Why Some Toddlers Struggle to Talk (And What Actualy Helps) Ep 140

If your toddler isn’t talking much yet, you may feel pressure to do more -
talk more, label more, teach more.

But after 35 years in early intervention, I’ve learned something important:
speech doesn’t grow from more words.

It grows from slow moments, shared attention, movement, and being included in everyday life.

In this episode, I walk you through 5 common patterns I see over and over again when language is slow to emerge - not to create fear or blame, but to help you see what’s been hiding in plain sight.

We’ll talk about:

• Why passive input doesn’t replace real interaction
• The difference between parentese and silly baby talk
• How over-reliance on “helpful” tools can quietly limit development
• Why understanding matters more than words at first
• And why waiting too long can change a child’s developmental trajectory

This conversation isn’t about perfection.

It’s about awareness, timing, and making small, meaningful shifts while the brain is still wide open to change.

You’re not just filling time - you’re shaping a brain, body, and nervous system every day.

📥 Free resource:
🌟 The Top 10 Essential Skills Every Baby Needs Before Talking

🌟 Building Vocabulary: Single Words to 2-Word Phrases

If you’re ready to move beyond milestones and into meaningful support, you’re in the right place.

👉 Book a Discovery Call

These are FREE, one-to-one conversations designed to help determine what to focus on first - and whether a focused 6-week parent coaching format would be helpful for your family at this time. Not evaluations, not therapy - just space to reflect and be heard.

There’s no pressure and no obligation. 

email:   contact@HyerLearning.com

Disclaimer: 

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your pediatrician or a qualified health provider with questions about your child’s development or health. The views shared are based on Erin Hyer’s professional experience and are intended to support informed parenting, not to replace individual consultation or care. Every child and family is unique — please use your discretion and consult trusted professionals when making decisions for your child.

