Speech Secrets When Talking to Little Ones
By: Hannah O’Driscoll, MSc. CCC-SLP
Have you noticed that when we speak to babies, toddlers and young children, we tend to alter our voices to attract their attention? We use simple, short sentences, exaggerate our voice, speak in a high pitch, use repetitive vocabulary, and we speak at a slower rate! In the speech and language therapy world, this is known as Parentease.
The reason we use this higher pitch, and more melodic, emotionally-charged tone is because research has shown these strategies as being facilitative for language development. This ‘sing-song’ type speech is more attractive to your baby’s ear, and is so important for their speech and language development.
Research shows, the more exposure children at one year of age have to Parentease strategies, the more words they understand and use at the age of 2! Learn more about the features of Parentease and how you can make them part of your day-to-day routines and activities in The Daisy Plays online speech development courses for babies and toddlers.
Hannah O’Driscoll (MSc. CCC-SLP) is a speech and language therapist and early language expert. Hannah has spent most of her career working in early intervention, and has helped hundreds of parents help their children reach and exceed their language milestones.
Hannah has recently launched Daisy Plays, a platform of self-paced online courses for parents of babies and toddlers. The courses share simple, research-backed strategies, tools, tips, tricks and techniques to support and empower parents with professional knowledge that will make an impactful difference on their child’s communication abilities in those early years.
Hannah really believes all parents have the ability to create really meaningful interactions and language learning opportunities with their child when given the right support and direction. Her passion is driven by the ample amount of research suggesting that early language skills ensures better social, academic and literacy success, and reduces temper tantrums associated with the frustration of not being to express needs and wants.
Hannah is a mom, and knows how busy a parents day is. Therefore, her online courses focus solely on creating language learning opportunities and intentionally building a child’s communication skills through everyday routines and playtime!
