Meet Jesica Barker, mother of two beautiful girls, Emma and Adele, and wife of Deputy County Attorney, Ammon. This darling family lives in Flagstaff, Arizona and they are super talented. You will often find the girls singing along with their dad as he plays the guitar or dancing with their mom. In fact, Jesica even runs her own dance studio, DancEvolution. Enjoy Jesica's look at a university speech study for 12-16 month-old toddlers!
I am not a natural mom in any way, shape, or form. Mothering does not come easy to me. That is why I am constantly searching for new ways to improve my mothering skills. I found an advertisement at Emma's preschool about a speech study for 12-16 month-olds through Northern Arizona University. I had heard from local moms about these speech studies. They told me the studies usually let you know how your child's speech is developing, plus some advice on how to help your child improve. I jumped at the chance to teach Adele to speak better. I figured that would improve her meltdowns, as well as save us some frustration.
The study consisted of having Adele wear a vest with a recorder in it for at least 16 hours a day, for 3 days. If she was asleep, I was allowed to take off the vest, but it had to lay next to her crib. They assured me that they would not listen to all 16 hours, which I totally believed because who has that much time to listen to someone else's boring day? They told me the recorder was analyzing her speech and they would only be listening to the 30 minutes a day that we were required to play with specific toys. They gave us three bags of toys. One bag had books, the second had puzzles and blocks, and the third bag contained electronic toys. We were to play with two of the three bags each day for at least 15 minutes each. It was an easy task and super fun! Adele loved having new toys to play with, and it was good for me to set aside time where just Adele and I played with something that was geared towards her. On an average day, most of our play involves Emma as well, so we usually play with toys designed for older kids.
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| Adele in her study vest with Emma, playing with rainbow rice. |
After the three days were up, we handed everything back and awaited the results. I was pretty proud of myself. I did everything I was supposed to, but didn't really do anything out of the ordinary. Turns out, I totally failed! Adele's speech is higher than average, but it had nothing to do with me! I consider myself a natural teacher. I love teaching, so I guess I thought that teaching your child to speak better has everything to do with the teacher. Apparently, I had been forcing it too much. During the play sessions, I focused on what I wanted to teach her instead of what she wanted to learn. Bottom line: I learned I needed to follow Adele's lead more. If she wants to play with a certain toy a certain way, it doesn't matter if she's doing it wrong. If she wants to just flip pages instead of repeating the animal noises, I should just count the number of pages she turns. Adele was super stuck on a picture of a cat in one book. After she repeated "cat" and "meow", I tried teaching her other animals, because clearly she had the word "cat" and "meow". Instead, I should have kept talking about that cat she loved so dearly. It was a perfect time to talk to her about the color, if the cat was soft, if it was big or little, if it was next to another object, etc. She would have learned a lot more words, had I followed her lead.
In just one simple study I learned a big lesson: don't force learning of any kind. Teaching your kids doesn't have to involve a lesson plan or an agenda. If you follow their lead in what they are interested in, chances are they will learn so much more. I now know what I've been doing wrong in teaching my older daughter Emma to read. Ever since I gave up, she's been way more interested in reading, and has grown leaps and bounds. Sometimes learning has to be on their terms. And sometimes we have to be okay with that!
- Jesica
To get involved with a study, find a university near you and do a little online research about their speech and hearing sciences department. Sometimes it is as easy as checking out their events and news page, but other times a quick phone call can get you connected to the right people. If you have had other experiences with similar studies, please share!
Wow!! So cool and enlightening!! My little man loves certain sounds for animals and it's all based on his complete and utter delight of the sound. For instance, we were reading a book. For part of the book, it read "And he landed on the moon with a bump!" I said "BUMP!" and bounced up and down excitedly as I had throughout the book. He laughed hysterically and learned the word bump. He said it over and over and over and over. He won't say a whole host of other practical words, but BUMP is now in the vocabulary today. I think that's sometimes how kids learn. Just through having fun. We enrich them in language, but don't make it a competition. It's too hard on them and us! Just have fun, talk, laugh. And see the world through their eyes. I like this post!!
ReplyDeleteStephanie,
DeleteI love that G is saying BUMP! And I agree, I loved this post by Jesica. Despite what she said, she is an excellent mother and a natural! I just love the lesson she learned about really listening to your kids when it comes to their interests. I can only imagine I will be going back to this lesson throughout Audette's childhood, teenage years and even as an adult. I am glad my parents let me take the lead and encouraged me in whatever I wanted to pursue.
xo Darien