Transcript

Erin: 0:02

One of the biggest mistakes parents make is waiting for words instead of watching understanding, because talking doesn't come before comprehension. Understanding comes first. And when we miss these early signs, we often wait too long hoping our child will grow out of it or grow into it. Today I want to show you five common patterns that quietly shape speech development and what actually helps, Hello and welcome to Talking Toddlers where I share more than just tips and tricks on how to reduce tantrums or build your toddler's vocabulary. our goal is to develop clarity because in this modern world, it's truly overwhelming. This podcast is about empowering moms to know the difference between fact and fiction, to never give up, to tap into everyday activities, so your child stays on track. He's not falling behind, he's thriving. Through your guidance, we know that true learning starts at home. So let's get started. If your toddler isn't talking much yet, you may feel pressure to do more, to talk more, label more, teach more. But here's what 35 years of early intervention has taught me. Speech doesn't grow for more words. It grows from slow moments. Shared attention, movement and being included in everyday life when those things fade often without parents realizing it. Speech is one of the first skills to slow down. Today I wanna show you what I see over and over again. Not so you feel bad, but so you can finally see what's been hiding in plain sight. Because you are not just filling time, you're shaping a brain every day. And before we go any further, let me tell you how I'm approaching this conversation. I'm not here to give you a checklist or add more things to your mental load. I wanna help you understand why certain everyday habits matter so you can make thoughtful changes that actually support your child's development. After more than three decades working with babies and toddlers in real homes with real families, I've learned that speech struggles usually don't come from one big problem. They come from a handful of common patterns that slowly, quietly work against how your young baby's brain learns language. So today I wanna walk you through those patterns, not as mistakes, but as places where small intentional shifts can make a very big difference. Now, what I've outlined here are five patterns I see most often. Each one affects development in a different way. And each one is something parents can influence without pressure or thinking of perfection. We're gonna take them one at a time, starting with the one that shows up earliest and often goes unnoticed the longest. And here's the part that often gets missed. Speech doesn't develop in isolation. It grows inside relationships, inside rhythms, inside a nervous system that feels safe enough, secure enough to explore and experiment. And from a neurobiological perspective, language development depends on these things. Attention, regulation, timing. And connection, not flashcards, not videos, not quote unquote teaching in the traditional sense, not naming or labeling or rehearsing or, what's this? What's this? When those foundational systems are overloaded, rushed, or even sometimes bypassed, speech is often the first thing to stall. So if your toddler is quiet or using fewer words than you expected, we don't start by asking what's wrong with them. We start by looking at the conditions we've created around them, the soil in which these skills need to grow and blossom and flourish. And the first pattern I want you to notice has everything to do with how language is experienced, not how much of it is heard. Alright, let's start. The first pattern I see over and over again is this, babies and toddlers hear a lot of language, but. Experience far less back and forth communication that they actually need to build that language. And I wanna be careful with my words here because I do believe in the early year or in the early weeks, you know your newborn, most parents are highly responsive. There's a lot of face to face. There's just, you know, this plethora of love and, and. Togetherness, right? You're learning how to change and how to breastfeed, how to be with them. You're watching everything that they do. You're, you're really building that tuning in, in those first several weeks, several months even. But as life picks back up often very quickly or quicker than we expected, that responsiveness. Tends to fade sooner than we realize. Your days get busier, homes get noisier, and we, the grownups return to our adult rhythms. So now there's a lot more background talking. Music screens, adult conversation are happening around your child and you're busy doing stuff, right? Laundry and, and meal prep and your work or chores or just everyday life. So let me be very clear, some of all of that. Real life stuff is very important. Babies do need to hear a lot of rich, whole language around them. I look at that as that sophisticated language, natural conversational flow between your partners or family, or extended family or friends or out and about in the community. Think of that as preparing the soil. What they're absorbing in those moments is the gestalt of language, the pitch, the rhythm, the tone and pacing, the emotional flow, the back and forth, the different voice patterns. All of that matters, but here's where things often break down. There's very little or significantly less language happening. With them Over the years, I've noticed that many, well-meaning parents assume that speech and language just happens, that it's kind of natural, like breathing. We don't have to quote unquote teach it. And that understanding and talking, right, that receptive and expressive will simply emerge on their own because that's what humans do. And while we are wired for communication, right, that's what separates us from other mammals. Speech and language still have to be nurtured. We have that nature nurture. This is where a quick clarification I think can be helpful because we always wanna be on the same page speech. Okay. That's the physical act of producing the sounds in your native language, right? It requires physical action, motor