The festive season is a wonderful time for many families, but for children with feeding challenges, sensory differences, or autism traits, December can feel overwhelming. Changes in routine, busier environments, travel, new foods, disrupted sleep, and well-meaning relatives giving ‘advice’ can all affect a child’s feeding, communication and overall regulation.
As a speech and language therapist specialising in Early Years, I see the same pattern each year: children often make progress during the term, only to struggle in late December when everything becomes unpredictable. The good news? With a bit of preparation, children can not only cope better, but they can actually make significant developmental gains during the holidays.
This blog will help you feel confident, supported and prepared for the transition from ‘festive mode’ to a smoother, regulated start in January.
1. Why routines matter so much. Especially now
Young children thrive on predictability. For neurodivergent children or those with sensory, feeding or communication needs, routine isn’t just helpful: it’s the backbone of emotional regulation.
In December, typical patterns change:
Mealtimes shift or become irregular
Bedtime slides
New foods appear
Loud social gatherings overwhelm
Travel disrupts naps and comfort routines
Therapies pause
Childcare closes
Any one of these can lead to feeding refusals, more meltdowns, increased stimming, reduced communication attempts or regression in speech sounds.
It’s simply the nervous system responding to too much change.
2. Protecting feeding progress during holiday mealtimes
My last blog and insta post have a nice social story on festive meals. They are often the trickiest part of the season for families I support. Children with sensory-based feeding challenges, or ARFID traits may find holiday foods completely unfamiliar and challenging.
What helps:
Offer one ‘safe food’ at every meal
Keep portion sizes tiny
Use the ‘buffet rule’
Rehearse tricky moments
3. Supporting communication when routines are disrupted
Holiday time actually offers more opportunities for communication, just in different ways.
Strategies:
Slow down and follow your child’s lead
Use everyday routines as language opportunities
Keep AAC going even if casually
4. Understanding holiday ‘regressions’ and know they’re temporary
This is almost always due to nervous system overload. Children don’t truly ‘lose’ skills; they temporarily prioritise regulation over learning.
5. A gentle January reset: How to start the New Year smoothly
Re-establish predictability early
Return to preferred foods
Book early support if needed
Focus on regulation first
Sonja McGeachie
Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
One of the most common concerns parents bring to speech and language therapy is: ‘My child understands so much… but they struggle to put sentences together’.
Some children use only single words. Others miss out key parts of sentences. Some mix up word order. Others find it difficult to answer questions or explain their ideas clearly.
This is where one of my favourite therapy approaches can be incredibly powerful: Colourful Semantics.
Colourful Semantics is a highly effective and evidence-informed way of supporting children to build stronger sentence structure, grammar, understanding, and expressive language skills.
It is a visual approach to language development originally created by a UK Speech and Language Therapist, Alyson Bryan in 1997 to help children understand how sentences are organised.
Different parts of a sentence are represented by different colours.
For example:
Who? is orange.
What doing? is yellow.
What? is green.
Where? is blue.
As children progress more colours are added:
To Whom? Is pink.
Adjectives (what like) is purple.
Time Phrase is brown.
Using colours gives children a visual framework for building sentences in a way that feels structured, predictable, and achievable.
Instead of language feeling abstract and overwhelming, children can see how sentences fit together.
For many children, this is massively helpful as it gives structure and predictability.
Why some children struggle with sentences
Language development is incredibly complex.
To build a sentence, we need to:
think of vocabulary
organise grammar
sequence words
understand meaning
remember sentence structure
physically say the words clearly enough to communicate
That is a huge amount happening all at once.
Some children may:
leave out verbs
miss pronouns
use immature grammar
struggle with word order
rely on very short phrases
find it difficult to expand beyond single words.
For example:
‘Boy jump’
‘Him eating’
‘Dog there’
‘Want juice’.
These children often know more than they can express.
Colourful Semantics helps bridge that gap.
Why visual supports matter
Many children—especially those with language delays, developmental language disorder (DLD), autism, or social communication difficulties—benefit enormously from visual support.
