Whether you’re a baby, a young child or an adult, communicating effectively has the feel-good factor. Nancy Stewart, principal consultant at Early Learning Consultancy, observes that ‘warm, responsive, consistent relationships’ are essential for good language development. Being the ‘best communication partner’ is crucial, she says.
Identifying the role of positive emotional well-being in the process of language development is like chicken and egg: well-being both sets the context for pleasurable learning, and is the reward. Children will also have improved life chances.
Despite Communication & Language being one of the three Prime areas of learning in the EYFS, a recent survey of 1,100 head teachers by schools support service The Key suggested 30 per cent of children arriving in Reception are not ‘school ready’, with 78 per cent of respondents citing ‘language delay’ as the reason, second to ‘lack of social skills’.
Ludovica Serratrice, a linguistics expert at the LuCiD language development research centre in Manchester, warns that the consequences can be severe for emotional well-being. ‘Difficulties with comprehension and/or use of spoken language can lead to lack of engagement, self-exclusion, bullying and feelings of anxiety,’ says the co-investigator.
‘Inevitably, difficulties with speech, language and communication have an adverse effect on the understanding of others and on the building of friendships and other relationships that are crucial to children’s socialisation,’ she adds.
At the most extreme, such difficulties can make a criminal conviction more likely. ‘Those are the children who can’t use language to interact with other children and to resolve conflict, and you see behaviour that’s atypical,’ Professor Serratrice says.
She argues that most delay is avoidable, since only 6 per cent of children have difficulties due to genetic, rather than environmental, factors.
‘That period of birth to three is a critical window of opportunity,’ she explains. She is currently investigating how gesture, such as pointing, in children aged ten to 18 months affects vocabulary development. ‘Pointing is a fantastic way of inviting a conversation, and that clearly has implications for a child’s own language development,’ Professor Serratrice says.
CASE STUDY
Ludwick Nursery School in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, is a 140-place maintained nursery school specialising in creating ‘communication-friendly environments’ and is a National Teaching School.
Ludwick’s collaboration with Oaktree Children’s Centre and Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust’s Children’s Speech and Language Therapy service provides free services, including a ten-place on-site Enrichment Centre for treating significant language and speech delay or disorders. The nursery has also been sharing skills with the community via its Shooting Stars Outreach Service, which has worked with 20 settings including private day nurseries, pre-schools and Reception classes in Hatfield and Welwyn, resulting in richer learning environments and adult-child interactions (see graphs).
Sally Laflin, Ludwick’s special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO), believes language delay is becoming more common. Describing Ludwick’s outreach work, she says, ‘A lot of what works for children with more challenging difficulties works for all children. This work in settings can be good at picking up delay because it’s not just the ones with recognised difficulties that are struggling. There may be ones slipping under the radar because they’re quiet and behaving themselves.’
Rethinking their practice can be daunting for some early years practitioners, though. ‘Little tweaks to practice can make a big difference,’ Ms Laflin says. ‘Don’t think you have to change the way you talk or do everything, just pick something and do it bit by bit.’ Shooting Stars has offered taster sessions to all local settings. Interested ones receive an initial visit from team members, who observe the practice, then a two-hour training session. ‘It’s a real eye-opener for them,’ says Ms Laflin.
No neat brackets
One of the key points that the training emphasises is the value of getting to know the child and adjusting practice to their needs. ‘If a child can’t play, can’t listen and has poor attention, they’re not going to get the speech sound, and that can be worked on,’ says Ms Laflin.
‘We would try interaction with one other adult, include turn-taking games, shorter tasks and slow language. If a child has got poor attention, don’t make them sit on the carpet for half an hour. We can’t expect children to be fitting into neat brackets. We need to change our practice to support them.’
The value of gesture, as raised by the LuCiD research, is also embraced. ‘If a child points at something, you offer them the language to move their understanding on,’ says Ms Laflin. This is advocated even if the child has verbal ability. Ms Laflin explains, ‘If there’s a child that has some language but is reluctant to communicate what they want verbally, and they point at some milk, you might say, “Oh, yes, you want to get the milk out”, or, “Do you want the milk or the water?” Then you’ve taken what they’ve offered and given them a choice of two things. It’s all about moving that interaction forward in a way that keeps that child feeling safe.’
To keep the mood positive, Ms Laflin says, ‘We never use the word “no” if a child makes a mistake. We just model the correct language, without making it negative. So, if it’s a car, not a bar, we say, “It’s a car.” It’s important for the child not to feel like they’re getting it wrong, because they will be less likely to want to take the risk next time. With some children it often takes a very long time to get to that level and you wouldn’t want at that stage to knock back what is being offered.’
From her experience, language delay can affect children from all backgrounds, and all carers can learn from these tips. She finds some parents can be too keen to intervene, and points out it’s better to let children speak for themselves, however patchy. ‘Parents desperately want to help that child and they talk for that child, and take away the need for that child to talk,’ she explains. ‘It’s better to say later, “Remember when you’re excited, you need to slow down your talking so people will understand you.”’
Props
Children with such difficulties can ‘display frustration’, while others may withdraw, says Ms Laflin. ‘They’re the children who may get missed. It’s not just the spoken language, they don’t know how to involve themselves with play. Sometimes the role of the adult is to facilitate that.’
Ms Laflin gives the example of a girl at the Enrichment Centre who for neurological reasons finds forming words harder and also struggles with ‘play skills’. To encourage her, the team has been using a pretend teaset as a communication prop. ‘We set up a scenario and suggested to her, “Why don’t you pour next and ask your friend what they’d like?” We’ve got some lovely photos of her pouring tea for her friends. She loves role play. It’s a work in progress. The other children are more likely to include her in play if there’s interaction going on.’
Individuality is always respected. ‘Some just like being solitary,’ Ms Laflin says. ‘It’s just making sure, if they do want to be on their own, that they’ve got the skills [to be among people]. We would manage that with small-group sessions, or going somewhere with fewer children.’
Some children struggle to attach words to ideas, so during storytelling they benefit from having real objects as props to make the connections. Action-packed stories such as We’re Going on a Bear Hunt are an Enrichment Centre favourite for this technique. ‘We’d have the mud, the ice,’ says Ms Laflin. ‘Story sacks are really popular. And if we’re cooking, we’ll take them to the shop to buy the ingredients, so they can make the links. Some children have speech problems but are cognitively very bright, so find storytime easier.’
They also develop language for managing emotions. She explains, ‘It’s quite a high-order thing to develop empathy. We’d normally say something like, “It’s not your turn, you have to wait.” Or possibly, “Your friend looks sad, I wonder if it’s because you’ve taken their toy?” I might say, “You’re looking sad, is that because you haven’t got anyone to play with?” It’s having that kind of dialogue, rather than just, “Why are you sad?”’
One boy has a habit of expressing himself by lashing out, rather than speaking, and he is learning to manage this. ‘He is able to understand he wants to hit someone because he is cross,’ says Ms Laflin.
‘It’s is very empowering for children. They’re all going through lots of different things and, like adults, they’re not happy all the time.’
MORE INFORMATION
‘A third of children not “school-ready” for Reception’, http://bit.ly/1VRAUlz
Ludwick Nursery School, www.ludwick.herts.sch.uk
The children’s communication charity I CAN, www.ican.org.uk
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