planning, coordination, and a lot of practice language. The other side of this two-sided coin is different language has two equal parts in that receptive language. What your child understands, and then expressive language, what your child communicates or verbally puts out. Both need time, both need exposure, and both need intentional support. Early speech and language developed through contingent response, and what that means is when your child makes a sound or looks toward you or makes a gesture or posture, and then somebody responds, that's that communication dyad language grows in the pause. Right in that white space, that's where processing happens. And so processing, you know, think of a com, uh, uh, excuse me, a computer processor. It takes in data and it, it synthesizes it. It interprets it, it makes sense of it, and then. It has to have time or processing bandwidth to then generate a response. So when your child realizes in that subtle back and forth, my sounds, my voice matters, they begin to listen with more interest and more intention. And that is really the spark that builds everything afterward. That's when neural connections strengthen. We're born with a hundred billion neurons that are not connected, and in order to make those neural pathways, those highways, the processing system, we need to experience. Verbal and nonverbal communication with others. This doesn't require more talking on your part. It requires more waiting, those face-to-face moments, eye contact, and then pauses during daily routines when you're feeding them or diaper changing or giving them a bath. You're giving them time to process. And so let me be clear, this does not mean narrating nonstop, which I see a lot online, and it really just, pressure on you. But it also, it just makes me feel like you're being misled. What we want is talking and sharing and then waiting, giving them time to process, and we listen both their verbal and nonverbal response. And here's the reminder, I want parents to hear. Don't rush this process. Don't push. And, and our, I know our whole culture is all about getting them to that next developmental step, right? We wanna skip crawling and get to walking. We want to jump right into how many words and talking, but don't rush. Laying this foundation, this underlying process language. Communication as human beings unfolds in the sequence, in the, in this processing building, it doesn't emerge on demand. it might help to think about how we adults or maybe young adults would learn a second language. Yes, we can study the vocabulary. Practice phrasing, rehearse the sentences. But research and real life show us that progress happens faster when we're immersed into in that language, right? When we become part of the community, when language is used with us and not just delivered to us. So babies learn the same way. They're just really open and ready to absorb all of this much easier than we would be learning a second language. As a young adult, they don't learn language by hearing more words all day, every day. They learn it by being included. In your routines, your interactions, your shared moments where their sounds, their looks, and their gestures are then answered back. That's what contingent response means. That's what a lot of websites will say, serve and return. That's what that means, that there's a model and then there's weight. They're building, processing that data. Now the second pattern is more subtle, but very, very common. Parents will often hear advice about quote unquote baby talk, and I think that a lot of parents, not all, but a lot of them will. Land on one or two extremes, like how do we talk to babies? Right? They don't understand and they don't talk yet. What? How do I show up? So some parents will say to me, oh, I just talked to my baby like he's an adult, right? I just use my regular speech and I just keep talking. Others may lean heavily into the. Overly baby like language, right? They use a lot of cutesy bits, right? Lots of silly sounds and nonsense words or even distorted speech in, in my best professional advice. Neither one of those extremes is helpful or ideal because we know what babies actually need is this thing called parent ease. Parent ease is not baby talk. It is real language spoken more slowly with a little bit more warmth. We elongate the vowels, stretch them out, and we use a lot of gentle pitch variation so it's not smooth connected speech that adults or, you know, even young children would use. It's purposefully modeled so that they can begin to process and code it. So speech sounds are accurate, syllables are clearly articulated. For example, you would say, see, here's a banana. Yum. Banana. I love bananas, so I stretch it out banana, but I, I say or articulate each syllable and then I pull it back together. Banana. In real time. So they get the stretched slow form, right, the auditory representation, and then put it back, back together in real time. That rhythm helps their slow early inventory, auditory system to code and organize all of the sounds and the sound patterns. What doesn't help your baby and your toddler is fast disconnected chatter and constant playful noise without meaning. Yes, we sing a lot of nursery rhymes. Yes, we sing a lot of, we playful banter, but. When things are distorted word after word, when they begin to replace real speech, real healthy adult forms of words, then their coding system gets all mushed up. It's fuzzy you don't need to perform, you don't need to entertain your child. You just need to be present and help introduce this beautiful human communication system bit by bit, right? Speak clearly. Use one to three words at a time, and then wait. Give your baby or your toddler time to perceive, oh, they spoke to me. And then recognize what those sounds are. And, and the order in which those sounds were presented. Banana is different than Apple, right? And they be, have to recognize and interpret it and then generate a response, whether it's verbal or nonverbal, but that's what the processing system is. You're coding the language, giving them time to perceive and interpret, and then generate a response. Their language system