Learning to talk is a vital developmental task for the pre-schooler. By the time children are approaching school entry, they need to be fluent communicators. They should be able to take part in conversations, follow stories, appreciate jokes and be able to use language to express their thoughts, emotions and experiences.
The ability to communicate is the basis of social and emotional wellbeing. It is also the key to all future education. Children who start school with poor language skills are likely to have a long struggle ahead. No amount of input on literacy targets will help a child who has not yet acquired the ability to understand and use spoken language.
But learning to talk is an immensely complex process. The first thing babies have to learn is that the sounds coming from their mouth are meaningful. Then, slowly, they will match certain sounds or words to a specific person, object or event (for example, 'Mum' and 'Bye-bye'). Babies need to hear words repeatedly in a meaningful context before they will be able to, first, understand them and, later, say them themselves.
The next stage is to work out how words are joined together; how meanings are altered by word endings and by the way sentences are put together. ('The fish ate the man', for example, does not mean the same as 'The man ate the fish' -even though exactly the same words are used.) Somehow, without any formal lessons, children work out how their mother tongue is put together. One expert, Professor David Crystal, has commented, 'Acquisition of a first language is the most complex skill anyone ever learns. And this task needs to be virtually complete by the time a child reaches school age.'
Fortunately, for most children, this phenomenal process unfolds without problems. But a significant minority of children are not so lucky. In fact, speech and language difficulties are the most common neurodevelopmental problem of the pre-school years. Between 14 per cent and 20 per cent of children have problems, with significantly more boys than girls being affected. And for more than 40 per cent of these children, their difficulties will not be identified until they are at school - which is far too late.
Why are language problems so often overlooked? The reason is partly that language delay is an invisible disability with no physical symptoms. Children can use non-verbal cues, such as facial expression and tone of voice, to work out what is being said. This means it can be surprisingly difficult to work out precisely how much verbal understanding a pre-school child has. For example, if the bath taps are running after tea and a parent says to a child, 'Come along and take your clothes off', how much understanding does a child need in order to follow this direction? A familiar bedtime routine and the sound of the tap running will provide all the information that the child needs.
There is another reason why language delay is so often missed. If a child is slow to develop speech and language, this does not impact on parents' lives in the same way as difficulties with sleeping, feeding or toilet training might. The implications of language delay can be long term and far reaching, but the early indications easily pass unnoticed. Although we all depend on language every day of our lives, we also take it very much for granted. It is just assumed that when they reach 12 to 15 months of age, children will start to talk. However, the foundations for talking need to be put down months before the first word is even spoken.
Learning to talk begins from the moment of birth. Babies start to communicate by instinct. They love the sound of the human voice and within weeks are able to identify their mother's voice. They also love looking at faces. Smiling, making eye contact, responding to being talked to and touched are vital communication skills that develop very early. Throughout our lives, these non-verbal skills continue to play an important part in how we interact with others. Certainly anyone working with pre-school children needs to be aware of all the different ways, apart from speech, that children use to communicate.
Ways to communicate
There are many ways that children communicate in addition to language:
* gazing
* pointing
* gesture (for example, putting both hands up to show that they'd like to be picked up)
* miming
* through objects (for example, picking up their boots to show that they'd like to go outside)
* taking an adult towards something that they want
* behaviour (for example, throwing, hitting or fetching a cloth to mop up spilt juice)
* facial expressions
* vocalising (for example, laughing, screaming, crying)
* body language (for example, turning their head away from someone; running towards someone with open arms).
A child with few or no words will still have many ways of communicating. We need to take the time to observe children carefully if we want to respond sensitively - although non-verbal communication can be obvious. For example, a child who pushes his cup away at drink time, tips the milk out, cries, or shakes his head is sending a very clear message!
Once we have established how a child is communicating, we can then look at how to create the best learning environment. This will involve adapting our own:
* language content
* sentence length
* style of communicating to suit the personality of different children.
Spoken language development
In normal development, a child's ability to understand will always be ahead of their ability to talk. Understanding of spoken language emerges from all that vital non-verbal interaction between adult and child during the first year of life.
Stage 1
Pre-language
At this stage, a child develops the 'building blocks' of language: awareness of others (especially voices and faces); attention and listening.
Stage 2 Situational understanding
Children use their knowledge of situations and routines to learn the meaning of the words they hear. For example, they will know it's drinks time when they see the cups being handed out - and not, at first, because they understand the words. But if the same words are spoken every morning, children will begin to recognise them.
Stage 3
Understanding single words
Children start to understand that the words they hear are related to objects, actions and feelings. They will acquire a basic vocabulary of the words they hear every day. Children at this stage may appear to understand more than single words, but this is usually because, in everyday situations, it is often enough to understand just one key word in a sentence. For example, 'Please will you go upstairs now and fetch your shoes' is a ten-word sentence. But a child could get the message just by understanding the word 'shoes'.
