Talk about the child's experience. Use specific words to build the child's vocabulary. "Look! Your brother is holding his present really tight!"

Follow the child's lead. The little girl in the picture at left is staring at the blue bag. Her mother could say, "Do you want to see what's in the bag? Let's look and see what is in this blue bag."
Children learn words better when they can match the language to their experiences, what they are seeing, doing, hearing or feeling at the moment.

This example demonstrates two other recommendation for teaching children with language impairments.

Repeat key words and phrases.
Use labels and specific descriptions
Instead of saying, "Do you want to see what's in there? Let's look?" The mother gives a label for what the child is looking at - it's a bag. She also gives a description - it's a blue bag.

Because the two periods when speech and language impairments are most common are in young children and older adults, both the early childhood and aging workshops offered through Disability Access provide numerous other examples of how to assist a family member with a speech impairment.

Useful links on speech and language impairments