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Happy eaters

The way to a parent's heart is through role play, as one Sure Start team has found. Judith Napier reports Parents tend not to be switched on by the prospect of a workshop on how to communicate with their child. But offer a bit of slapstick featuring a giant baby, and it's a different matter.

Parents tend not to be switched on by the prospect of a workshop on how to communicate with their child. But offer a bit of slapstick featuring a giant baby, and it's a different matter.

Gateshead Sure Start workers are prepared to don a bib and throw a temper tantrum for a fun way of conveying serious messages about child development.

Speech and language therapist Beryl Hylton Downing says, 'My work is to do with communication, but I have to ride on the back of parents' concerns, and I am keen to jump anywhere that parents and babies have worries and where we can input into communication. Feeding is a very fraught issue for parents. If you hold an event about feeding, sleep, behaviour, you will bring in the parents. But communication on its own will not.'

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