Winter is officially here and with it comes the cold, wet weather. Brr! Fortunately, winter weather can be a wonderful opportunity for language expansion. When stepping out into the cold, all five senses of your young language learner will be engaged. He or she will feel the cold air on their face, hear the crunching snow under their boots, see snowmen being built, smell cookies fresh out of the oven, and taste that post-sledding hot chocolate (yum!). We can capitalize on each of these sensory experiences by taking the opportunity to model new vocabulary and expand on the child’s utterances. As family members or speech pathologists of those learning verbal or alternative methods of communication, modeling is one of the most valuable things we can offer! A few examples of how we can do that this winter are …

Touch -

Child: “cold!”

Language model: “Brr! It feels cold out here. Let's go inside.”

Hearing -

Child: *crunches around in the snow*

Language model: “I hear you! Crunch, crunch, crunch. I hear snow crunching under your feet!”

Sight -

Child: “Look! Snowman!”

Language model: “I see that snowman! He has a black hat on top of his head and a carrot for a nose.”

Smell -

Language model: “Do you smell that? *big sniff* I smell yummy cookies. Let's go eat some!”

Taste -

Child: “yum!”

Language model: “I love hot chocolate. It's so yummy and helps us warm up!”