Two and a half Years
At age two and a half years, your child may:
- Talk when playing alone
- Present a few dysfluencies in connected speech
- Relate simple imaginative tales
- Begin to ask lots of questions
- Express fatigue verbally
- Present speech that is 50-75% intelligible
You can stimulate the speech and language development of your two-and-a-half-year-old by:
- Being a good speech model
- Listening attentively as your child talks to you
- Asking many questions to stimulate additional thought and language
- Reading books every day as part of your routine
- Continuing to expand your child's language
- Providing social activities that allow for your child to interact with peers
- Praising your child for his or her efforts when communicating to you about something he or she has done
- Labeling colors and numbers
- Comparing objects
- Introducing your child to opposites
- Continuing to read longer stories to your child
- Encouraging your child to make up stories and tell them to you
Some specific activities are:
- Playing "I Spy" to help develop the concept of colors
- Singing number rhymes that contain counting activities, such as "Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed"
- Playing a game while riding in the car using comparisons: "Which one is heavier -- a bird or a house?"; "Which one is lighter -- a baby or a bus?"
- Playing sorting games using clothes, food or other objects
- Allowing your child to help you plan activities such as what you will make for Christmas dinner
- Looking at family photos and talking about the activities and the people in them
If you are concerned that your child may not be developing these skills as he or she should, you may seek the advice of a speech-language pathologist.
