How to Increase Talking in Toddlers: 5 Tips to Get Kids Talking

Dr. Mary Barbera provides some best strategies for how to increase talking in toddlers. These tips to get kids talking can be put into practice right away, so don’t wait!

A child learning to talk can take some time for typically developing children, but for autism, or late talkers it can take even longer. Today I’m covering 5 tactics to encourage talking in toddlers with and without autism. These strategies revolve around pop-out words, assessing language abilities, using easy learning materials, and thinking about you as a parent or professional may need to change how you speak to the child. Late talking children, for example, shouldn’t be spoken to with carrier phrases, and I talk a bit more about that in today’s video to help improve language development.

Increasing talking in children can seem impossible and discouraging when you haven’t seen your child or client talk for months, or perhaps they’ve stopped using some of the words they used before. Delayed speech is frightening to parents. But I can guarantee you that by implementing these strategies to get kids talking, you should see some progress. When a child is not talking, it’s typically because how they’re learning isn’t suitable for them, so sometimes it just takes a different approach, and I’m hoping my approach can help.

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Dr. Mary Barbera. I fell into the autism world as an autism mom in 1999 when her first-born son, Lucas, was diagnosed with autism. Since then, she became a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst and best-selling author of The Verbal Behavior Approach. Since 2015, she’s created 3 autism online courses based on applied behavior analysis for professionals and "gung-ho" parents. Whether you’re looking for autism parenting strategies, working with development delays in children, or in search of autism help for professionals, I can encourage you to subscribe to the channel and join me on my journey. I’ll be providing weekly autism resources that you don’t want to miss.

[saadrabia]

Video starts at 3:35. You're welcome. Great strategies and tips. 👍🏼

[raymacz]

Thank you so much Barbara. Not all parents like us can afford such therapy. We live in the Philippines & we are thankful for people like you for at least giving us some tips & tools like shoebox to help us with our 4 yr. old kid. These videos may not be that comprehensive but surely helps us in a way. May you have more blessings & success. Big Thank you to you!

[NanayExpress]

will definitely download the program.. our son is 3yrs old non verbal with eating issues as well. we have schedule for assessment but because of the pandemic we cannot proceed. 😔 thats why im here looking for what we can do at home to help him speak. thank you Mary this is very helpful!

[elaineliranzo_]

My son just turned 20 months old, and only says a few words. I’m a first time mom and I work from home so I try my best to dedicate time only to teaching him but I can do better tbh. His doctor has told me that he doesn’t seem to have any signs that he may be autistic yet. But I want to help him be verbal. I myself had a delay in speaking as a toddler and had to go to a speech therapist. I just want to help my baby boy flourish as best as I can. He acknowledges when I speak to him he understands when I talk to him, and he responds back to me when I talk to him but it’s mostly baby talk.

[semawitmikias]

First of all, your videos are really helpful. Thank you for helping all the parents who are anxious or working with diagnosed kids. My son is 21months old. He has about 18 words and only 8 of them are clear, a stranger can understand them. The other 10 we can understand them but not others for sure. He says nana for banana and papel for apple stuff. He also spells almost 15 of the 26 alphabets and says numbers 1-10 with no clear words, an for one and so on. He points and does not have a toy preference or anything. He looks when we call his name but his attention is very very short. He will just turn and go about on himself.he understands directions, like sit, bring ur shoe, go say bye to dada when he goes to bed. I am already working with a speech therapist once every other week. What else do you recommend? I want him to catch up as early as possible. Thank you!

[velazquezanahi]

My son is half yes half no but we saw the pediatrician today for his 18 month wellness check and she also agreed we should have him evaluated so we’re waiting on that. He isn’t speaking at all, he shakes his head around and around and that was our first sign, he doesn’t answer to his name ever so that’s the second but he has great eye contact and smiles with us and he also loves to eat, he is not a picky eater whatsoever so that’s what I mean by half and half on that milestone list... I just want to be able to help him in any way I can, thank you so much for making these videos to educate us parents who have no clue where to start 💓

[EbonyRose]

That is so beautiful. I am trying to get my daughter to talk better! You were very helpful.

