When communicating with infants and toddlers, show empathy towards them. Research has shown the children of this age communicate more when they feel their attempts at communication will get a response. Take this concept one step further and allow your child the opportunity to verbalize something before you respond, even if you anticipated what your child wants or needs. In this way, your child realizes that speech is a necessary part of life.
After responding to your child, give him a few seconds to reply. By doing this, children learn that conversation is a back-and-forth process. Give your child opportunities to communicate to build his confidence and encourage him to communicate more.
Numerous research studies demonstrate that frequent conversations with a high number of different words positively influences a child's language development. One way to incorporate a larger vocabulary into your conversations is to use self-talk or parallel talk. These two techniques require you to describe in detail what you are in the process of doing (self talk), or what the child is doing (parallel talk).
Keep in mind that "rich" vocabulary is contextual. If your child uses only single words, a two-word phrase is "rich." For example, if you child says "cat," you could respond, "nice cat." From this phrase, your child learns an adjective, and that adjectives precede the nouns they modify.
Wittmer and Petersen, authors of "Infant and Toddler Development and Responsive Program Planning: A Relationship-Based Approach" identify the four Es as principles of language development: encourage, expand, elaborate and extend. Encourage children in their attempts at communication by not correcting their faults. Instead, expand on their syntax when you respond, elaborate on their ideas by making them more complex and extend their ideas by using different words and more complex grammatical structures.
Continue to use new vocabulary words and grammatical structures in your conversations. After hearing these elements numerous times, your child gradually begins to use them. At this point, you can introduce other new words and structures.