How to Help Your Child Talk and Grow Smarter: Early Learning Matters

Children who talk well do better in life. Language skill opens the door to success, and communication difficulties make life harder. As a parent, you want your child to become a successful person, and by helping his language development you can give him the language tools to smooth his path.


Youth offending
One shocking fact is that 70 percent of young offenders in England and Wales have a communication difficulty, according to a recent report for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, while 10 percent of the entire population have a communication problem.


Brain research
The Royal Society, in its report, “Brain Waves Module Two: Neuroscience: Implications for Education and Lifelong Learning”, makes it clear that the early years of life are important for rapid development in a baby’s brain. While changes to the brain continue throughout life, there are critical periods when a child develops language skills more easily than at any other time.


Self-control
The report also highlights the importance of self-control in our lives. A child of three who resists the temptation to eat a sweet straight away, because he knows he will be rewarded for his self-control by receiving two sweets, may well achieve more in later life.


Understanding
A recent study by the University of California shows that babies use the same brain areas as adults to process words, suggesting that maybe a child’s understanding of words begins even earlier than we thought.


How to help
Improve your child’s life chances by offering the best possible environment for learning self-regulation and language development. Your child will benefit from:
• a regular routine, where she feels confident and secure,
• quiet times during the day to avoid over-stimulation,
• plenty of sleep to let her brain deal with the new things she sees every day,
• parents or carers who smile, talk to and cuddle her.


Some children find it difficult to learn language, speech and communication skills. Check your child’s progress regularly to make sure he learns language at a reasonable speed. If you have concerns, speak to your health professional as soon as possible. A speech therapist can tell whether he’s on the right track and she will advise you on how to help him.


If you’d like to know more about how to help your child talk and grow smarter, take a look at this Kindle eBook.