Even though it might seem that language is only one of many developing aspects through a kid’s childhood, it is one of the most important ones as it defines how later this kid will be able to express themselves, communicate and socialize, and learn. So it becomes crucial for parents to encourage their kids to express themselves as well as deepen this communication to the point where they will be able to use language properly.

Before kids start to go to kindergarten and school, parents are the ones who are taking the role of the teacher. What can parents do to help their kids to develop their communication skills? First, it is crucial to talk to the kid while allowing them to respond back. Gradually adding new words and explaining their meanings will help to broaden a kid’s vocabulary. Reading is also known as one of the most helpful tactics in language development as it allows them to understand the difference between written and spoken language.

It is known that there are certain language development stages that help parents to understand whether a kid is reaching certain progress in their language learning. According to their age, a kid is expected to reach a certain milestone, and if they struggle to do so, a speech pathologist comes to help.

Bored Panda contacted Dr Diane Paul, who is a Director of Clinical Issues in SLP at The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), and asked her to share some more insights on kids’ language development. The specialist agreed that parents play a pretty important role in this situation.

According to Dr Paul, “parents’ communication with their children is vital to children’s development of oral/spoken language and signed language (for Deaf children). It is true that children acquire oral and signed language naturally, with no instruction (unlike reading and writing, which have to be taught). But children must hear or see and interact with others who use the same language to develop their natural ability. Another way of saying this is that ‘children who hear or see no language, learn no language.’”

The specialist also revealed what hides behind this silly word-making. “Alternative names can be attributed to many things, including young children’s (1) ability to pronounce certain sounds and sound combinations; they often substitute easier sounds for later developing sounds, e.g., ‘lun’ for ‘run’ or they omit certain sounds from words, e.g., ‘mik’ for ‘milk’; and (2) playfulness with language. As they play, they often produce novel words, e.g., ‘baby’ may become ‘bady,’ ‘bado,’ or ‘boby’ or they may string words together such as ‘baby bady bado boby.’”

The tendency to mispronounce words or create “replacements” for actual words decreases as kids start growing up. According to Dr Paul, what happens is that their creativity doesn’t disappear but rather becomes more “mature” including more elaborate “jokes and puns”.

We asked the specialist to share some of her favorite word “alternatives” that were created by little ones. “One of my favorites comes from a 2-year-old boy who referred to his older brother, ‘Nathan’ as ‘Nafano’ because he said that ‘Nafano’ sounded better. I also enjoyed hearing a child playing with a Sesame Street play set refer to both Bert and Ernie as ‘Bernie’”, revealed Dr Paul.