is just coming online. It's under construction, and here's where this really matters, even when a child is included. Even when the language is warm and clear and well timed language still can't take hold. If your child's nervous system is overloaded or rushed or dysregulated. And that comes from, you know, maybe a bad night's sleep or maybe, you know, they didn't choose the best things to eat or maybe there was a rushed, rushed, rushed morning and now you're trying to settle down and sit with him. And they're still in that, that anxious, pressured, nervous system state. So this. It brings us to the next pattern. One that doesn't, I think, doesn't get talked about nearly enough, but it has a huge impact on whether words can actually emerge naturally. So this third pattern. I think can feel a bit uncomfortable when we talk about it. And I know sometimes when I talk, even in my Zoom calls or in face-to-face, mom's eyes will look at me like, really? But it's because we're, I'm talking about the tools or the gadgets that our modern world have quote unquote invented, and they seem to be everywhere. Beginning with sippy cups and then looking at swings or bouncers and even screens because they're heavily marketed to be helpful and in theory they can, they can help you in that moment. So the issue isn't the use of them, per se. The issue is really the overuse or chronic use during the very moments that your child, their body, and their brain is developing, that they're supposed to be building an organizing system through movement and attention and self-regulation. We're using gadgets and tools to really inhibit that. I think of it sometimes as. Say you broke your leg and you needed crutches. What if you continued to use the crutches after the broken leg has been healed? they were useful in the healing process, but now they're preventing further strengthening. And rewiring of that limb. Well, speech doesn't develop from the neck up is a whole body experience. The jaw stability is built through tummy time, which builds the head and neck and torso strength and control. The jaw can be used when the body that supports that is healthy and strong and coordinated. Tongue movement depends on the jaw, strength and stability. Breath control comes from whole body awareness and regulation to inhale and slowly control that breath flow. That's what happens when you first put your baby down on tummy time. Ah, they're putting pressure on their breath flow and they're feeling like, oh my gosh. When I breathe, I can Fate. Fate is the sound that comes out from our vocal cords vibrating. That's built from the whole body experience. Trunk support develops in segments. All of that matters. The whole body matters for speech, which is a fine motor movement. When babies spend too much time contained in car seats or in swings or in, these round containers, they lose opportunities for floor time. Mouth exploration and social connection. This doesn't mean never use them, but what happens is becomes a slippery slope. It means use them sparingly, intentionally. Open cups and straws support. Oral motor development. We know this. It came out of research and then real life use in the eighties and nineties. Floor time builds postural control and coordination, and that was true long before tummy time was even quote unquote invented. Right? But your face is still the most valuable screen your child will ever see. This is how God designed humans to develop movement, relationships, trial and error, practice and practice, and finding opportunities to expand those skills. Perfect them. Build them to fluency and automaticity. Modern life may feel convenient in those moments. Yes, you might have less mess, easier transitions, a quieter car ride and calmer meals, but there's always a payoff somewhere over time that convenience can show up as less confidence. Weaker independence, they rely on you more softer, postural and oral motor skills, right? All the gross motor and the fine motor skills are not strong enough and coordinated enough and, and wired up to support higher order language and thinking. And what happens is that there's fewer natural opportunities to practice and practice all of these motor skills and human communication if we want our children to be healthy, capable, and resilient. And I know you do, we, the adults must be informed, thoughtful, and willing to stretch ourselves first. And here is where I think many parents quietly worry because after they've adjusted the environment, after they've become more intentional themselves, they're still watching and thinking, but my baby, my baby boy, my baby girl, they're still not saying very much. I. Which brings us to the next pattern, one that actually brings a lot of reassurance when you understand what you're looking for. This next area is one of the most reassuring and yet one of the most overlooked. And, and I think simply because it's misunderstood by many, many people, educators, even, early developmental specialists and pediatricians, and therefore you as the mom and the dad and the grandparents, you're given bad advice. Talking does not come before understanding. Receptive language, like I said earlier, is what your child understands. They receive it right, and that always develops first. It's in the driver's seat. When we look at this two-sided coin of receptive and expressive language, and just as a quick clinical aside, receptive language is not passive. And please hear me when I say that. Receptive language, learning how to understand spoken words around them, it's very active and complex. It's, it's truly cognitively demanding. They're coding their native language and sometimes many of you have written to me, they're learning two languages. And so in many ways it's doing receptive language, auditory processing. It's doing the heavy lifting long before words appear. So let's be clear here. Receptive and expressive language are developing at the same time. Yes, but for different purposes and through different channels. They have different building blocks. They rely on each other to strengthen the overall processing, but the whole system is different. Talking. Is that vocal