(Topic 5 Task 5) Language Development Strategies

Aug 26, 2025

Overview

This lecture introduces the strategies of expanding and recasting to support children's language development and communication skills.

Expanding Strategies

  • Expanding means adding extra information to what your child communicates.
  • Expansion can be used with any form of communication, including gestures and words.
  • If a child points to a dog, label it by saying "dog."
  • If a child says "dog," expand by saying "look at that big dog."
  • If a child says "doggie run," expand to "the dog runs fast."

Recasting Strategies

  • Recasting involves repeating your child's message in a grammatically correct way.
  • Emphasize the corrected information when recasting.
  • For "me want cookie," recast as "I want a cookie."
  • For "that dog run really fast," recast as "yes, that dog ran really fast."
  • For "him kicked the ball," recast as "he kicked the ball far."

Benefits of Expanding and Recasting

  • Both strategies help increase vocabulary.
  • They support grammatical development in children.
  • These strategies improve overall communication skills.

Key Terms & Definitions

  • Expanding — Adding more information to a child's message to enrich language input.
  • Recasting — Restating a child's sentence correctly to model proper language use.

Action Items / Next Steps

  • Identify daily opportunities to practice expansion and recasting with your child.