Supporting Early Speech-Language Development

Strategies for Ages 0-8

Kimberly Boynton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000370768
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Learn how to support developmentally rich language learning environments during a child's first eight years of life! This book demonstrates how to build foundations for a strong communication system, distinguish typical and disordered speech and language, and develop a deep understanding of the brain and language development connection. Featuring clear guidance on how to work with parents and speech-language pathologists, educators will find easy to implement strategies for supporting healthy communication and navigating any stumbling blocks in the early childhood classroom.

1
Introduction

The concept of this book grew out of many years of my speech-language pathology clinical practice in a variety of settings, including early childhood education and intervention, PreK-12 school experiences, private practice, and now teaching and clinical supervision in higher education. The realization of this book from my continued desire to serve as a collaborative partner with talented, committed, and caring parents and early childhood educators. Regardless of the setting of my clinical practice, teaching, and learning, my focus on supporting positive and effective communication for all individuals, with a particular commitment to young communicators, remains my steadfast goal. I convey the importance of this work to the students I teach in my college classrooms in each course I teach. I encourage these aspiring, future speech-language pathologists to reflect on effective communication and communication breakdowns with enthusiastic critical thinking and reflective problem-solving. When I am actively engaged in clinical practice opportunities, I reflect on and continue to make note of the various scenarios and associated interactions supported by effective communication. It is the reason I continue to strive to learn and grow in my understanding of speech and language assessment and intervention, as well as the theory and brain development associated with our communicative function, processes, and interactions. I have been inspired over the years by the young children and families I have been invited to work with, as well as the knowledgeable colleagues and aspiring student clinicians who work collaboratively to build strong supports for young communicators within the natural settings of their daily lives.

My various clinical experiences, spanning from birth through high school, have been solidly based in evidence-based, speech-language pathology practice serving children and families during their early childhood years and beyond, combined with my desire to provide a collaborative and practical presentation of speech and language information for early childhood educators. My passion for supporting young children and families during the early childhood years has continued to grow during my career as I have continued to find consistent evidence of the importance and value of developing a strong foundation for speech and language development beginning during the earliest years, through positive and authentic speech and language learning opportunities. Early childhood educators, caregivers, and parents are central and essential participants in the process of the acquisition and development of a young communicator’s speech and language learning journey. Providing robust, language-rich environments, combined with various opportunities for children to actively engage in meaningful communication exchanges as participants, not observers, builds a means for ongoing growth and development for future effective communication use.

I continue to be afforded so many wonderful and exciting experiences and opportunities in my clinical practice to participate in the planting of language and speech learning seeds that support the encouragement and growth of a continuous love of learning with our youngest learners. Additionally, I find ongoing joy in the opportunity to work collaboratively with families and early childhood educators to support the building of communication bridges to support effective and functional communication during the development and use of speech and language in the early childhood years, across multiple natural environments in the daily life context of young children. My practical experience, joined with my literature review, as well as clinical knowledge I have developed during my years of clinical practice, in the areas of early childhood education theory and practice, speech acquisition and development, and language development and use, offer a platform for sharing thoughtful and practical ideas to utilize in a young child’s natural environment to support the complex and dynamic role of communicating thoughts, ideas, needs, and emotions, as well as, following directions, understanding routines, and answering questions. These strategies, tools, and ideas are not meant to be exhaustive in nature, but instead offer considerations, springboards for additional ideas, and affirmations to support the valuable and robust speech and language development activities already embedded into many early childhood educators’ classrooms and young children’s home environments. Our youngest learners and their families offer us the opportunity to join them on their learning journey through engaging in supportive activities and strategies to encourage their creativity, join in their imaginative excitement, and travel on the journey with them as they acquire and develop important speech and language skills needed for the ongoing growth of effective, efficient, and functional communication.

