Giving your child choices is an important way of helping children start developing their talking ability.
- When you give choice questions, eg “Do you want juice or milk” you are providing target words for your child to copy. We are also giving them a bit more control.
- If you were to say “What do you want to drink?” then this is more difficult as your child has to do more processing and retrieve the words from their memory.
- If you were to say “Do you want Juice?” they can answer by nodding or shaking their head or just saying “yes” or “no” and not have to say anything more.
- If they say “no” they may actually prefer milk but are unable to express this so may become upset or frustrated.
- Choices also encourage understanding when you offer choices verbally and show the items, for example when learning colours it may be helpful for you to say “Do you want the blue top or the red top” and show the clothes to reinforce their understanding.
- Giving too may choices may be confusing so start by giving two choices at a time and after some time increase the choices.
- You can use choices through the day, for example;
- “Would you like juice or milk?”
- “Do you want it in the big cup or the little cup?”
- “Are you going to sit in their chair or that chair?”
- “Its time to play, do you want the puzzle or the Lego?”