play? Right? It's physical. Like I mentioned, it's an oral motor workout. They're exploring it. It's practicing the sounds and then coordinating the breath and the voice, and eventually stringing those sounds once it's been kind of coded. Stringing them together to build those words, and then stringing the words to build phrases and sentences, receptive language is different. It's perceiving, attaching meaning and storing and integrating that information. And then practicing those skills with other people. And yes, they practice on their own too, right? They talk to their stuffies or even themselves, or you know, their trucks or whatever. But the intention and the meaning and the richness of it is really about practicing with others. All of this. Is truly dynamic and to me breathtaking. I, I am always amazed when I sit down and I really see how all of these fine, fine nuances fit together. And I think human speech and communication is truly miraculous. But before true words can emerge. There is a lot of growth that should already be happening. So let's walk through this briefly just so you can have this information in the, in the back of your mind. So when you're engaging and when you're playing and when you're in it with your little one, you can see these things for what they truly are. Before words, we should often see shared attention, imitation of both sounds and, and noise making, facial expressions, gestures, and gestures is a separate component, right? Because they have to initiate these things, especially pointing that is very critical in this developmental. Journey, but also other gestures like clapping and waving goodbye. Showing you something is a gesture. It's saying, look, share this with me. Reaching up is a huge gesture. Tapping at something, shaking their head no, of which they learn how to shake their head no long before they learn how to shake their head. Yes. These are not small things. They are key markers that tell us that your baby or your toddler's communication system is developing. Those neural pathways are building, are being created and reinforced. Please do not minimize them. We also want to look at understanding, especially when it goes or, Leads to them learning how to follow simple directions and, and following directions. Your words, right, not imitating your actions or following your lead, but truly learning how to listen to your directives and follow through. Right, and it can show up in different forms and fashions throughout your day. Right? So the first one will often be, does your child respond to his name? And I often say most of the time, because what happens is if a child is in deep play, right, they're, even if they're just, you know, putting puzzle pieces together or trying to figure out how to turn this knob or. And digging in the dirt, their mental bandwidth is focused on their task before them. And so your voice, even though it's, it's highly attuned to your voice and even attuned to his name, it takes moments. To shut down what he's doing his task at hand and shift gears and turn toward that voice that he hears. So I often say, does your child respond to his name most of the time? Do they look around when they, when you say, oh, where's daddy? And when there's attending to you right now in deep play, how do they respond? When you say things like, oh, where's Molly? You know, Molly might be the cat or the dog, right? Or all of a sudden you say, Hmm, can you go get your shoes, get your shoes? If you are holding, or maybe they're playing with a cow and a chicken, and you ask, who says Moo? Are they able to take your words? Right? This isn't really a direction, but it's a question and it's in context, right? They're playing with these two animals. Can they process that in real time and then, you know, show you the cow? Or when you ask for help, if you're sitting there playing and you have, your cup and you can say, oh, please put my cup on the table, out of the blue even, Can they take this simple direction and follow through? Another piece to this receptive language is. When they really begin listening with intent. And so where this matters is that that's why eye contact matters because they're holding it. It's a non-verbal communication act that says, I'm ready. I am tuned in with you. I'm ready to learn. I'm ready to follow you. Give me something. Right? then there's this thing called social referencing, which deserves a moment of explanation, I think because we therapists and, Educators and teachers will throw out these words and and assume that we're all on the same page, and quite often we're not. But I think social referencing is really incredibly important and often overlooked. But babies and toddlers, when they look toward their caregiver, mom or dad or grandparents, or even big brother or big sister. When they look toward you and, and perceive your tone of voice or a gesture, you know, a wink or a shrug of the shoulders or a head nod, they look toward you to decide, how should I respond in this situation? Maybe it's a new situation, it's a new person. Maybe they're handing, uncle Susie, or I'm sorry, aunt Susie, who you see once in a while is giving you a present, oh, what do I do with this object? They look toward you. This helps them determine a lot, right? Is this safe? Should I be interested? Should I be cautious? Right? That they're looking for guidance from you. Social referencing is a crucial tool for building emotional regulation and security as well as social learning. And it typically begins around eight to 10 months because it's at that stage of growth and development that the world is expanding. They're realizing, oh, my life is a lot bigger than just my immediate family. I might be going into other. Social events, and I'm much more cognitively aware, but I, I'm still dependent on my primary caregivers. You mom and dad and grandparents, you continue to be their lifeline, their guide, and literally their translator, so they look toward you for guidance. When your baby brings you things, brings you an object, that is also a gesture. They're saying, what is this? Or look at this or share this with me. I want to connect with you. So