Learning to Talk
Children learn a ianguage largely through imitation. Speaking clearly and correctly to the child aids in learning good speech. Pushing th~ child into talking, even after he or she has some speaking vocabulary, may make him become stubbornly silent. When the child is given too much attention, when every need and whim are anticipated, talking may be delayed. Silence itself can indeed be reinforced. In cases of delayed speech, a careful study of rewards and punishments, in nonspeech matters. almost always results in improvement in speech.
It is quite common for children seemingly to drop words "from theiI vocabulary as new words are added. It isn't so much that they forget the words as it is that a change in the need for using certain words comes with increasing age. The preschool child (and exceptions are few) seems to take on those words which to the adult may seem useless. When the child gets into the second or third grade of school, bad language increases, particularly in boys. Fortunately, children grow out of these habits as they grow out of bad manners, which they will pick up somewhere between six and eight years of age. Our culture seems to be one that expects girls to have better language habits than boys.
