Threysol Child Development Solutions - Blog #Speech Therapy

Does Parent training promote learning in the child? Here's what one needs to know

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 20:36:00 +0530

From Infancy through childhood and beyond, children learn Speech, Language and other skills from their parents. These skills are learnt during their interaction with their parents through out the day. During this interaction , infants learn several skills through observation, exploration and analyzing the stimulus that is received. Parents act as moderators in guiding the infants to master their developmental milestones. For example, while babies are learning to put their first steps, parents slowly fade the support and encourage the child to walk independently. Similarly, in Speech and Language intervention parents play a major role in helping the children with Communication Disorders master the skills that has been targeted.

Children with 'Communication disorders' on average receive 3 hours of therapy or intervention program per week from the professional, rest of the time they will be in the company of their parents (excluding the school timings). Parents come in contact with children many times a day, during their daily routines, leisure time, play time etc., Communication skills, that has been mastered, has to be generalized in other contexts and with other people thus promoting sustainable communication. Parent training program is an effective evidence based approach to help children generalize their communication skills and promote independent living. By training the parents to follow the same methods and techniques that is planned and followed by the therapist will help in speeding up the learning process. It is evident that skills that are practiced intensively followed by correct prompt fading methods helps the child to retain the skills that are learnt and to respond spontaneously and independently.

A Speech and Language Therapist will demonstrate how to stimulate language at home in different contexts. Language stimulation techniques like modelling, self play, parallel play, extension, expansion etc, helps children to learn language while doing their daily routines, activities, play, reading, singing etc.

A Behavior Analyst will train parents to analyze child's behavior and respond appropriately. As antecedents and consequences control the behavior, parents can be trained on how to change the A's and C's to increase desirable behavior or to decrease undesirable behavior. Mand counting, DTT and other methods help parents to promote verbal behavior, to gain instructional control, to improve tolerance levels etc.

Parents doesn't include only mother, father also plays an equal and important role in the learning process. Studies have shown that when father's do story time it had great effect on children's language skills. Father's interact in a different way than mother's do. They play physical, rough and tough games that helps children develop larger muscle groups, balance, ability to take risks, overcome fear etc. Children who spend quality time with their fathers during their early childhood have developed better social skills, arithmetic skills, advanced language skills, great peer relationship. Involving fathers in the therapy helps them in understanding the intervention process and implement the same methods and techniques during their interaction with the child. It also helps in generalizing the skills that the child has learnt in various context and with different people.

Take away's for parents

Communication is done only when there is a need for it. When children are able to get access easily to their needs then there's no need of communication.
By changing the home environment and creating situations to request and express, children will learn to communicate.
Interact with the child frequently and model them on how to use language in different contexts. prompt them with correct words/ phrases/ sentences and respond after they repeat it correctly.
Define the 'Behavior' and respond accordingly.
Limit screen time and discuss with the child what they have learnt from the video or game.
Visual scheduling can be used to help children follow their routine and complete it.
Reinforce children verbally and by providing tangible reinforcers for their attempts to communicate.

'Total communication' what does it mean? How does it help in communication intervention?

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 20:33:36 +0530

'Communication' is the process of exchanging ideas, feelings, or thoughts between two or more people. This process happens both verbally and non - verbally. Studies explain that 93% of communication we do is through non - verbal mode, only 7% of it constitutes of verbal communication. Non-verbal communication comprises of gestures, facial expressions, body language, position of body, tone and pitch of voice etc. It includes different senses i.e touch, vision, hearing, taste and smell. Infants to adults learn from their environment from the inputs they receive from these senses. Hence it's a natural way of learning Speech and Language skills and skills related to other developmental areas. An infant or toddler understands that clap is an action related to a happy emotion through observation of facial expressions, body language and tends to repeat it whenever he/she feels happy. Hence it is not only verbal communication but also non-verbal communication accounts for learning in children.

"Total communication is a communication philosophy - not a communication method and not at all a teaching method...Total communication is an approach to create a successful and equal communication between human beings with different language perception and/or production...
To use Total communication amounts to a willingness to use all available means in order to understand and be understood."
- Hansen’s definition of Total Communication. “Aspects of deafness and total communication in Denmark” Hansen, B. (1980) The Center for Total Communication, Copenhagen. “

Total communication uses a variety of methods such as gesture, sign, drawing, facial expression and mime. It is based on the idea that any means of communication is valuable as long as it works.

Individuals with communication delay/disorder struggle on daily basis to communicate their needs to their family, friends and relatives leading to communicative failure which in turn results in anger and frustration. Children with Autism Spectrum disorders will have impairment in decoding the non-verbal mode of communication and often become aggressive when they are not able to communicate their needs resulting in tantrums. In such situation to fill the communication gap alternative and augmentative mode of communication will be helpful. Alternatives, like signs, may actually stimulate speech. Once intentional communicative intent is established one can notice a gradual reduction in tantrums.