when they, they wave or when they point, or even when they protest. You know, they might stomp or turn away. These are all meaningful communication attempts. Behavior is communication always good, bad, It's always communicating something to you. But when we, the parents and the professionals, because of the par, the professionals are at fault too. When we only track spoken words. I mean, I had a mom say to me a couple of weeks ago that the pediatrician was pushing her, that her child looked like he was quote unquote autistic because he wasn't talking yet. He was 16 months old, and to me, he had a lot of these gestures and he would imitate approximated words often. And he was very engaged and followed a lot of playful directions but because he didn't have a list of real true, quote unquote adult words, the pediatrician jumped to the conclusion that he was autistic. That to me, is one so alarming to the mom. She was devastated. And two. Uh, so unprofessional. So when we only track the numbers of spoken words, we all miss powerful evidence. That language is already being developed, being built, right? So understanding the spoken language, building cognition, and building connection with you. Through actions and behaviors and approximated words are shaped through everyday life experiences, celebrate those foundations. Those building blocks respond warmly to babbling and noise making, and those small, small gestures like clapping and pointing, those sounds are not just noise. It's meaningful and purposeful practice saying, I found my voice. Help me shape it. Acknowledge those gestures, gesture back, right? Put words to that message, that message. When he waves goodbye, you can say, oh, bye bye. Let's go. All done, and then pause. Because he's connecting the words that came outta your mouth and his gesture. Oh, they represent the same thing. Let him know that you understand what he's communicating, and then he's gonna want to do more. Trust me, your child needs a lot of practice with you. With others in real time during real everyday events. Now, the fifth and final pattern is one I feel very strongly about. For years, I have pushed back on this phrase when people say quote, every child develops at their own pace. Professionals say it. Parents say it. Aunts and uncles say it. Neighbors say it. Teachers say it. Therapists say it. And I have pushed back, not because children aren't unique. Because I truly, absolutely believe they are. I believe each and every child or each and every one of us is a child of God with individual gifts and strengths, different personality and temperaments, different rhythms to our home makeup, but that uniqueness does not negate healthy developmental patterns that help us understand where your child is on this developmental journey. How are they wiring this system up to become more independent and more capable, more curious? Historically, when you hear that phrase, oh, every child develops at their own pace. It often is translated into this. We delay action until your child clearly fails, and then. We look for a label to explain that struggle. Oh, he has sensory processing problems. Oh, she's a late talker. Oh, he has a DD or he doesn't have good listening skills. I have spent years working downstream after children have fallen off the cliff and truly some the majority. Are barely keeping their heads above water. And we go in trying to close some of those gaps, which the system doesn't really understand how to even begin to close those gaps. But that's another conversation. We try to patch the holes. We try to give them, life jacket, so to speak. But all the while I believe the system I. Is adjusting the expectations after the label was assigned because here's my challenge, how we've created early child development, pushes kids closer and closer to the edge. Because I think what really matters is understanding how to keep them far, far away from that edge. So we need to take a closer look at when plateaus happen that matters. We need to say why. Why is there speech or why is there development kind of slowed down? We also need to take a look at those early windows because those matter, right? Those early developmental windows. Not because once those windows are closed, right? When we look at a three or 4-year-old and they still have slow speech and language, we don't say, ah, there's no hope That window has come and gone, but it's because those windows are designed to make it so much easier to develop those skills on time. It, it's the developmental process, a timeline that God designed. He created those quote unquote windows, so your little guy or gal can master a whole bunch of stuff. All at the same time and make it easier. Early support doesn't, or at least it shouldn't label your child. You shouldn't go into an evaluation hoping for a label to quote unquote explain the challenges early support. Should protect your child's trajectory of growth and learning should keep them further and further away from that cliff seeking guidance doesn't or shouldn't automatically mean therapy is needed or a diagnosis will be found Early support should mean information finding clarity. Getting support by someone who's either been there or understands development, and then providing you options. So, I just wanna take a moment here. I want to address something that I have heard over and over again, especially in this last year through my, my coaching clients, uh, discovery calls and even emails. A number of parents have been recently shared, or, or a number of parents have shared with me that. Pediatricians have said to me, oh, well, you know, 50% of kids nowadays need speech therapy. It's common. It's no big deal. the first couple of times I heard that I was, I was angry. I was, I was stumped. And I'm like, really? And so I of course, have done several deep dives. There is no statistical evidence to support that whatsoever. Yes. The referrals increased measurably post the pandemic. And, and part of the problem was that the systems prior to the pandemic were already overload. They already had cracks in the system, and there weren't enough providers. There were too many kids on