3 Language Development Tips for This Halloween

Unlock Your Child’s Spooky Language Potential

It’s that time of year again, spooky season!

Halloween is one of the most popular holidays for children. Here are some tips to help develop your child’s language skills in a naturalistic setting.

A naturalistic approach to language development is key.

Children learn best through their play and routines. Your Halloween traditions are a great opportunity to target vocabulary, follow directions, and basic concepts.

Describe your actions:

It’s time to pick apples or pumpkins. While you’re picking apples/pumpkins, take the time to talk about the process in detailed words. Remember to describe colors, shapes, textures, sizes, and functions. These are all basic concepts that are critical for language development.

“Let’s grab the red apple at the top of the tree! Reach, reach, reach higher!”

“It’s time to carve our big, large pumpkin! First, we have to cut a round hole to take out those slimy, yucky seeds.”

Follow Directions:

Temporal, or time, concepts can be difficult for a child to learn. Let’s target these abstract skills in a familiar process.

“First we have to cut a round hole, then we take out the yucky seeds, lastly we cut out a spooky face!”

Introduce new vocabulary:

Now is the time to increase your child’s vocabulary. LinguiSystems guide to communication milestones outlines the following vocabulary averages.

12 months of age -> 2–6 words

15 months of age -> 10 words

18 months of age -> 50 words

24 months of age -> 200–300 words

30 months of age ->450 words

36 months of age -> 1,000 words

Now remember, these are just guidelines. Every child develops language differently. Also, a word is a consistent utterance for an item. For example, if a child uses the word [bada] for bottle and only bottle, is considered a word.

This Halloween season, let’s introduce some new words:

Carve, fear, hayride, lantern, monster, October, orange, party, pirate, princess, robot, scary, scream, spider, spider web, spirit, superhero, terrify, trick, treat, wizard

Conclusion:

Here is a collection of three tips to help you develop your child’s language this spooky season. Give them a try and let me know what worked for your family and what didn’t. Happy spooky season!