How Adults Use Language When Interacting With Toddlers

Toddler Language Skills

• How you use language when you speak to your toddler is largely dependent on his developmental stage and abilities. For example, you wouldn't want to use the your teen's SAT vocab flash cards with your toddler, as he's not likely to understand the overly complicated words. According to Zero to Three, most 2-year-olds understand anywhere between 20 and 200 words and 3-year-olds may know up to 1,000 words. Additionally, the child development pros at PBS Parents note that between the ages of 2 and 3 years most toddlers can say roughly 570 words. While toddlers typically make short, unsophisticated sentences such as, "Want cookie," they can understand one- or two-step directions and common phrases.

Vocabulary-Building Language Use

• Whether you are talking to your toddler, or her teacher is trying to get her to communicate in a more precise way, adults must use language to build the young child's vocabulary skills. Building your toddler's vocabulary means going beyond gesturing, or pointing to objects, and engaging in baby talk. The experts at Zero to Three suggest that adults facilitate the toddler's vocabulary development by talking often with the child, singing songs and reciting simple poetry and using more complex types of sentence structure.

Asking Questions

• Asking open-ended questions can help your toddler use his words, put together sentences and develop his own ideas. Open-ended questions require your child to formulate an actual answer, beyond a simple "yes" or "no." For example, you -- or another adult -- may ask your toddler on a trip to the park, "What do you think the turtles are doing when they go under the water in the pond?" This, unlike a more closed type of questions such as, "Is that a turtle?", requires your toddler to think more critically about the question and use a higher level of language skills to answer.

Baby Talk

• According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, adults should use "baby talk" sparingly, and only when it is paired with adultlike words. Although adults are often tempted to still use a babyish type of language with 1- to 3-year-olds, such as "Baby dink ba-ba," this won't help the toddler to develop her speech and communication skills. If you do feel the need to use baby talk, ASHA recommends that you create a sentence that features grown-up words along with one baby talk word. For example, if your child's baby talk word for table is "tay-tay," you may say, "Please go to the tay-tay and sit down to eat your dinner."