Visual systems reduce the processing load.
Instead of relying only on spoken language, children are given an additional way to organise information.
The colours act almost like ‘anchors’ for language.
A child may begin to understand:
orange = who
yellow = action
green = object
blue = place.
This makes sentence building more concrete and less overwhelming.
It also supports children who struggle with:
attention
auditory memory
processing spoken language
sequencing
confidence using language independently.
Supporting sentence expansion naturally
One of the things I love most about Colourful Semantics is how flexible it is.
It can be used:
in play
with books
during conversation
with picture scenes
in storytelling
during movement activities
within everyday routines.
Therapy does not need to feel rigid or worksheet-heavy.
Many children who usually avoid talking become much more willing to attempt longer sentences when they feel successful.
Children often begin to use:
verbs more accurately
pronouns more consistently
better word order
improved sentence organisation
and more complete ideas.
For example, instead of:
‘Him running’
A child may gradually move toward:
‘He is running.’
The colours help children understand the ‘jobs’ words have within a sentence.
This is particularly useful for children who need explicit teaching of language structure rather than simply learning through exposure alone.
Supporting children with speech difficulties too
One thing I particularly value in therapy is approaches that support multiple communication areas at once.
Colourful Semantics is excellent for this.
While building sentences, we can also naturally target:
speech sounds
intelligibility
vocabulary
social communication
turn-taking
attention and listening
confidence speaking.
For example, if a child is working on the /K/ sound, we might intentionally build sentences containing target words:
‘The cat is coming.’
‘The boy is kicking.’
‘The duck is in the box.’
This allows speech and language goals to work together rather than separately.
Therapy becomes more functional, meaningful, and engaging.
Building confidence through success
One of the biggest barriers many children experience is not simply language difficulty. It is the emotional impact of struggling to communicate.
Some children become frustrated. Others withdraw. Some stop attempting longer sentences altogether because communication feels too hard.
Colourful Semantics can help rebuild confidence because it gives children a clear structure for success. That feeling matters enormously.
When children feel successful, they participate more. They attempt more. They communicate more.
And communication grows through communication.
Why I use colourful semantics
There is no single ‘magic’ therapy approach for every child.
But Colourful Semantics remains one of the most versatile and effective tools I use because it can be adapted so beautifully to individual children.
It supports:
early language
grammar
sentence structure
comprehension
expressive language
storytelling
confidence
functional communication.
Most importantly, it helps children organise language in a way that finally starts to make sense to them.
And when language starts to make sense, communication can truly begin to flourish.
Bryan A (1997) Colourful semantics. In: Chiat S, Law J, and Marshall J (eds) Language disorders in children and adults: psycholinguistic approaches to therapy. London: Whurr, 143–61.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
For many families, Halloween is an exciting time filled with costumes, decorations, and sweets. But for children who are sensory sensitive, whether they’re autistic, have sensory processing differences, or simply find new experiences overwhelming, Halloween can feel like a night of chaos rather than fun.
The bright lights, unexpected noises, strange textures, and social pressure to ‘join in’ can quickly become too much. The good news? With some thoughtful planning and gentle support, you can make Halloween a positive and manageable experience for your child.
Understanding sensory overload
Sensory overload happens when a child’s brain receives more sensory input than it can process. This might mean:
Costumes that itch, squeeze, or feel strange on the skin.
Loud sounds like doorbells, fireworks, or shrieking decorations.
Crowds and unpredictability during trick-or-treating.
Strong smells or tastes from face paint or unfamiliar sweets.
When overloaded, children may cry, cover their ears, hide, run away, or ‘shut down.’ These reactions aren’t ‘bad behaviour’, they’re signs of distress. The goal isn’t to eliminate Halloween fun, but to adjust it to your child’s comfort level.
Step 1: Choose costumes wisely
Costumes are often the biggest trigger. Scratchy fabrics, tight seams, or masks that restrict breathing can be unbearable for some children.
