This episode looks at how to support language development in preschoolers, by intentionally modeling language, specifically through the use of Self and Parallel Talk. Language is how people communicate. Without a way to communicate, children have to 100% rely on behaviors to communicate their needs, wants, emotions, and everything else. In the hearing world, we use speech, or verbal language, to communicate. Researchers estimate that children learn between 2,000 and 3,600 words per year (and 10 new words per day) during each year they are in school. Children’s receptive and expressive language is predictive of their later reading achievement. The more words children know by kindergarten, the better they are at learning to read; and their expressive language is even more powerfully connected to later reading achievement! To learn language, children need to HEAR language, starting from day one. This is one developmental area we need to do all we can to support. And there are so many things we can do every single hour of every single day to promote and facilitate new language development in our kiddos. SELF and PARALLEL TALK are two such strategies.