The mother of a young child I work with has enlightened me.

I am aware that nearly all parents have the attitude that they will help their children any way they can with anything in life that poses a challenge or difficulty. I have assumed this translates to a parent doing anything within her power to help her child learn to talk better.

Even though this may be an underlying belief, actions often do not match that assertion. I find that parents do not, as a group, help their children develop and practice new speech-language skills as much as they could. There are many, many other daily needs and events that prevent this practice. Even though their children’s speech delay or disorder is high in their thoughts, and even though they desperately want their children to speak, they often don’t act by learning to use and then actually using methods which are known to be helpful.

Just about every speech-language pathologist (SLP) who works with young children uses a similar speech style with children. Their speech rate is slower. Words are said a little more deliberately. The most important “key” words are highlighted by saying them just a little more loudly and slowly. Important words are emphasized further by repeating them in follow-up comments. The context or situation for learning language is enhanced by including the use of real objects or pictures.

Children learn language and speech production more easily when these methods are used. I attempt to teach parents to use these techniques when talking with their children throughout the day. Parents of children I work with observe and/or participate directly in our therapy sessions. They see and hear the techniques I use first-hand. They see how their children respond. They also have the opportunity to read all of my suggestions in my e-book and discuss the concepts with me.

Recently when talking with the mother of a young child I work with about apraxia of speech and what it will take to help him learn to talk better, I asked her whether she was using my Upside-Down Pyramid method of talking with her son. This method, which I have explained and demonstrated for her, systematically enables a parent or other committed person to whittle spoken language down to a child’s learning-readiness level. The technique, once learned, can be used effortlessly throughout every interaction with a child, all day, every day. It starts with any sentence that comes naturally to the adult, and then it shapes that statement into a shorter phrase, to a two-word combination, to a single key word, and then to a speech sound or a sound-effects word—whatever the adult is aware the child needs as a final model to attempt to try to say.

So--back to my question to the mother who desperately wants her son to say words to communicate--when I asked her if she was using my Pyramid method and the other methods in my e-book, she said she wasn’t. I asked her why, because I was curious. She said that talking in this format made her feel “silly” and that it seemed like she was using “baby talk.”

I really appreciated hearing her admission, because it helped me realize I need to do a better job of explaining why these ways of talking are so beneficial to young language-learners and how my methods are very different from baby talk.

Say these two examples out loud and figure out which is baby talk:




Both have the “pyramid” shape, but they are not both examples of my Upside-Down Pyramid method. Did you choose the second one as baby talk? If so, you are correct. It is baby talk because it uses an immature “word” as the name of the item rather than as the sound effect for the train. A train is not a “choo choo”. It says “choo choo”, but that is not the name of it. This is a big difference. A child needs to hear real vocabulary in order to learn new words, but he can be presented with the sound effect as a final model which may grab his attention and entice him to try to imitate. The real “Pyramid” way of talking is not ungrammatical, while baby talk usually is. “Choo choo nice” leaves out the word “is”. “Play trains” is an acceptable two-word combination because “trains” in this case represents the entire set of actions that can be taken with trains. It is like saying, “Play basketball,” which refers to the sport and not just to the ball itself. And, finally, baby talk often has an immature, lispy speech quality. The way I suggest parents talk is with a more matter-of-fact quality, though it certainly can have variations in pitch and loudness to attract and hold a child’s attention.

Over one hundred thousand speech-language pathologists can’t all be wrong. If you are trying to help your child learn to talk, I hope you will stretch your skills and strive to learn to speak like an SLP and then practice these speech methods every day so you won’t feel silly at all while helping your child. Learn the differences between true baby talk and systematic reduction of the length of statements. Learn the cadence and highlighting techniques so your child can “crack the code” and learn to speak with your help.