Stage 4
Understanding two key words
Children at this stage can understand two key words in a longer sentence. For example, 'Put teddy on the bed'.
Stage 5
Understanding sentences
Children can now understand longer sentences with three or more key words. They will also be able to cope with more complex and conceptual vocabulary. Three-year-olds will be learning words that indicate size (big/little), position (in/on/under) and properties (hot/cold; wet/dry, etc). They will also begin to understand events beyond the here and now. This means they will be able to understand sentences such as, 'Mummy's gone to work but she'll be back soon', and 'When we've done the shopping we can go to the park.'
Supporting language development
To help children's understanding of spoken language:
* Use short sentences. For example, 'Richard's finished all his drink' could be shortened to 'Finished!' while pointing to Richard if the children are at Stage 2 or 3 (see above).
* Use words that you know the child already understands.
* When introducing new words, show children a picture or an object to help them understand the meaning.
* Use intonation, gesture and repetition to emphasise the important words in a sentence.
* Don't talk too fast.
* Allow plenty of time for children to respond.
* Notice what a child is interested in and then talk about that.
* Add an extra word. Listen to what a child is saying then repeat it, adding one extra word. For example if a child says, 'Juice', the adult could say, 'Oh, more juice?'
* Break down long sentences. For example, 'Rashid, please go and get the bricks and put them on the table', could be broken down into: 'Rashid' (wait for him to respond to his name), 'Please get the bricks' (wait for him to get the bricks), 'and put them on the table'.
Development of talking
Before words
Babies use their voices to communicate from the moment they utter their first cry. Between two and five months of age, they start to coo and vocalise, using the same vowel sounds as their mother tongue. From about six months, babies start to 'babble' and these vowel sounds will then be joined to consonants to produce syllables like 'ma' and 'ba'.
Between nine and ten months, strings of sounds are put together with conversational intonation. At this stage it is easy to think a child is saying something when in fact it's still just babble with either no real words or only a few real words.
First words
A child's first words may include:
* symbolic noises ('brrmm-brrmm')
* early naming words ('Mum', 'juice')
* early action words ('sleep', 'fall', 'jump')
* social words ('bye-bye')
* words such as 'more', 'gone'.
Joining words together
A child needs to have an expressive vocabulary of at least 50 single words before they will start to join words together in short phrases, such as 'Daniel drink', 'car gone', 'more juice'.
Making sentences
As children's understanding and vocabulary grow, they will start to produce longer sentences. To do this they will have to be able to use a range of different kinds of words: naming words, action words, describing words (big, dirty, pretty), linking words (and, but) and so on.
Helping children talk
The most important thing is to motivate children to want to communicate. Not surprisingly, children will want to talk more if someone is showing an interest in what they are saying. They are also more likely to communicate with people they like and feel comfortable with. Many adults speak to children in a way that sounds directive or critical. It is also worth remembering that bombarding children with questions can make them feel under pressure - and stop talking.
To motivate children to talk:
* Observe what a child is interested in and talk about that.
* Comment on what a child is doing, using simple language. For example when a child is washing her hands, the adult could make simple comments using words such as 'water', 'hot', 'dirty hands', 'plug in', 'where's the soap?' * Don't talk too much. Give the child an opportunity to talk as well.
* Repeat what a child says to show you have been listening.
* Appear interested in what a child is saying. Show your interest through body language and facial expression. Smiling and nodding are encouraging signals.
* Don't ask too many questions - especially ones that you already know the answer to, such as 'What colour is that?' This is getting the child to 'perform' and is therefore not real communication.
* Remember, almost any situation can be used as a 'talking time', including getting ready to go outside, a spilt paint pot or a noisy aeroplane flying overhead.
* Select topic vocabulary carefully and repeat it constantly in different contexts to encourage familiarity.
* If a child is having difficulty learning new words, focus on ones that will be most useful to her. For example, words that help the child to express her needs and interact more effectively with others.
Children learning to talk do not pronounce words exactly like adults. They acquire the different speech sounds slowly, in a developmental order. Children of two, three and even four will not yet have a full range of sounds. It can, therefore, be difficult at times to understand what they are saying.
The important thing to remember is not to make a child repeat a word to say it correctly. The child will almost certainly be unable to do this, but they will realise what they have said is unsatisfactory in some way, which may reduce their motivation to talk at all.
The most helpful thing an adult can do is to repeat the word back to the child, saying it correctly. That way he will hear how the word should sound without feeling criticised. He will also know that he has been listened to!
