Imitating a speech delay

My dd is 5, and one of her best friends in school has a noticeable speech delay. My dd has begun to imitate her, not in a mean way at all but in that way that little kids tend to imitate those around them, especially those they adore. We’ve had some general discussions about this friend’s speech delay because my dd has asked about it (my own dd gets PT) but I’m not sure how to address the imitation. She does it all the time around the house and isn’t responding when we tell her to stop. Any thoughts?

Imitating a speech delay

Id ignore it. Usually if stuff like this doesnt get attention it goes away.

Re: Imitating a speech delay

My son did this for a short while. Also very, very innocently. Ignored it and he stopped.

Re: Imitating a speech delay

I always like my ped’s advice which is .. any behavior you want to stop- ignore. Any behavior you want to encourage- use positive reinforcement.

That said, my DS started imitating something that a friend at school was doing, and I found it very babyish to the point where it was getting on my nerves . (My DS told me that the friend does it at school.) Without going into further detail, I’ll just say that I explained my to my DS that he’s a big boy who can use words and that (the behavior) is something babies do. Thankfully repeating that enough times got the point across and it helps that my DS is highly motivated to not do things “like a baby”.