What do children want to talk about when they start to speak? Surely the answers seem so obvious that it's hardly worth asking the question. But questioning the 'obvious' is often an important first step in research.
In the mid-1970s I was at Nottingham University developing a 'first words' language programme to help children who had severe learning difficulties with little or no speech. We developed some ingenious teaching techniques, using a 'comprehension' approach aimed at making sure that the children understood the words, and weren't just parroting them. These children were physically able to speak, but didn't have much of a vocabulary. We devised one for them - the names of different items of clothing, household objects, everyday objects outside. In the training sessions the children showed they understood the words. What they didn't do, in the main, was to use them in real-life settings. Where were we going wrong?
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