Children with Autism can be taught to communicate through PECS (Picture Exchange Communication system), signs, communication boards, gestures. As children take time to observe, and learn to speak verbally through stimulation, alternative communication can act as temporary means of communication. For example, a child can be taught to use water sign to get access to water, or a child can give picture card of 'break' to adult to convey that he/she needs a break. Once the child starts vocalizing additional supports can be slowly faded away. Parents can explain to their child's teacher regarding child's communication level and the mode of communication used. Try to replace crying and tantrums with alternative communication to get access to needs, to seek attention or to avoid items or situations they are not comfortable with.

Communication doesn't only include expression, understanding is also an integral part of communication. Children who have difficulty in understanding can be taught through visual aids. During the early intervention period gestures, pointing or a picture card can be used to help the child follow instructions through modelling and by prompting the child physically to follow it. A child who is learning to sequence can be taught through textual clues, physical prompts or positional prompts. Several skills can be taught related to comprehension using 'Total communication' approach.

Similarly in articulation therapy, total communication approach can be used to help the child understand the placement and manner of production of speech sounds. For example, /g/ sound can be taught by providing tactile cue as it's a back sound, /w/ sound can be taught through visual feedback using mirror. Colored flash cards can be used to help the child to identify and discriminate the target sound with substituted sound. Practicing the sounds through the auditory, visual and text stimuli helps the child to stabilize and maintain correct production of sounds.

"Helen Keller, an american author, educator and political activist, who was deaf and blind learnt to communicate through sign - language in her early life and then verbally through touch lip reading, braille and finger spelling".

Know the journey of child into learning Speech and Language ...

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 20:30:25 +0530

Speech and Language is not learnt instantly. It takes a year for a child to utter 1 meaningful word after receiving continuous stimulation and interaction with parents. Speech and Language development starts right from the womb. Fetuses can hear things, including speech in the womb. A study done by Dr. Lawrence and team from the University of Kensas, reveals a month before they are born, fetuses can distinguish between someone speaking to them in different languages.

“Research suggests that human language development may start really early a few days after birth,” said Utako Minai, associate professor of linguistics and team leader for the study. “Babies a few days old have been shown to be sensitive to the rhythmic differences between languages. Previous studies have demonstrated this by measuring changes in babies’ behavior; for example, by measuring whether babies change the rate of sucking on a pacifier when the speech changes from one language to a different language with different rhythmic properties. “This early discrimination led us to wonder when children’s sensitivity to the rhythmic properties of language emerges, including whether it may, in fact, emerge before birth,” Minai said. “Fetuses can hear things, including speech, in the womb. It’s muffled, like the adults talking in a ‘Peanuts’ cartoon, but the rhythm of the language should be preserved and available for the foetus to hear, even though the speech is muffled.”

After birth, language acquisition continues. There has been a lot of debate on this language acquisition. Central in the debate on how native language is acquired is the question of nature or nurture. Three basic theories emerged explaining the language acquisition: innatist, cognitivist, and motherese theory.

1.The Innate theory asserts that language is an innate capacity and that a child’s brain contains special language-learning mechanisms at birth in which the main proponent of this theory is Chomsky (Pinker, 1994).

2.On the other hand, the cognitive theory by Jean Piaget (Wilburg, 2010) claims that language is just one aspect of a child’s overall intellectual development.

3.According to the input or Motherese theory, there are cultures in which speech is never addressed to language-learning children; therefore it must be possible to learn to talk by listening to adults talking to each other or by the environments surrounding them.

A conclusion made by comparing these theories made clear that both 'Nature and Nurture' plays an equal role in language acquisition. Parents do not teach the native language to their children formally. Although they may try to reinforce their child’s verbal behavior with smiles or other ways or through the gap between their mature linguistic competence and the child’s beginning by means of “baby talk”.

The native language is acquired through some stages, and every stage is passed near to adult’s language. There are six stages in children’s first language acquisition, namely:

1. Pre-talking stage / Cooing (0-6 months): Infants in this stage learn to turn head towards the source of sound, smile at parents, produce pleasurable vowel like sounds called cooing.

2. Babbling stage (6-8 months): In this stage they start producing consonant - vowel like combinations called Babbling; which is further divided into different stages.

3. Holophrastic stage (9-18 months): Children start producing meaningless consonant and vowel combinations with rhythm and intonation patterns like that of adults called Jargon Speech;. Around first birthday children utter their first meaningful word. They learn to identify and label things that are present in their respective environment. By 18 months on average children learn to say 40-50

words.

4. The two-word stage (18-24 months): Between this age group children start combining the words to form phrases. For example: baby water, papa come etc.

5.Telegraphic stage (24-30 months): Telegraphic is merely a descriptive term because the child does not deliberately leave out the non-content words, as does an adult sending a telegram, When the child begins to produce utterances that ere longer than two words, these utterances appear to be “sentence-like”.

6. Later multi word stage (30+months): This stage is fastest increase in vocabulary with many new additions every day; Post 3 years children learn syntax, morphology aspects of language.

As the language learning starts even before the birth of child, it is very important to talk to your fetus, to have consistent interactions post birth and monitor their development.

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