Emotions words: What we use to support kids’ oral and written language [Try it!]
Many kids struggle with emotional regulation.
Emotion words help us describe and regulate our emotions.
Most toddlers develop a broad emotional vocabulary early in life.
Usually, kids’ word-labelling of facial expressions increases between 3-5 years.
Between 4-11 years of age, the emotion word vocabulary of typically-developing kids doubles every 2 years.
Most kids pick up emotion words from:
- hearing family and others speak to them;
- being read to, joint reading and, later, independent reading; and
- learning to express themselves in writing.
Some kids need extra help to learn emotion words, e.g., some kids with:
- Developmental Language Disorder;
- Language disorders associated with autism;
- Learning disorders, like dyslexia or dysgraphia; and
- ADHD.
Go deeper on the theory:
Dong, Y., & Nation, K. (2025). Charting the frequency and diversity of emotion words in children’s language: Written language matters. First Language, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237251339788. (Open access).
We help kids who need extra assistance with our Language for Emotions resource:
- 16 high frequency emotion words, taken from the 336 most frequent English emotion words.
- 200 pages.
- Instantly downloadable. No prep.
- Interactive exercises.
- Lots of repetitions, in different contexts.
- For each word, we cycle through interactive exercises:
- Plain English definition, with pictures for context.
- Picture labelling.
- Simple, compound and complex sentences using the emotion word and pictures for context.
- Sentence completion tasks.
- Stories with pictures.
- Comprehension questions supported by moving pictures (gifs).
- Flexible format: print, tablet, smart board, project. Use it your way!
- Flexible delivery: one-to-one, small group discussions, whole class.
This article also appears in a recent issue of Banter Booster, our weekly round up of the best speech pathology ideas and practice tips for busy speech pathologists, speech pathology students and others.
Sign up to receive Banter Booster in your inbox each week:
Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.
Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language
Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.