[DarkAngel-cjsx]

My 3.5 years old son can tell me almost all flashcards I present to him and he understands everything I ask him to do like before his regression.
However, the difficult task is to express himself on his own. He only ask me what he want like eat blueberries or give hands ( if he wants to show me what he needs) and want iPad. Otherwise, his scripts are gibberish but some real words come out here and there for there example he has been saying oh my God lol, or don't do this or car wash when he is pretending to wash his ( first time to match his words with what was actually happening) or wash dishes when he saw me doing it.
So my take from your strategy is for me to use just one word when he show me what he wants ( he knows how to communicate with his hands a lot). He was diagnosed in September 2020 ( regressed at 3)
Thank you

[brown-hammer]

Thank you so much ! I was stressed out watching other videos. But this one put my mind at ease I appreciate you ❤️

[albamerchant]

Thank you so much for this video. I came across this at a time when I am really struggling. My son was seen by a health visitor yesterday (UK), and will be referred to a speech therapist as he’s not really talking at the age of 2. We will need to wait for this so anything I can do in the meantime would be wonderfully to keep us going. Thank you so much ❤️

[wmlokog]

My grandson turned 2 in February. He talks a lot, but in his baby language. He can feed himself, drink out of a sippy cup, he bath himself, he is a busy bee, and love reading books, while on the potty, I need to read for him, and it must be out of a book of his choice. He will tell you a story in his baby language, with humor, but we do not understand a word he is saying. He can say mamma, pappa, ouma and oupa, that is all! As a grandma, I am a bit worried about it

[camilletm]

Hi, thanks!! My son used to love his pacifier, has sippy cups and used to be picky eater, now he eats a lot better but only with hands or if I feed him. Babbles alot, (mama, papa, da da) tries to say water and mild only for request.

[gerlietuttle]

My son will be 2 and half, he's saying only few words (not combined). This video is very informational and will definitely try it. Thank you!

[mariahcox]

This was so helpful! I appreciate you taking the time to make videos like this, to help concerned parents like myself! my son is three years old born in 2020 pandemic baby and he speech delayed. We’ve put him in speech therapy and Daycare to help improve his speech. We are still having trouble with him talking he says some words he’s never formed a sentence. He just turned 3 two weeks ago. He eats sometimes we have to make food interesting for him to eat his whole meal. He will not eat at daycare. He points when he wants something, but he just doesn’t verbally tell us what he wants. Any advice?

[amylopez]

My son will be 4 diagnosed with autism last year, non verbal. I love your videos and have gave me way more confidence. I hope some of these help with my child can’t wait to try them out thank you for all you do 🙌❤️

[zarnainzayd]

Thank you for your video
My son is 3.5 years he says mumy dad he knows all colours, animals 1-20, and says alot of words like cookie, candy .... If he wants me to turn on the light he will light and would point to the light and he is super active but doesn't uses sentences he understands alot of things but doesn't understand all the

[LesleyTanMortyMortisha]

Mary, I am from UK but live in Malaysia, thank you so much for your advice, just want to ask, I was taught (As a teacher) to always get your students to look at your mouth movements when learning to promounce words properly, do you agree? And if so, this age of wearing masks does not help at all, I, as a teacher of all school ages, frequently lower my mask so the kids can see how my mouth moves when pronouncing the words. I have a friend's 3 yr old son starting on Monday, he has been diagnosed as autistic, but he can understand what you say, but he can only make sounds, not words. I am going to try to follow what you have been teaching in your videos, so hopefully can help him, his behaviour is so far good, and loves pop up books, thank you so much for the help so far x

[Elijahsmom]

I’m terrified my son turned 3 in Jan he sings some songs, says random words and communicates saying juice or chicken nuggets and frys but he only wants to eat that and pizza doesn’t really speak in sentences and I’m just at a loss and looking for some guidance so happy I found you bless you ❤️ he seems so so smart I just dnt get why he’s not talking talking yet🥺

[robynklawuhn]

We are awaiting testing. I just stumbled onto your channel. Going to make a shoebox this weekend for my 23 month old granddaughter! Will try the one word approach also. Thank you!

[JadeyChi]

So I still haven't gotten my 4yr old child evaluated at this point but I think they were on the more mild end of the autistic spectrum and I'm really happy I clicked on this because I kind of been doing some of these intuitively