Incorporating Speech and Language in Routines: Getting Dressed
Routines are the perfect opportunity to work on your child’s speech and language. First of all, routines are something you’re going to be doing everyday, which means that you don’t need to add one more thing into your day (honestly, who has time for that?). And, it doesn’t require sitting at the table, drilling them, so working on their speech and language may feel a little more enjoyable and less like you’re “testing” them. Keep reading to see how you can easily incorporate speech and language into your daily morning routine, while still enjoying quality time with your child!
What to wear?!
Getting dressed in the morning is a great time to work on increasing vocabulary, sequencing, and requesting. The key here is to talk about what you are doing in real time; narrate your actions to model nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs - whatever you want! Here are a few recommendations:
Label/identify vocabulary
Specific clothing items
Body parts
Actions (over your head, arm in, pull up, pull down)
Narrate the routine to help with sequencing: “First we’re going to put on your shirt, then your pants” or “arm in, arm in, over your head”
Give your child choices of clothing: I don’t know about you, but I know I have a hard time choosing a shirt each morning. There are just too many options! Although it’s a good idea to set out a few choices to reduce stress, letting your child choose their outfit lets them feel in control. It’s also a great time to work on requesting and expanding utterances. Place the options just out of reach, which gives them the opportunity to tell you which shirt or pair of pants they want to wear. Then, expand their utterance by repeating what they said, adding a few extra words. For example, if they say “blue shirt”, you can say “I want the blue shirt” or “I want the blue shirt with the butterflies”, while handing them the shirt. Your child does not have to repeat what you’re saying!
These same language skills can be addressed in the evening, whether you’re choosing clothing for the next day or getting dressed for bed. Incorporating these tips and strategies can help improve your child’s language skills and enjoy quality time with your child.
You might be thinking, “where do I start?” Regardless of what routine you choose to start incorporating language into, try to start by narrating what is happening during one routine. You can take this time to model vocabulary, expanded language, sequencing, and other concepts. Modeling language is key to helping your child learn and use more language themselves!
Narrating and adding songs to routines can also help increase your child’s independence; they will learn the steps necessary to complete each routine through repetition. Whether you’re packing up a lunchbox or playing a game together, talk about what you both are doing, and focus on things like actions, sequencing, and concepts (not just labeling nouns!).
This strategy can also be used to “preview” the entire day. Narrate the plan for the day, including “down-time”, so your child knows they will have some time to decompress. You may notice that preparing your child ahead of time can additionally decrease your child’s stress throughout the day. We all want to know what to expect!
Do you have concerns about your child’s speech and language development? A comprehensive evaluation with a speech language pathologist can help identify any specific areas of needs and develop a treatment plan to support your child’s speech and language needs. Contact us for more information.