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Have Some Winter Conversation Fun!

January 05, 2021

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Greetings from Speech Therapy! I hope your child and family enjoyed Winter Break!  Winter is a wonderful time to retell holiday stories and discuss part/whole relationships when building snowmen and following recipes.  Children of all ages likely enjoy recalling Winter Break Activities with friends, adults, and teachers. 

In language development, we look for many skills when a child recalls an event:

1. Sequence word use (First, Next, Then, Last, Before, After) and recalling events mostly in the correct sequence.
2. The retelling of important details versus unimportant details.
3. Recalling specific and varied vocabulary such as people, places, actions, describing words, and things.   
4. Asking and answering questions back and forth (reciprocal communication is an important skill for language development).  Make sure to stay on topic and some children may need help with formulating questions.

When learning about part/whole relationships, we also use varied language skills:

1. Visual Memory.  For example, remembering parts of a snow truck.
2. Sequential Memory.  For example, recalling a number of items or actions in sequence from a family recipe (flour/sugar/sprinkles, pouring/rolling/scooping). 
3. Auditory Memory.  For example, rounding up items to build a snowman and telling your child typical and non-typical items (hat, scarf, sheriff badge).  Notice how your child may remember the non-typical items first if they recall out of sequence.  This is called an absurdity.  Absurdities are often why we remember non-typical events first when recalling our day. 

Have Some Language Fun In or Out of the Snow and Cook Up Some Fun!