4 tips and exercises to stimulate children's language

Verbal language is a skill that not only serves to express needs and desires; It is a competence that greatly influences the ability to mentally organize, structure and assimilate external information.

It is a process that generally begins during the first year of age, with sometimes unintelligible sounds and babbling, and it is estimated that around the age of 2 the first words begin to be structured.

The first sentences and the most complex words are acquired between the ages of 3 and 4 and it is expected that other communication skills such as greeting or saying goodbye, interacting orally, are also developed at these ages with their peers, understand orders, repeat topics, ask some questions, speak spontaneously, improve pronunciation, among others.

• Recommended article: "The 4 stages of language development"

Exercises to stimulate verbal language

It can happen that children take a little longer to acquire the necessary skills to communicate verbally, and this situation generally causes caregivers a lot stress, especially if the little ones have already started going to school.

Fortunately, there are several exercises that we can do, even at home, and that stimulate several of the skills necessary to develop oral language.

Here we explain four exercises that can be useful and simple, and that also take into consideration that language is acquired through the successive development of different skills.

1. Work lingual and labial praxies (gymnastics of the mouth)

Praxias are voluntary motor skills that we generally acquire by imitation. The lingual praxies are the movements that we make with the tongue voluntarily and the labial praxies are the movements that we make with the lips.

Performing both lingual and labial praxies favor articulation; that is, they are useful because they stimulate the parts of the body that allow us to emit sounds and words. For example, we can sit facing the child, move the tongue in different ways that attract her attention and ask her to imitate these movements.

We can also make games that involve blowing, smiling or making facial gestures. that allow the lips to move in different ways. One of the most attractive exercises for children is to make a dice with different images that illustrate different ways of moving the lips and tongue, and ask him to imitate them with you. us.

2. Stimulate vocabulary with onomatopoeia

An onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound of the action or object to which it refers. For example, the sound we make when knocking on a door, the sound of a doorbell, a clock, a falling object, the sound What do dogs, birds, cows, sheep, trains, cars, fields or sirens do? ambulances.

All of these are attractive sounds that are easy for little ones to pronounce; that is why they are a good starting point when we want to stimulate oral language. So we can play games like car races, imitate the sound of sirens when we go down the street with them or if we see a train, or play to be different animals.

3. Work semantic fields: start with animals, colors, transport

In line with the previous point, and remembering that language helps us structure and make sense of information and external stimuli, we can help children acquire their first words through different semantic fields.

It is advisable to start with animals, colors or transport because they are the stimuli that are generally closest, with which their acquisition is easier.

We can introduce them not only to the sound but also to the name of the object and through different games, for example we can play farm, or make a travel, tell stories where the protagonists are animals, match different objects of the same color, paint and ask for the name of the colors, etc

4. Use material where they can associate image and word

In the early stages of development, The information we receive is fundamentally sensory, that is, it enters through sounds, smells, touch, tastes, and also visual stimuli..

For this reason, some of the tools we have to stimulate the language of children are striking images. For example, we can sit down with the child and show him different photos or drawings (again, it may be useful to start with animals, means of transport, or the most everyday objects).

Once they have recognized and differentiated the sound of each object, we can tell it its name and ask it to repeat it, and even incorporate other everyday objects such as food or kitchen utensils (for example, names of fruits or vegetables, bread, cup, glass, dish).

It must be remembered that depending on age it is easier for them to pronounce some syllables than others, therefore it is good to start with words of one or two syllables and that have vowels and consonants that are easy to articulate.

Some general recommendations

Children learn by imitation and through observation and experience., with which, it is not necessary to give them extensive explanations about the games or about the objects. It is useful to do the exercises yourself, getting their attention, and then asking them to repeat it.

In addition, each boy and girl has their own rhythm, we must be patient, perform the repetitions that are necessary. And in the same sense, remember that these types of strategies do not necessarily speed up the process in all children.

To firmly reinforce the language, an in-depth evaluation must be carried out, as well as a systematic exercise program appropriate to the needs and zone of proximal development of the little. For example, in some cases it is necessary to initiate language stimulation favoring more basic skills such as swallowing or chewing, what must be detected through orientation formal.