Try these tips:
Go sensory-friendly: Use soft, breathable fabrics and remove tags. Many retailers now sell sensory-safe costumes.
Test it early: Let your child wear the outfit around the house before Halloween. If it’s too much, simplify — maybe themed pyjamas or a favourite T-shirt with Halloween accessories.
Skip the mask: Face paint can be equally challenging, always test on a small patch of skin first. A comfortable headband or hat might be enough to feel ‘in costume.’
Remember, participation doesn’t require perfection. Your child can still ‘be’ their favourite character without a full costume.
Step 2: Plan your Halloween environment
Before the big day, think about what parts of Halloween your child enjoys — and what might overwhelm them.
At home:
Keep decorations minimal and predictable. Avoid motion-activated sounds or flashing lights.
Practise knocking at your own front door or saying ‘trick or treat’ with a trusted adult.
Have a ‘quiet space’ ready, a cosy corner or room where your child can retreat if things get too intense.
If you’re going out:
Choose earlier, quieter times for trick-or-treating.
Visit a few familiar houses instead of the whole street.
Bring ear defenders or noise-cancelling headphones.
Have a clear exit plan if your child needs a break.
Sometimes, watching from the window and handing out sweets can be just as enjoyable! it still offers social participation without sensory overload.
Step 3: Prepare socially and emotionally
Halloween involves a lot of unexpected social interaction: strangers at the door, unfamiliar greetings, and different rules.
Help your child by:
Using visuals or stories: Read picture books about Halloween or make a short social story about what will happen.
Role-playing: Practise saying ‘Trick or treat!’ or handing out sweets in a fun, low-pressure way.
Labelling feelings: Explain that it’s okay to feel nervous or to take a break if something feels ‘too loud’ or ‘too much.’
Children feel safer when they know what to expect. Predictability reduces anxiety and makes participation more enjoyable.
Step 4: Rethink the treats
Not every child enjoys sweets; some dislike sticky textures or strong flavours. Offer non-food alternatives like stickers, glow sticks, or small toys.
If your child has feeding difficulties or oral sensitivities, it’s okay to opt out of the traditional treats entirely. They can still join in by giving treats or decorating treat bags instead.
Halloween doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s version. Maybe your family watches a ‘not-too-scary’ film, carves pumpkins, or does a flashlight treasure hunt indoors. The goal is joyful connection, not conformity.
A calm, happy experience, even if it looks simple from the outside builds positive associations your child will carry into future celebrations.
In summary
Halloween can be full of sensory surprises, but with empathy, planning, and flexibility, it doesn’t have to end in tears.
The more you adapt to your child’s sensory needs, the more they learn that they are safe, understood, and included not just at Halloween, but in every celebration.
As with all things in speech and feeding development, progress starts with connection. When children feel regulated and supported, communication and confidence follow.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Sonja McGeachie
Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
We often hear from parents who are trying their best to connect with their child, especially when reading books, but are met with frustration. They’ll say, ‘I read the book exactly as it’s written, but my child can’t focus for very long and just runs off!’ or ‘my child just flicks through the pages then turns it upside down and runs off with it’ or similar.
It’s a common story. Traditional reading—going through the text from cover-to-cover—has its place of course, but for little ones with a language delay or autism it can move too quickly and place all the focus on the book’s words, not on the interaction.
But what if I told you that story time could become one of the most fun and productive times for your child’s communication development?
Watch the fantastic little video clip above! You can see the pure joy and connection between this dad and his son. This is the same family who, just a few weeks ago, felt defeated when trying to read a book, with their child quickly losing interest and leaving the reading/book corner.
What changed?
The power of parent coaching and Hanen principles
The difference you see in the video is the direct result of parent interaction therapy, or parent coaching, based on the internationally recognised Hanen principles.
I didn’t ‘fix’ the child. Instead, I coached the parents in a few simple, powerful strategies that completely changed the dynamic of their interaction. Instead of being a time for teaching and instruction, story time became a back-and-forth conversation.
