*I am changing my HWD to Intervention with Language Learning because one of the toddlers I am working with this semester has a goal that relates to acquiring expressive communication skills.

“I’ll walk with you” is my focus for the week because it is easy for me to forget to put myself into the shoes of someone else. This ranges from my friends sharing their trials with me, to working with the children in toddler lab. I want to have empathy for the parents of the children I am working with as they share concerns they have about their children with me. I want to build collaborative relationships with my co-teachers in toddler lab and will need to focus on some of their trials and struggles to be an effective team member.

As I completed a home visit for one of my toddlers, I realized how little I know about developing expressive language in a 21-month old child. When I searched for resources to give the parents, I came up with a blank face and no answers. This made me realize my need to study this topic this semester so that I can better learn how to implement early intervention currently and in my future working with children.

From what I found on emedicinehealth.com, it looks like after the first year of development, toddlers begin to communicate expressively by using gestures. While sign language hinders vocal communication, other gestures help parents to understand what their toddler is asking for. The key for further development, according to the website, is to continue off of that base of understanding and help the toddler to label words in single form. Simple phrases will follow and finally simple sentence structures typically emerge between the second and third year.

·         Between 1 and 2 years, usually can say between 20 and 50 words that are intelligible to family members. emedicinehealth.com

My toddler is hitting the second year marker and has only a handful of words. Next week for my HWD, I want to research strategies I can use to help him develop his expressive language. I want to find this from a speech pathologist site etc.