Toddler Not Talking But Understands? What To Do

When a child is developing, there are some milestones you can expect. The most notable ones are smiling, walking, and finally talking. However, some children do not exhibit these milestones as they are expected, but there are still hopeful signs. This is probably something you have personally encountered, and your concern may be that your toddler not talking but understands.

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Toddler not talking but understands: Potential causes

There are many reasons why you don’t expect some milestones to appear. It could be a lack of stimulation, an actual disorder, or the child isn’t ready at that particular age. Before you start to worry and search information on “4 year old not talking” or “3 year old not talking”, let me talk about my personal experience.

Having worked as an SLP, when a parent comes to me and explains their concerns about the toddler not talking but understands, it is mostly a case of a lack of stimulation. This means that parents need to learn strategies to encourage their children to communicate using their words. However, when the problem persists, it can be expressive language disorder in toddlers.

Today, I want to share some tips that can help in encouraging expressive language, whether your child has an actual condition or not. I will be giving you tips on expressive language disorder strategies which will both be helpful for children of all diverse needs.

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Toddler not talking but understands: Strategies that help

Encourage describing through the 5 senses

I’m sure you are familiar with the five senses back in your earlier days in school. One of the most effective expressive language disorder activities is to encourage children to describe things through their five senses. For example, you can target a certain concept such as food, things outside, or toys. You can ask them questions such as:

What does it look like? (Shape, color, size, etc.)
What does it smell like? (Fruity, sweet, strong, etc.)
What does it taste like? (Sour, salty, bitter, etc.)

Using the five senses allows them to think of describing words that could help them express more eloquently. You can model thing by going first, and then your child will do the next object.

Using structured materials

Using structured materials such as cards and workbooks can help in the mastery of expressive language skills. If you are worried and you are finding information on “4 year old not talking”, or “3 year old not talking”, it can help to have a skill-based workbook to assist in your expressive language disorder strategies.

In this workbook I created called: Expressive Language Disorder: Expressive Language Activities for Children, you can help your child develop some skills in expressive language. Some sections of the workbook include:

Using the 5 senses to describe
Playing I-spy type of games
Playing Taboo-like games
Filling in blank comic strips

These activities geared for toddlers and children can help in addressing expressive language disorder. If you are interested, you can find it in Amazon.

Giving opportunities to express

Sometimes, children are not encouraged to express themselves because they are simply not given opportunities to do so. To encourage more expression, you have to give “obstacles” for your children to use their words. For example, you can find things and pictures they are not familiar with, and you can tell them that you know their names, but they need to describe them first.

To help when your toddler not talking but understands, remember that any opportunity in the natural context can be used to encourage expression. You simply have to present opportunities such as:

Asking them to request instead of giving it right away
When feeling big emotions, you can explain to them what they are feeling such as “Feeling sad”, “feeling excited”
Encourage them to ask questions towards you or others

Valuing your child’s opinion

Opinion is one avenue where you child can be encouraged to express. An opinion can be as simple as their preferred things or favorites, or something as complex as their opinion on a social matter. It all depends on your child’s level.

You can just as questions such as “What do they think” about something, and valuing what they say by appreciating it, adding to it, or asking more questions about it. This helps them also realize that they are free to express themselves, but also build their confidence in being appropriately assertive with their needs and wants as they grow up.

I hope this post on how to help a toddler not talking but understands help you out! As always, don’t forget to check out the resource I have, Expressive Language Disorder: Expressive Language Activities for Children:

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