Here are the four major transformations that coaching helped this family achieve:
1. From reader to play partner
Before coaching, the parents felt their job was to read the text and to teach the words in it to their child. Now, their job is to follow their child’s lead. They learned to Observe, Wait, and Listen (OWL). If the child points to the tree or the badger on the page, the parent talks about the tree or the badger.
The result
The child is now initiating and leading the conversation! He is sharing what he finds interesting, which makes him feel powerful and keeps him deeply engaged.
2. Building connection and attention
When parents focus solely on reading, they often forget to make frequent eye contact and use animated facial expressions. The principles taught them to put the text aside and prioritise connection.
The result
Our little boy is looking at his dad more frequently, making great eye contact, and clearly having fun! When the interaction is fun, the child’s attention span naturally lengthens, allowing him to attend to the book and the interaction for a much longer time.
3. Creating opportunities for communication
The parents learned simple ways to prompt communication without pressure. They stopped asking knowledge-based questions (‘What colour is that? Or point to the pig!’), which can feel like a test.
Instead, they learned to use techniques like ‘Saying less and pausing’ or ‘copying their little one’s echolalia ‘, signalling that they are very interested in what he is saying and that his communication matters!
The result
The child is now spontaneously using strings of sounds and gestures to communicate his needs and interests, knowing and enjoying his parents’ enthusiastic responses.
This video is a testament to the fact that you are your child’s best therapist. With the right tools and coaching, you can transform everyday routines, like reading a book, into the most joyful and effective communication sessions.
4. Acknowledging and interpreting echolalia
In the video, you may hear the little boy repeat a phrase from the book or from what his dad just said. This is called echolalia, and for a long time, it was often dismissed or discouraged.
However, a core principle of our parent coaching is that echolalia is communication. For children who are ‘Gestalt Language Processors,’ these memorised phrases (or ‘gestalts’) are their building blocks of language.
The key is not to stop the repetition, but to become a ‘language detective’ and ‘interpreter’!
By modelling the correct, first-person phrase right after the echo, parents/caregivers are teaching a child how to break down the ‘chunk’ and use the individual words functionally. They are showing their child: ‘I heard you. Your communication makes sense to me.’
This strategy is a game-changer because it:
Validates the child’s communication: It honours the child’s natural way of learning language, which boosts their confidence and willingness to communicate.
Facilitates language development: It provides the child with the next step—a meaningful, functional phrase—to move them from repeating language to generating their own spontaneous sentences.
Look at the child’s face again in the video. When his dad acknowledges and interprets his communication, you see that spark of joy and connection—that’s the moment when true, functional language learning happens!
Ready to unlock the potential in your family’s story time? Contact me to learn more about our parent coaching programs.
Sonja McGeachie
Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
Does your child struggle to focus on toys or activities? Do they dart away as soon as you approach? You’re not alone!
The key to unlocking your child’s potential lies in following their lead. Let them guide the play session, and watch their engagement and focus soar.
Why Child-Led Play Works:
Empowerment: Children feel in control, sparking their curiosity and motivation.
Focused attention: They’ll stay engaged with activities for longer periods.
Reduced frustration: By stepping back and observing, you eliminate the pressure and stress that often comes with directed play.
How to Implement Child-Led Play:
Prepare the environment: Set out a limited selection of engaging toys.
Observe and wait: Sit back, watch, and listen to your child’s interests.
Embrace the moment: Resist the urge to direct or question; simply enjoy the process.
Remember: This simple approach can transform playtime and support your child’s development. Give it a try for a week and see the difference!
#OWLing #hanenmorethanwords
Observe, Wait, Listen. It’s a powerful formula for unlocking your child’s potential.
You will likely see:
Your child will stay put with any toy for longer whilst you are near them.
Your child will tolerate you being nearby and he/she won’t move away.
Your child will start giving you brief glances of enjoyment, or perhaps they will hand things to you, or they might take your hand and lead it to something that needs opening etc.
