A Simple Tip You Can Use Daily Help Your Child Improve Their Speech and Language

What do you do when you hear your child incorrectly say a sentence or use that ‘d’ sound when it should be a ‘s’? Many of us think we should correct the child by saying ‘no don’t say (whatever the child incorrectly said), say ……’ But I hate to break it to you, you are only encouraging your child to continue to use that error.

Recasting is a simple technique we can use to improve the speech and language of children.

Recasting is repeating back what the child said in the correct form. Research has found the more a child hears the correct form the more likely they will adopt this.

Example:

Child: ‘baby crying’

Adult: ‘yes, the baby is crying’

For a child who produces /b/ sound instead of /f/ (e.g. ‘barm’ for ‘farm’)

Child: ‘I went to a barm’

Adult: ‘Yes, you went to the farm,’ ‘what did you do at the farm?’

If we think a child’s mind like a filing cabinet, the more the child hears a word or phrase the more times it gets ‘filed or stored’ in the cabinet. Therefore, by repeating the correct form back to the child it is stored in the ‘cabinet’, and the more the child hears the correct form the more likely they will be to access this correct ‘file’ and use it. It is extremely important therefore, to ONLY repeat the correct form and not the child’s error. If the child is to hear the incorrect form it will then be stored, something we do not want to occur.

For example, do not:

Child: ‘I went to a barm’

Adult: ‘No, not barm. You went to a farm’

Using this simple technique in your daily life will be super effective in subtly teaching your child the correct way to use speech and language.