AGE 2 TO 3 YEARS: LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Your 2-year-old not only understands most of what you say to her but also speaks with a rapidly growing vocabulary of 50 or more words. Over the course of this year, she'll graduate from two- or three-word sentences ("Drink juice," "Mommy want cookie") to those with four, five or even six words ("Where's the ball, Daddy?" or "Dolly sit in my lap"). She's also beginning to use pronouns (I, you, me, we, they) and understands the concept of "mine" ("I want my cup," "I see my mommy"). Pay attention to how she is using language to describe ideas and information, and to express her physical or emotional needs and desires.

It's human nature to measure your toddler's verbal abilities against those of other children her age, but try to avoid this. There's more variation at this time in language development than in any other area. While some preschoolers develop language skills at a steady rate, others seem to master words in an uneven manner. And some children are naturally more talkative than others. This doesn't mean that the more verbal children are necessarily smarter or more advanced than the quieter ones, nor does it mean that they have richer vocabularies. In fact, the quiet child may know just as many words but be choosier about speaking them. As a general rule, boys start talking later than girls, but this variation, like most others mentioned above, tends to even out as children reach school age.

Without any formal instruction, just by listening and practicing, your child will master many of the basic rules of grammar by the time she enters school. You can help enrich her vocabulary and language skills by making reading a part of your everyday routine. At this age, she can follow a story line and will understand and remember many ideas and pieces of information presented in books. Even so, because she may have a hard time sitting still for too long, the books you read to her should be short. To keep her attention, choose activity-oriented books that encourage her to touch, point and name objects or to repeat certain phrases. Toward the end of this year, as her language skills become more advanced, she'll also have fun with poems, puns or jokes that play with language by repeating funny sounds or using nonsense phrases.

For some youngsters, however, the language-development process does not run smoothly. In fact, about one in every 10 to 15 children has trouble with language comprehension and/or speech. For some, the problem is caused by hearing difficulty, low intelligence or lack of verbal stimulation at home. In most cases, though, the cause is unknown. If your pediatrician suspects your child has difficulty with language, she'll conduct a thorough physical exam and hearing test and, if necessary, refer you to a speech/language or early-childhood specialist for further evaluation. Early detection and identification of language delay or hearing impairment is critically important so that treatment can begin before the problem interferes with learning in other areas. Without identifying the difficulty and doing something about it, the child may have continuous trouble with classroom learning.