Children must be stimulated in all areas of development, a fundamental area is language. I share some examples of activities you can do at home to encourage proper development and enhance your child's communication skills:
1. Talk to him or her, looking him or her in the eye, and reinforce emotions to encourage the expression of feelings.
2. Encourage a positive communicative environment. A place where turn taking is spoken correctly, clearly and respected. Call things by name, describe their appearance and functionality.
3. When they come out, describe the activities they do. For example, if you go shopping tell your child what you are going to buy, if you go by car describe the landscape, if you are cooking ask your child for help.
4. Encourage the child to communicate even if not verbally. It is important to develop your communicative intention.
5. Tell him stories. If possible with large drawings, plates, sounds, 3D.
6. Encourage symbolic play. With objects that provide opportunities for creativity such as legos, blocks.
7. Encourage role-playing: puppets, casitas, professions, trades. 8. Encourage the use of onomatopoeia games through concrete objects.
9. Listen to songs and repeat them. The children enjoy music very much.
10. Try not to encode or "guess" what the child is trying to communicate with gestures, instead construct the correct statement and try to get the child to reproduce it but without creating pressure.
11. Try not to correct the child when he or she makes a mistake, but instead repeat the phrase in the correct way.
12. Do not try to correct errors in the different sounds of language because each sound is acquired at different ages.
Remember that if you notice a delay in language development contact a specialist, do not try to correct the errors yourself. the earlier the intervention starts the better the prognosis of recovery.