CHILDREN AND PARENTS COMMUNICATE

1. CHILDREN AND PARENTS COMMUNICATE HELPING CHILDREN TO ACHIEVE BEST POSSIBLE SKILLS

2. COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT • Starts at birth • Babies are social beings, but it needs two people! • Typical developmental pattern, usually proceeds smoothly • Communication development doesn’t happen in isolation. Development of other areas e.g. vision, hearing, emotional security, play and the presence of appropriate environments, underpins the successful onset and continuation of listening, understanding and talking.

3. IMPORTANT MILESTONES • Listening and smiling • Early ‘babbling’ cooing and gurgling • Trying to imitate what others are doing • Looking at what others are pointing to • Increasing range of babbled sounds • Pointing • Clear indication of some understanding of single words • Uses first few ‘words’. These may be very unclear • N.B. ‘Normal’ age range for these to appear can vary quite widely

4. WHAT IS GOING ON IN DEVELOPMENT? • Physical milestones :Appropriate adult • Play development input essential • Attention control • Listening, processing, understanding • Expressive language and at 7yrs, very approx. emergence of ‘higher level’/abstract skills • Social development alonside all the time

5. HOW CAN WE HELP? • At intervals during the day and across a range of activities, probably for about an hour in total and during quiet times: • USE YOUR CHILD’S FOCUS OF INTEREST TO SHOW YOU WHAT KIND OF THINGS TO SAY IN OTHER WORDS, THIS IS CHILDREN’S TIME • Be sensitive to your child’s level. Let them Iead activities even if they don’t do them in the ‘adult’ way…there is always more than one way of playing a game! • Watch for what they’re interested in and talk about that, not something that interests you • Remember children need to hear words and sentences in context before they can get the meaning of them • Make sure the TIMING of what you say means that you are commenting on what the child is doing or has just done • If you do this you won’t be constantly giving instructions but you will be supporting your child’s actions and thinking • Make your level of sentence length and use of vocabulary a bit ahead of the level your child is actually using. That way you are showing them where to go next. • Listen to their ideas, talk about them and then add an idea of yours so that you show them how to extend their thinking. It is really important to appreciate and acknowledge children’s thinking • Don’t ask too many questions; instead comment on what the child is doing or feeling • It’s nice sometimes, perhaps at the end of the weekend, to sit and talk about the fun things that you have done, however simple they may be. This helps with emotional security and also helps children’s understanding of their environment. You may find that events that adults consider unimportant are incredibly important to children and it’s worth finding that out • If you find yourself at odds with your child, stop and ‘feel’ for where they are and where you are. Maybe your lines of thinking are not coinciding………. and in this case it is up to adults to align themselves with children

6. OTHER FACTORS • Multiple languages This is likely to mean that children take longer to develop communication skills but they will still get there as long as the use of different languages in different situations is consistent Watch the language levels if you have child care given by non English speakers • All children are individuals • Girls and boys REALLY DO have different interests and therefore need different activities, both at school and at home • It’s important to satisfy children’s developmental needs. This leads to emotional security and thence to good communication development • WARNING! • Lots of Tv and DVD cartoons and so called children’s movies, endless computer games etc DO NOT benefit children. Instead they develop looking without listening, considering what they are seeing or learning to think, reason and discuss. • This means that attention control and readiness for school is likely to be delayed • In fact children of up to 4 years do not really need TV at all and after that it should be in small doses and preferably with an adult watching too. Then they can talk about what’s happening and recall the programme afterwards • You can use children’s communication skills to help you know what they need. • Ask them what the problem is if you have an issue with them refusing to do something. They will usually have a logical explanation, though it may not be ‘grown up’ logic.

7. AND FINALLY • Watching and supporting children as they learn to communicate is fascinating and fun • In fact they learn an enormous amount by doing fun activities • They have wonderful ideas and reasoning and their emerging thinking skills are just so interesting • Enjoy them!

8. POINTS TO CONSIDER • Needs 1:1 or group or combination of both? • Who would deliver and why • General areas to be addressed on IEP: • SMART targets: small, meaningful, achievable, relevant and timely • Long term/short term • Check you will know when achieved

9. IEP AREAS • Desired outcome e.g. Will increase sentence length from 3-4 words in spontaneous utterances • Strategies/actions/activities to use • Who, when and where • Hoped for date of achieving (6 wks/ 6 mths?) • Evidence: e.g. 6 x 4 wd sentences heard in a day while playing/responding etc