What's the best way to respond to my toddler's first words? - The Speech Lab

By 18 months, your toddler might be starting to say a lot of single words - often naming things that they see, hear and touch.

But what's the best way to respond to them? Can you help them to build their skills more quickly through the way you respond?

Dr Saloni Krishnan put it to the test in our speech lab, with the help of mum Melissa and her son Zane.

Check out the results of her experiment below.

Try the best response experiment at home

Want to test out ways of responding to your toddler in real time? Our speech lab experiment is a simple way of seeing how responding in certain ways with your toddler can lead to them talking and interacting with you in different ways.

Firstly, try setting up a simple game of 'What's in the bag?'. Place a few items in a bag or pillow case, place your hand in, shuffle them around and pick one out. When you do, ask your child what the item is. When they respond, react to them very simply with a 'well done' or 'Yes, a hairbrush'.

Take notice of how many words they're saying as you play.

Now set up another game with some different objects. Again, pull one item at a time from the bag, and ask your toddler what it is. This time when they respond, add lots of simple sentences and phrases to the words they use. So for example, if they say 'ball', you could say back 'yes a ball, you play football with a ball' or 'it's a shiny ball'.

Again, take notice of how many words they're saying in response. Do you see an increase?

A graphic showing a neuron and a mother and child playing catch. The text reads 'Brain Plasticity - the growth and reorganisation of brain cells'.
Brain plasticity is where new neurons and connections are formed in place of old ones as your child learns new things and adapts.

What's going on in my toddler's brain when we expand on language?

Your toddler's brain is constantly changing as its tiny cells or neurones make new connections and get rid of old ones as they learn new things. This is what scientists call brain plasticity. So when you repeat back a word a child has said and expand upon it to create a phrase or sentence, their brain begins to build new connections between different words and what they mean.

These are known as semantic links. Your child forms thousands of these links as they learn language.

The more they build these links and hear you saying longer phrases, the more likely they will be to begin using longer phrases themselves.

A graphic showing a neuron and a mother and child playing catch. The text reads 'Brain Plasticity - the growth and reorganisation of brain cells'.
Brain plasticity is where new neurons and connections are formed in place of old ones as your child learns new things and adapts.

Find out more about expanding language

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