When the communication system works effectively and efficiently, we generally find joy in our interactions and often seek out additional opportunities to connect with others. I strive continuously to find ways to support this joy and success of communication for all young children, regardless of their current communication skills and modes. Consider the idea that all children are communicating with us, but the means of communication will vary dependent upon the situation, as well as the skills and communication modes in the child’s communication profile. My hope in writing this book is that it will provide practical, easy to implement ideas you will want to consider implementing. Additionally, I hope you will find new and fun strategies to try, or perhaps the desire to revisit some previous strategies you haven’t used recently with the young learners engaging in communication exchanges in your life. The journey of speech and language acquisition and development is an exciting and ongoing path with several twists and turns, some barriers and roadblocks, and sometimes a need for planting seeds for continued growth or building of bridges to support stronger, more effective communication. The seeds we plant for future communication growth and the bridges we build with young children, to encourage the sharing of ideas in the early years, are important to this ongoing speech and language acquisition and development. Additionally, the ongoing effective use of the skills acquired in natural settings is a central focus for generalizing the skills into a child’s routines, daily activities, and communication with peers and adults. Keep in mind the important consideration that the foundation you help build is extremely important as a child transitions into early elementary school, the upper elementary years, middle school, high school, and then post-secondary life. When we pause to consider the impact of the strong foundation built during the early childhood years, we begin to realize the reality that we only see a glimpse of the child’s use of these skills, but we often have the distinct honor of seeing the potential of children’s bright and exciting futures as they grow in confidence and independence to chart their own unique learning and life path. The speech, language, and literacy foundation during these early childhood education years, specifically during the critical birth to eight years, contributes to reading, writing, and overall literacy development in years to come. As early childhood educators, the positive impact you make in the lives of young children is realized for years after they leave your classroom, as they take the next step in their education and life journey with the communication skills, persistence, and excitement for learning instilled by parents and educators during their early years of life.

It will benefit us to introduce the concept and importance of literacy in our daily lives and interactions. The foundation will support our ongoing discussion in the chapters found within this book. I think we likely have all observed that we live in a literate society with reading and writing at the core of many opportunities and interactions. Consider the ways we obtain and process information in our lives, during our routines, within our work and educational settings, in our homes, and within social situations. Academic and social literacy are equally influential in the lives of all individuals, including reading books, social media, restaurant menus, signs, and other information methods and platforms. Understanding and utilizing the appropriate use of speech and language in interpersonal interactions, as well as understanding and use of academic or more formal language in formal education or work settings, both serve a role in effectively engaging in and navigating the world around us. In my opinion, it is impossible to minimize the role that literacy plays in our personal, educational, and societal lives. Understanding the impact that early naturalistic play-based learning opportunities have in the building of speech and language skills may have an undeniably important link to considering the role of literacy across contexts, listeners, and various daily situations as children learn and grow. The early childhood years provide excellent opportunities to teach, practice, and support future complex communication through building a strong, stable, and generalizable foundation, built upon play-based, developmentally appropriate, naturalistic learning and growth opportunities.

As a speech-language pathologist, I embrace the joy and reward of effective communication, but I also often frequently observe, firsthand, the frustration and disappointment of communication breakdowns in homes and classrooms, on playgrounds, and in a variety of other natural contexts and environments in a child’s life. The breakdowns can occur between a variety of communication partners, including adults or children, and in a variety of situations. Additionally, these communication breakdowns may occur for a variety of reasons. The causes of communication breakdowns may be obvious or may require more analysis of the situation to determine the reason for the ineffective exchange, resulting in a communication breakdown. Regardless of the reason for the breakdown in effective communication, the ineffective result of communication attempts often causes frustration, reluctance to continue attempting communication, or reduced communication confidence, particularly with recurring failed attempts. A single communication breakdown may cause frustration, but recurring breakdowns may result in reluctance to attempt or engage in future communication exchanges. I find myself considering this impact with each individual child I work with to determine how to approach building bridges for immediate short-term and continued long-term communication success.

