Modeling

Does your baby, toddler, or preschooler do any of the following:

• Use the incorrect sound, word, or sentence structure (signed or spoken)
• Babble a string of sounds to communicate
• Make repeated random movements that resemble gestures or signs
• Use some sounds and words and sentences but not the ones other children his age are using?

Modeling, or providing an example of a slightly more advanced version, is a useful technique in any of these situations.

All children learn language at different rates and show some differences in their communication development. Children also go through typical communication developmental stages where they make some errors for a short period of time before moving on to the next stage and mastery of that sound, word, or grammatical rule.

What is important is that your child move through the stages and not become delayed at an early stage of development. Deaf and hard of hearing children go through these same stages of language learning. The earlier a child with hearing loss is using hearing equipment and getting early intervention, the more likely he’ll be on track with development expected for his cognitive age. You can facilitate your child moving through the stages of communication development by using a technique called modeling.

Modeling is showing. Some important tips for modeling include:

• Respond positively to your child’s communication attempts, regardless of errors, by interpreting what you think your child is trying to say and affirming his attempts with the correct version
• Avoid negative words or commands such as “No, it’s not…say it this way…”
• Match your child’s efforts with the correct sounds, words, or sentences so that he hears and/or sees the model but feels understood as well

Developmental assessments are very helpful in determining what stage your child is at with communication, the rate of progress, and the next goals for communication. Using the evidence from these questionnaires and evaluations, you and your early intervention team can make appropriate decisions about what else to try and what is working well.

A reference for some speech and language milestones can be found in My Turn To Learn, pages 225-228.