
So why don’t I care about the first word as an SLP? It’s because I care most about what comes next; the first 50 words!
These are the words that grow their confidence.
These are the words they need to start putting two words together.
Our kids need 50-60 words to truly start what I call the language snowball - where we don’t have to worry or try so much for every new word to emerge.
Most children language snowball on their own. Picking up new words with ease as soon as that first one hits our ears - but some kids don’t and it takes a little more effort.
How do we know who needs more support?
A benchmark I follow is:
20 words by 18 months
50-60 words by 24 months
These two markers let me know your kiddo is on their way to gaining more words without much thought. If they aren’t quite there, don’t worry! There’s no room or need for panic - this simply means we need to be a little more intentional about vocabulary learning in our daily lives.
WHAT WORDS TO CHOOSE FOR A LATE TALKER
If you feel overwhelmed getting started, I got you!
The most important fact to hold onto is that not all words are created equal!
Here are some of the best parameters for picking words to help you get to that goal of the first 50!
More than nouns!
As parents, we get so excited about new words, we tend to just label items we see - which leads to a whoooooole lot of nouns. This is one of the most common things I see when working with parents of late talkers!
The thing is, building sentences is impossible when all we have are nouns. So my advice is this: for every noun you label, think about an adjective or verb you could model as well. This allows for a beautiful variety of vocabulary exposure and a much easier journey towards speaking with more than one word at a time.
💡SUPER FUN FACT: A child needs to hear a word as many as 500 times before they say it - no wonder many first words are “no” 🤣. So keep going and don’t worry about your child repeating you, they just need to hear you say it, a lot! Books, play, narrating your day, singing; it all counts. Here’s a blog about speech routines if you want more information on doing this the easiest way possible!
2. Skip the academics!
Tiny humans need words they can use for immediate impact. If it doesn’t serve them well or relate to their daily needs and wants, it isn’t the most important.
So think about their favorite toys, foods, clothes, people, places, and activities - providing language around these things is HIGHLY motivating.
Words around numbers, colors, and letters - not motivating for most tiny humans. So save that for later my friend, especially if you have a late talker.
The word to divide these two things is academic and functional language. Here’s a blog about all the ways we communicate for more ideas!
3. Make it easy
Environmental sounds, exclamatory words, animal sounds…these are not only wicked fun, but they are also the easiest words to say!
Environmental: Think of any sound an object makes, cars honking and driving, doors closing, objects falling and then crashing, sneezes, balloons popping, bugs buzzing, sirens, snoring.
Exclamatory: These are words and sounds that share excitement or extra emotion. Anything from oh-no, uh-oh, and shh to whoo-hoo, weee, and yummm.
Animal: Kids frequently use the animal sound instead of the animal name, still counts as a word and can be so much easier to say. You can use maa for a goat, baa for a sheep, hop-hop for a cricket, grr for a dino, and roar for a lion. Feel free to let your child decide the sounds too!
4. Short and sweet!
We are talking about one-syllable words, maybe some repeated two-syllable words (mama, dada, wawa, baba).
This is not to say don’t ever use bigger words; I’m an advocate for using real vocabulary and not using “baby talk” as kids are building vocabulary, however, if you are only modeling multi-syllable words with a lot of different consonants in them, that is going to be very difficult, especially for a late talker.
Those big long multisound words can come later! Remember that 50-60 word snowball? Focus on hitting that first!
5. Don’t forget to play!
Have you ever tried to learn something new and the person teaching you was boring or rigid and demanding? How much learning actually happened? Yeah, don’t be that person my friend. This should be fun and joyful.
If you feel anxious and worried while trying to teach language please remember, I had my own late talkers…one an extremely late talker and this is my job! So it’s not your fault, you didn’t cause this, and it will be ok.
Change your goal to “communication and connection” instead of verbal words! If you focus on building a positive and joyful relationship with your child, centered around communication (which can be gestures, facial expressions, signs, speech devices, or verbal), then it all seems easier.
I know that I avoid people who make me feel stressed out and anxious, so take a big deep breath and find the joy and playfulness with your child.
The outline above is a great starting point to help you know what words to use for late talkers, but if you’re in search of more guidance, you can take the guesswork out and download my FREE Guide For The First 75 Words For Toddlers.
Print the words for your own reminders, or use them during playtime with your kids. When you download this PDF, you’ll also receive a short video that gives you ideas around the best and worst ways to introduce these words!
CLICK HERE to grab your easy button!
As always, you’re doing wonderful and I’m proud of you!