Your Child’s Social Language

Deborah Hoch, MA, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist with a practice in South Huntington.

Can your child have a conversation?  Using appropriate language in social situations is key to developing successful friendships and yet this is often challenging for many young children and adolescents.  We, as parents and teachers, often observe behaviors that seem “off” in some way but we’re not sure why.  Some of these might be:

-my child starts talking without introducing a topic or giving frame of reference

-my child talks “at” people and  not with them

-my child never asks questions or makes comments

-my child asks inappropriate questions or makes inappropriate comments

-my child doesn’t answer when someone talks to him/her

-my child has trouble talking to someone about a specific topic and staying on that topic

-my child keeps interrupting

If you notice that your child is doing some of these things it may be making it hard for him/her to have a conversation with someone because the conversations become awkward and uncomfortable. Good news!  You can help teach your child some of these skills right at home!

The most important thing is to help your child understand that you have to think about what the other person might be thinking.   Think about what that person’s perspective might be. This is social  language.  Be a “thinking of you” person and  not a “just me” person!   If your child is talking about a topic, does the other person know what you are talking about?  Was he/she there?  Has  he/she seen that movie, done that activity or been to that place?  You need to ask questions to find out so you know what you need to say!  When the other person responds to you, make an appropriate comment about it so he/she knows that you were listening and are interested. When someone asks you a question, you have to respond before the “window of opportunity” closes. That’s conversation!

You can role-play these skills with your child every day while practicing your conversations.  Write down the specific skill that your child is not using and give examples of how it would sound in a conversation using that skill.  It is also helpful if YOU intentionally make errors so your child can become aware of and recognize the behaviors you are trying to improve.  Besides, our children love when we make mistakes and they get the opportunity to correct us!

Some children may have difficulty in conversations because of an underlying language problem that makes it hard for them to understand what it is they need to do when talking with another person.  In this case it would be beneficial to contact a speech-language pathologist to further explore the difficulties they are having.  The pathologist can recommend activities to help your child and provide therapy if it is appropriate.