Communication skills begin to develop in the womb, they then continue to change at a rapid rate from birth. Before babies are born they are responding to noises, including their parents’ voices. Once the baby enters the world they are building connections and attachments to significant care givers. All of these skills form the basis of language.
Language development is often thought of as ‘talking’, whilst this is a huge part of language there are other pieces of the jigsaw. It may be more useful to think of communication as a whole. Communication is made up of the following areas: Attention and Listening, Play, Social Interaction, Understanding of Language, Use of Language and Speech. Each of these areas work together to help us communicate with others.
Attention and Listening: This is a child’s ability to focus on the environment around them, the words they hear and the experiences they have. A child needs to hear thousands of hours of talking before they begin to talk, therefore it is important they can attend to a speaker. Babies start to develop this skill by focusing on a caregivers face and distinguishing that from the environment around them.
Social Interaction: This continues from babies looking at an adults face and sharing moments. Early interactions can be an indication of a growing child’s social skills. Spending time playing with your baby or your child, sharing moments of enjoyment from pulling faces to sharing excitement and interest in a toy your child has chosen.
Play: Play is the basis of learning for children, it provides them with the opportunity to explore and experiment. Playing with your children allows you to share new vocabulary in a fun and interesting way. Playing also allows for the development of a child’s imagination and storytelling abilities.
Understanding of Language: Children can usually understand more than they can express. Understanding begins with following routines and familiar instructions, developing into understanding new words and more complex instructions. This involves the processing of words, facial expressions and tone of voice.
Use of Language: This is what we know as talking. The words a child uses and the progression to phrases and sentences. Children begin talking in single words, once they have approximately 50 words they will begin to combine them e.g. ‘mummy gone’ ‘more cookie’ this will move onto longer phrases and sentences with the development of grammar and sentence structure.
Speech: There is often confusion between the terms ‘speech’ and ‘language’. As mentioned previously, language is the words and sentences a child uses. Speech is how they say the word. A baby’s babble is the early practice of these sounds. They often start with vowel sounds, increasing to a range of consonants. As children begin to use words they are often unclear initially, becoming clearer as the child gets older. By three years old a child should be understood approximately 75 per cent of the time.
Top Tips for Supporting Your Child’s Communication Skills.
- Play with your child: This play can begin from an early age; you can make silly faces, sing songs or play peek-a-boo. This will help your child build attention and listening, and social interaction skills. As the child gets older engaging in role play or sensory play will provide many language learning opportunities.
- Talk about what you are doing: Narrating your actions or your child’s actions provides them with the correct language for a specific activity. E.g. ‘I’m washing my hands’ ‘You’re jumping so high’.
- Reduce questions: Bombarding your child with questions can feel like a test. To support the natural flow of a conversation make comments or narrate what you are doing. Try to aim for three statements to every one question.
- Allow time to respond: When giving an instruction or asking a question, allow your child time to process the language and make a response. 5-10 seconds may feel like an eternity in the moment, but this will give your child the time to understand the information and formulate a response.
- Reduce screen time: There are many apps out there promoting learning and language skills. However all evidence shows that children learn language through interaction with another person. Spending time playing and talking with your child will support their development far more than a tablet or a phone.
In summary, communication development is complex with several interconnected aspects. Supporting your child’s communication will set them up for success in all areas of learning throughout their lives.
