Parenting Pointers: Small Talk - How to Develop Your Child's Language Skills from Birth to Age Four

Disclosure: I received complimentary products to facilitate this post. All opinions are my own.

Speech and language therapist Nicola Lathey and parenting journalist Tracey Blake make it easy to give children the gift of speech with Small Talk: How to Develop Your Child’s Language Skills from Birth to Age Four.

The book contains dozens of games and activities that take just a few minutes a day and are appropriate for infants through preschoolers. It also clearly explains six stages of language learning, including great tips on encouraging speaking, communicating emotions, red flags to watch out for, and how things like TV, pacifiers, and signing affect communication. Even though my kids are mostly out of this stage, I was still able to use many of the techniques with my younger daughter, who is four but slightly behind in speech development.

To help you encourage communication with your younger one, I'd like to share a few tips and resources with you.
- Talk early and often. A Stanford study found that there's a major language gap based on socioeconomic status, and a big part of that is the lack of conversation in lower-income homes. Vocabulary is a huge predictor of later success, so the more you can talk and read to your children, even in infancy, the better.
- Mimic patterns early. When infants are babbling, maintain eye contact and speak back when they pause. It helps prepare them for the cadence of a talk-and-listen conversation.
- Repeat, repeat, repeat. The more your babies hear words in context, the quicker they will understand and be able to use them.

Nicola Lathey is a children’s speech and language therapist specializing in children under five. She is the founder of the Owl Centre, a private speech and language therapy clinic for children in Oxfordshire, England. She has one daughter.

Tracey Blake is a journalist and editor at the Daily Mail where she writes the popular parenting blog Small Talk. She is a mother of two.