In other words, you will see that there suddenly is JOINT PLAY. Yes, granted it may not be according to your adult agenda, but there will be more togetherness than there was before. And this is the START of communication and social engagement.
USE Core words and a coreboard — to help your child understand the power of words
Core words are the building blocks of communication. Try using a coreboard like the one below, they are versatile and can be used in countless ways. By modelling these words naturally during play, you expose your child to their meaning and function in context. This approach is far more effective than isolated drill and practice, more powerful than flashcards!
Combining child-led play and AAC modelling creates a magic effect. To summarise:
Increased engagement: When you follow your child’s lead, they are more likely to be engaged and receptive to learning. This creates optimal conditions for introducing AAC core words.
Natural learning: By modelling AAC core words in the context of play, you help your child understand their meaning and purpose naturally. This fosters generalisation and spontaneous use.
Building relationships: Shared play experiences strengthen the bond between you and your child. This trust and connection are essential for successful communication.
Reduced pressure: Modelling AAC core words without expectation removes the pressure to produce language. This allows your child to explore communication at their own pace.
Expanded vocabulary: As your child becomes more comfortable with AAC, they will begin to incorporate core words into their own communication. This leads to vocabulary growth and increased independence.
Practical Tips
Observe and respond: Pay close attention to your child’s interests and actions. Respond to their cues with enthusiasm and support.
Keep it simple: Start with a few core words and gradually introduce new ones as your child’s skills develop.
Be patient: Language learning takes time. Celebrate small successes and avoid frustration.
Have fun: Remember, play is supposed to be enjoyable for both you and your child. Relax and have fun together!
Let’s say your child is playing with a pop-up toy like you see me do in the above photograph. Here, I followed my child’s lead by waiting to see what she wanted to do with the toy. You are now OWLING! (Observe Wait and Listen)
Once I noticed that there was repetitive opening of the flaps going on I then pointed to OPEN and MORE on the board, as I said: ‘let’s OPEN this one’ / let’s see MORE animals’ / ‘MORE cow! it says moo!’ ‘OPEN another one’ and so on.
Important to know, we are not expecting our child to respond verbally or with AAC, but we are providing language input and demonstrating how these words can be used with enthusiasm.
Naturally in time your child will look at the board and at your pointing and they will eventually want to copy you!
By incorporating these strategies into your daily interactions, you can create a supportive environment that fosters language development and communication growth. If you would like more guidance please get in touch and book in for a consultation, some individual therapy and/ or some parent coaching.
I look forward to supporting you. Please contact me and let’s see how.
Sonja McGeachie
Early Intervention Speech and Language Therapist
Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice
The London Speech and Feeding Practice
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
When parents think about feeding milestones, they often focus on what their child is eating. Are they accepting lumps? Will they eat vegetables? Are they managing finger foods?
However, one of the most important skills happening behind the scenes is something many parents have never heard of: tongue lateralisation.
Tongue lateralisation simply means the tongue’s ability to move from side to side inside the mouth. Although this sounds like a small movement, it is one of the key building blocks for safe chewing, efficient eating and later speech development.
As a Speech and Language Therapist specialising in infant feeding, I frequently assess children who have delayed or absent tongue lateralisation. The encouraging news is that this skill can often be developed. But like many areas of development, there is an optimal window during which children learn it most naturally.
Eating is an incredibly complex process involving the lips, jaw, cheeks, tongue and swallowing muscles all working together.
For mature chewing, the tongue needs to:
move food from the centre of the mouth onto the back gums and molars
keep the food positioned while the jaw chews
collect scattered pieces of food from around the mouth
reform the chewed food into a single cohesive bolus
move that bolus safely to the middle of the tongue before swallowing.
Without good tongue lateralisation, food often stays in the middle or front of the mouth where it cannot be chewed effectively.
Children may compensate by:
swallowing pieces whole
mashing food with the front teeth only
relying on sucking instead of chewing
holding food in their cheeks
gagging frequently
refusing more challenging textures altogether.