caseloads. That was an issue to begin with before 2020, but. The, the dust has settled a little bit, and yes, kids are struggling more and more and more kids are being diagnosed, but it certainly isn't 50% of all children out there have a speech problem. But it also could be that, like these pediatricians that have also said, if you're a slow talker, then you're automatically on the autism spectrum, that's malarkey as well. What I, I find. So frustrating is that we as a culture, and I think as a professional system, both medical and educational systems seem to be normalizing a widespread struggle, and they're, they're just making it the new normal instead of asking questions and instead of seeking to understand why is this happening? So my purpose here is to empower you, the parent, to understand your child's development. So you're not forced to rely solely on an overwhelmed system or distorted narratives that is not substantiated by EV evidence or real life. They're just making these sweeping generalizations. There's a lot of noise out there. You and I both know this and there's a lot of bad advice. My purpose here is to give you clarity so you can breathe a little bit so you can learn how to be in the moment and really understand who your beautiful baby and toddler is growing into be. So before I wrap up, let me pull these five patterns together in a way that I think is a little bit easier to remember. Um, think back to what I said in the beginning. These common patterns slowly, quietly work against how your young baby and brain, or your young baby and Tyler's brain is learning language. Right. We have to, that's what acquire language is. We we're born with a hard wire system, but then we have to nurture it to build these neural pathways so they become efficient and effective and automatic. So look at these patterns as opportunities. We're small, intentional shifts can make a very big difference. Let's just quickly walk through them. The first one. When babies hear a lot of words, but they don't get enough back and forth with them, language around them is plentiful. Right? But there's not enough language with them. The second pattern is when we think quote unquote baby talk is being silly, or, you know, you make up these baby words. When it's really parent ease, it's it's slow, warm, clear, real language, real words with real sound patterns that helps their brain code and organize. All of the parts of their native language, you don't talk too much and you don't distort the third pattern. When helpful tools quietly inhibit what your child's body and brain were meant to practice. Right. There's movement and exploring, building regulation, trial and error, feeling failure, trying again, engaging with others when we use modern day tools and gear that inhibits them or pushes their quote unquote development and skips things. And then the fourth pattern, when we focus so hard on the number of spoken words that we actually miss all the signs that your child is already communicating through his looks or her gestures, all the sound making through the simple understanding and following. And then the fifth pattern, when we wait and wait. And wait. Hoping things will sort themselves out instead of asking good questions early, while his or her brain is most open, most ripe, and ready to grow and change and build, none of these are about blame. They're simply about building your awareness and realizing how small everyday moments quietly add up over time. The way God designed us to grow and learn naturally. And I just wanna take a moment to acknowledge something that I think is important for some parents. When you hear about your agency, right, your responsibility and and making daily choices around sleep and food and playtime, and pulling them into your to-do list. That can feel overwhelming and even scary for some parents. I've seen it in your eyes, I've heard it in your voice. You might find yourself thinking, am I really cut out for this? I didn't realize how heavy the responsibility would feel. This is where faith matters most to me. Now you know that I'm a believer and I see raising children as one of the ways we're all invited to grow into the leaders we were designed to be. Think of a young adult in their first career or their first job, right? They're being promoted not because they possess all the necessary skills yet to do the job. But because their supervisor or their boss actually sees their potential, they, that young adult holds the capacity to learn and develop new skills over time in real time. And even if you're not a believer, this truth still holds. This is how humans have thrived for thousands of years. Adults stepping into their new role as a parent, trusting their instincts, staying humble enough to learn alongside their children. You are wired for this. You don't need perfection. You need support, perspective and guidance at the right time. This is exactly why I created my workshop. How to get your toddler talking using three simple daily routines. In this workshop, we take the patterns that we talked about today and turn them into simple, realistic daily habits, things that you can actually do in your own home. We talk about how to set up your day, how to support understanding before words appear. And how to create the right conditions that really nurture speech to emerge naturally. Not more pressure, not more comparison, not perfection. Just clear guidance at the right time. The workshop is happening again soon, and if you're listening, when this particular episode is released, I think it'll be toward the end of January. We'll be about two weeks out for the workshop. Doors will be opening. Shortly. And so I want you to be the first to note. Make sure you're on my email list and you'll know as soon as the doors open, the link is down below in my show notes. Because early changes have a big impact. You are not just managing behavior or waiting for them, your child, to figure it out on their own. You're shaping his brain, his body, and his nervous system, and it starts now. So God bless and thank you for spending this time with me. I look forward to seeing you in the next talking toddlers.