How to Help Adults Build Conversation and Storytelling Skills

As parents, sometimes it can be difficult to understand how best to help your adult as he or she struggles with communication skills. So much is out there for fostering speech and language development in the early ages, but less is available for the teen and adult ages. The follow tips are some general suggestions to help develop skills.

Comment on the topic of conversation before introducing a new topic. Add related information to encourage talking more about a particular topic.

Provide visual cues such as pictures, objects, or a story outline to help tell a story in sequence.

Encourage rephrasing or revising an unclear word or sentence. Provide an appropriate revision by asking, “Did you mean…?”

Show how nonverbal signals are important to communication. For example, talk about what happens when a facial expression does not match the emotion expressed in a verbal message (e.g., using angry words while smiling).