These children are often described as ‘fussy eaters’, when in reality they may simply lack the oral motor skills needed to manage more advanced textures comfortably.
Tongue lateralisation begins to emerge during the second half of the first year of life as babies start exploring textured foods.
Between approximately 6 and 12 months, babies naturally begin learning to move food sideways towards their gums for early chewing. As molars develop during the second year, these movements become more refined and efficient.
This period represents an important developmental window because babies are biologically programmed to experiment with increasingly varied textures. Repeated opportunities to chew different foods strengthen the tongue, jaw and cheek muscles while building the complex movement patterns needed for mature eating.
If a child remains on smooth purées or very soft foods for too long, they may miss hundreds of opportunities to practise these essential movements.
Like learning to crawl, walk or ride a bicycle, oral motor skills develop through repeated practice.
Children who do not experience enough chewing opportunities during infancy can sometimes continue to rely on immature sucking and munching patterns well into toddlerhood.
This does not mean the opportunity is completely lost after infancy. Many toddlers can still learn tongue lateralisation successfully with the right support. However, the longer an immature pattern is used, the more established it becomes, making change more challenging.
The good news is that the tongue learns through experience.
One of the best ways to encourage side-to-side movement is by offering long, resistive foods that naturally encourage the tongue to move food towards the side gums for chewing. We also call them sometimes HARD MUNCHABLES – they look like on the following image.
Examples include:
mango pits with most of the flesh removed
pineapple core strips
thick steak strips
cooked pork strips
peeled celery sticks
thick cucumber spears
roasted pepper strips
corn on the cob cut into manageable rounds
dehydrated apple rings
large clean cooked rib bones with a little meat remaining for supervised chewing practice.
These foods are not intended for children to consume large pieces quickly. Instead, they provide resistance that encourages the jaw, cheeks and tongue to work together while giving valuable sensory feedback.
Some toddlers struggle because they never naturally move food to the side of their mouths.
In these cases, placing a long strip of food gently onto the side gums can sometimes trigger the chewing pattern automatically. This gives the tongue an opportunity to experience where chewing should occur.
This should always be done calmly, with the child sitting upright and under close adult supervision.
Without intervention, inefficient chewing patterns can persist for years, affecting food variety, mealtime confidence and nutritional intake. In some cases, immature oral motor patterns may also contribute to unclear speech production later on, although feeding and speech skills do not always develop at the same rate.
The earlier we identify a problem, the easier it usually is to help children develop more mature, efficient chewing patterns.
Final thoughts
Tongue lateralisation may not be a term many parents recognise, but it is one of the foundations of successful feeding.
By offering opportunities to chew a variety of safe textures during infancy, parents help build the complex tongue movements needed for efficient eating throughout childhood.
If your toddler still struggles with chewing, gags on textured foods, or seems unable to move food around their mouth, don’t simply wait and hope they will outgrow it. A comprehensive feeding assessment can identify exactly where the difficulty lies and provide practical strategies tailored to your child’s needs.
Sometimes a few small changes at the right time can make a lifetime of difference. Do get in touch with me. I would love to hear from you and help your little one develop good chewing skills and eating habits.
Sonja McGeachie
Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
As parents, we spend a massive portion of our days multi-tasking. We are talking to our toddlers while washing dishes, shouting encouraging words from across the living room while folding laundry, or answering their questions from a few feet above them while walking through the supermarket. It is a completely natural dynamic, after all, the adult world happens up here, and their world happens down there.
But when it comes to actively boosting your child’s speech and language development, one of the simplest, most profound changes you can make costs absolutely nothing and requires no special training.
It is simply this: Get down on the floor, sit cross-legged, and get face-to-face.
At London Speech and Feeding I call this physical positioning ‘face to face’. It is also one of the major ‘Hanen Programme’ Strategies. It completely reshapes how your child interacts with you, transforms how they process language, and turns ordinary playtime into an instant communication opportunity.