There is no way to deny that communication is an essential part of our daily lives, including nonverbal and verbal means. We use communication to engage in and navigate the world around us. Unsuccessful attempts to engage in expressing oneself or understanding the meaning of vocabulary, answering questions, or following directions may inhibit a child’s learning and may also result in challenging social interactions. When we consider the many opportunities, we have each day to communicate, including language expression and comprehension, we also must consider the possibility of various communication breakdowns impacting overall effective and functional communication attempts that can also occur. We communicate in various ways each day through words, signs, gestures, pictures, and facial expressions. Additionally, we hear, process, understand, and respond to various receptive communication stimuli in our natural environments that provide important information for the navigation of the world around us. Effectively engaging in communication within our various environments requires the systematic combination of expressing ourselves and understanding communication input. The combined verbal and non-verbal system of communication is built on social rules, language expression, language understanding, and the use of the language modalities. It isn’t enough for us to understand the domains and modalities of language. We must then be able to incorporate and use them effectively in the context of our daily lives. In some cases, the use of these language skills in the context of daily life is where the breakdown occurs. Perhaps a child understands the structure and system of language or sounds, but is unable to effectively use these skills across natural contexts in daily communication encounters. These various and often complex modes of communication are simply a glimpse at the multiple and varied verbal and nonverbal ways we communicate, as well as process and respond to auditory stimuli in a variety of situations and environments. Many of us utilize language each day without a thought about the complexity or speed of our communication processing and exchanges. We may give little thought or consideration to what we communicate verbally, as well as the associated non-verbal communication. In fact, these communication exchanges may occur automatically with high levels of effectiveness as a result of our solid and generalizable communication system. The complexity of communication may not be a consideration in our daily interactions due to our ability to utilize the communication system with little to no breakdown. Perhaps, you haven’t ever paused to think about how you knew someone was upset, happy, or frustrated without explicitly using words to state her feelings. Have you considered the impact of nonverbal communication when your friend, who was talking on the phone, pointed to the paper on his desk you were there to pick up, to indicate you have permission to take the paper without him pausing from his phone conversation? How did you process, understand, and respond to the message he was delivering without the explicit use of verbal communication? Perhaps we only pause to consider the complexity of these systematic language interactions when a breakdown occurs. This is reasonable and expected, given that analyzing and problem-solving isn’t necessary during each communication interaction, but it may be worth pausing briefly to identify that communication is a complex system regardless of the need to reflect and critically think on a daily basis about our communication encounters.

I would encourage you to pause for a moment and consider all the ways you communicate each day. Consider how many times you communicate on a daily basis. I am guessing too many to count and recall. I am a speech-language pathologist, so I admittedly communicate a great deal each day. In fact, like many of you, too many times to accurately quantify daily into numbers of attempts and interactions without setting up a specific systematic method of data collection for that purpose. I would venture to guess many of us communicate more than we realize through our verbal and non-verbal interactions. Do you use gestures, words, facial expressions? Do you find yourself utilizing one of these more than others in your communication exchanges? Are there ways you convey you are happy, sad, or mad without words? Have there been instances when someone knows how you are feeling or what you are thinking before you speak a single verbal word? When observing others engaging in communication exchanges, do you notice messages conveyed without words? What does the calm teacher with a warm smile greeting a child at the classroom door convey? How about the young child in the block area who is pointing and jumping up and down with excitement sharing his success at building a tall tower that hasn’t fallen over yet? Or the mother with a big smile and tears streaming down her cheeks as her young child refers to her as “mama” for the first time? These are only a few examples of verbal and nonverbal communication exchanges that could occur in our daily interactions. These communication exchanges hold significant meaning without verbal expression. There are too many examples to describe and count. They are often individualized to the communicator and the situation. Consider the connection between our nonverbal and verbal communication. Perhaps you have experienced scenarios when the verbal and nonverbal communication didn’t appear connected. Additionally, we can find meaning in the context of a situation, making a known context helpful, and often times essential for an effective communication exchange. Context can offer breadth and depth of understanding and meaning to a communication exchange. In fact, I have observed the introduction of contextual information positively impact the effectiveness of a communication exchange on many occasions in my years of clinical practice. Consider the role contextual cues, background knowledge, or shared information about a particular topic has played in the effectiveness of communication exchanges you have engaged in during your daily interactions.

Communication is a platform spanning all languages, contexts, and scenarios connecting us with each other and the world around us. Communication provides speakers and listeners of all ages with opportunities to use verbal and nonverbal language to express, understand and respond, engage in reciprocal communication exchanges, and convey thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Adults and children alike have a desire to communicate effectively and efficiently in a variety of situations with a multitude of communication partners. I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Meet the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Play and the Ages and Stages of Speech and Language Development
• Chapter 3: Brain Development and Language
• Chapter 4: Vocabulary Building and Phonological Awareness: The How and Why
• Chapter 5: Building the Optimal Communication Environment for all Communicators
• Chapter 6: Children with Speech and Language Delays or Disorders
• Chapter 7: The Communication Breakdown