Our mouth is the magic: Visual cueing and speech imitation
When a child is learning to talk, they aren’t just listening to the sounds you make; they are watching how you make them.
Speech is an incredibly complex motor skill. To say a single word, the brain must coordinate the lips, tongue, teeth, jaw, and vocal cords in a fraction of a second. When you speak to your child from a standing or even a seated chair position while they are on the floor, your mouth is entirely out of their direct line of sight. They miss the visual roadmap of speech.
When you sit right in front of them at eye level:
They see mouth shapes: They can see how your lips round for an /OO/ sound, how your teeth touch your lip for an /F/ sound, or how wide your mouth opens for an /AH/.
They read facial expressions: Emotions give context to words. Seeing your eyes widen with excitement or your eyebrows lift in surprise helps them map meaning onto the vocabulary you are using.
They mimic naturally: By putting your face directly in your child’s field of vision, you make it infinitely easier for her or him to try and copy your oral movements.
If you are working on a specific word like ‘pop’ while blowing bubbles or ‘more’ during snack time getting your face just a foot or two away from your child gives her or him the front-row seat she or he needs to learn the mechanics of that word.
Unlocking joint attention: The foundation of all languages
Before a child can say their first words, they need to master a milestone called joint attention.
What is joint attention?
It is the magic moment when a child looks at an object (like a toy train), looks up at you to share their excitement, and then looks back at the object. It is a three-way loop of shared experience.
Without joint attention, communication cannot thrive. If a child is entirely hyper-focused on a toy and ignoring your presence, or if you are commenting on a book they aren’t looking at, true communication isn’t happening.
When you get down on the floor on a play mat, you naturally insert yourself into their bubble. You aren’t a distant narrator anymore; you are a co-player. Being at their level makes it incredibly easy for their eyes to flick from the toy straight to your face. This shared gaze is the exact moment language takes root. It signals to the child, ‘We are experiencing this together, and this thing we are doing has a name.’
The ‘wait and see’ technique
Once you are down on the floor, the temptation is often to take over by pointing at everything, asking a million questions like ‘What’s that?’, ‘Is that a blue train?’, or somehow driving the play.
Instead, the most powerful thing you can do at eye level is to practise the ‘Wait and See’ technique.
In the video clip you can see this exact dynamic in action. Look at how I am sitting cross-legged on the mat, at eye level with the toddler. Notice how my hands are on the toy container, but my eyes are locked on the child. I am not forcing the interaction; instead, I am waiting.
Here is how you can use this strategy at home:
Set the stage: Get down on their level with a high-interest toy that requires help (like a wind-up toy, bubbles, or a tight-lidded box with toys inside).
Create anticipation: Hold the object near your face or place your hands on it, but don’t open or activate it right away.
Lean in and wait: Lean slightly forward, open your eyes wide, adopt an expectant facial expression, and completely pause. Count to five or ten in your head. Do not say anything.
Capture the gaze: Wait for the exact moment your child looks up from the toy to meet your eyes, as if to say, ‘Well? Are you going to open it?’
Reward the eye contact: The instant they make eye contact, deliver the language reward! Model a simple, functional word like ‘Open!’, ‘Go!’, or ‘Look!’ as you immediately do the action.
By pausing and waiting at eye level, you create a ‘communication temptation’. The child learns that looking at you and engaging with your face is the key that unlocks the fun.
Making it a daily habit
You don’t need to spend hours a day sitting on the floor to see a difference. Start small by dedicating just 10 to 15 minutes of undivided, face-to-face play time each day. Turn off the television, put your phone in another room, get down on their level, and let them lead the play while you focus on being their visual communication partner.
Whether you’re opening a little toy briefcase, pushing a plastic train along a track, or stacking blocks, remember: your face is the best toy in the room.
Are you wondering if your toddler’s speech and language milestones are on track? At London Speech and Feeding I love helping families navigate early communication. Feel free to explore my services page and reach out directly to schedule a consultation.
Sonja McGeachie
Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
