Speech and Language Therapy Resource File

SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY RESOURCE FILE

INTRODUCTION Introduction 4 Learning to Talk 5 Functional Communication 6 Play Development 7 Encouraging Play Skills 9 EARLY COMMUNICATORS Developing Early Communication Skills 11 Shared Attention – General Strategies 14 Attention and Listening – General Strategies 16 Attention and Listening – Ideas for Activities 18 Attention and Listening – Group Activities 20 Developing Cause and E ffect 22 Turn Taking – General Strategies 23 Visual Understanding 24 Visual Timetables 25 Developing Choice Making Skills 27 Imitating Sounds 28 Pointing 30 Creating Opportunities for Communication 31 Eye Contact – General Strategies 33 Imitation of Actions 34 Using Objects of Refer ence 36 EARLY WORDS Developing Pro-words 38 Encouraging Early Words 39 Body Parts 40 Activities to Encourage Early Words 41 Verbs 44 Following Instructions (1 Word Level) 45 COMBINING WORDS Encouraging 2 Word Combinations 47 Big and Little 48 Prepositions 49 SESSIONS PLANS Individual Play Plans to Promote Communication 51 Early Communication Stages 53 Sample Session Plans – Early Communicator Stage 54 Sample Session Plans – Early Words and Gestures 58 Sample Session Plans – Building Vocabulary and Understanding 62 ADDITIONAL SESSIONS PLANS Basic Skills Session Plans 1-5 Section I 65 Target Words Session Plans 6-10 Section II 70 Complex Needs Plan11 Section III 87

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The Speech and Language Therapy Resource File is intended for use by those who work with children on a regular basis, be it nursery or meithrin staff, play workers, health visitors etc…

The purpose of the file is to give advice and activities to encourage pre-verbal and early language skills.

The rationale behind the devel opment of the fil e was to equip those who work with children with additional information regarding communication and provide them with appropriate activities.

The file is divided into sections according to the level of the child’s communication skills, starting with pre-verbal up to two-word combinations. Each section has a combination of strategies to promote communication and specific activities to be used with individual children.

The ethos of early intervention is that children learn through play and this is greatly helped by an adult providing a positive communication role model. The Speech and Language Therapy Resource File provides a range of strategies to promote the prerequisites of communication skills within the daily routine of the child care setting. Remember to stay relaxed and to HAV E FUN because thi s is the best way for all of us to learn.

The Speech and Language Therapy Resource File has been written by the Carmarthenshire Sure Start Speech and Language Therapists Clare Price, Emily Evans and Suzy Brown. It is part of our early intervention package aimed at informing child care workers and giving the best possible opportunities for children to learn language and develop life skills.

Learning to talk begins right after birth but is not necessarily easy. The process involves: « Listening « Understanding « Thinking « Wanting and needing to speak « Muscle co-ordination

Children learn to talk at different ages; some will say their first word at a year old while others will be over two. Generally, most children will have started to speak by 18 months old. Children need to be encouraged to talk as much as they are encouraged to walk. Children need to hear speech around them and have people talk to them in order to learn to speak.

Initial words may be unclear and this is perfectly normal. It is important to be patient and to give the child lots of opportunities to speak.

Advice:

1. Talk to the child when you are playing together. Encourage them to play and follow their lead but do not take over the play. 2. Sing nursery rhymes and action songs. This is a good way to practise speech sounds without putting pressure on them and wi ll raise awareness of language. 3. Encourage the child to listen to different sounds around them e.g. aeroplanes, animals, noises from daily routines. Make a game of i mitating the sounds. 4. Make sure you have the chil d’s full attention when you talk together. 5. Switch off the tel evision to reduce distractions. 6. Encourage the child to communicate in any way possible to them e.g. speech, pictures, signs, gestures etc. 7. Gestures help to reinforce links between words and meanings and help support word retrieval. 8. Give the child choices to help increase vocabulary and the need to indicate their choice. 9. Talk about activities as they happen e.g. bath time. 10. Include the child in interesting activities to give them something to talk about e.g. trip to the park. 11. Give the child time to finish what they are saying and listen carefully. Do not anticipate needs and take it in turns to speak. 12. Give the child opportunities to speak with peers and familiar adults. This helps to provide positive role models and language models. 13. Add words to the chil d’s attempts e.g. ‘ball’ à ‘throw ball’, ‘ball gone’. 14. If the child says something incorrectly, model it back in the correct way e.g. ‘toap’, ‘yes, soap’. Do not tell the child to say ‘soap’ or repeat words. This may create a negative attitude towards speaking. 15. Set aside a time each day to spend with the child to play together and look at books.

Children need the means to co mmunicate, a reason to communi cate and the oppor tunity to communicate. It is important to reflect on all these areas of communication.

MEANS REASONS

Speech Vocali sations Basic needs - request/refuse Signs Written Words something, express feelings, get Symbols Objects of ref. attention, want somet hing to happen or Facial exp. Eye contact not, give and receive information, make Gesture Body Movement and maintain relationships, pleasure of Touch Physical chat, socialisation. Behaviour Posture

How? Why?

OPPORTUNITIES

Time and space, real choices/ Options, responsive people and environment, shared language and interests.

When? Where? Who with?

Reference: Money, D. (1997) A comparison of three approaches to delivering a speech and language therapy service to people with learning disability, European Journal of Disorders of Communication, 32 (4), p449-466.

The development of a child’s play patterns follow a definite course and is closely linked with the development of language. Speech and language are basically systems of symbols. Sounds are put together to produce words, and words symbolise meanings. The link between the word and the meaning has to be learned, as there is nothing about the word that indicates the meaning.

For a child to learn language they need to develop a symbolic understanding of increasingly complex and arbitrary entities. A child learns the meaning of symbols through play.

Exploratory and Relational Play

1. Looking at a toy 2. Reaching for, grasping and shaking toys Exploratory 3. Mouthing toys play 4. Handling toys, feeling and rubbing 5. Squeezing, stretchi ng, throwing and dropping toys

When the child can maintain interest in 2 toys at a time, other activities emerge 6. Banging toys together Relational 7. Piling one toy on top of the other play 8. Putting one toy inside another

Functional Representative Play

Objects or toys are used meaningfully in relation to the child e.g. brushing own hair with a toy brush. The child will also include another person e.g. brushing mum’s hair. Objects will be related to a doll or a teddy e.g. brushing a doll’s hair. As a child develops, actions can be combined in play sequences.

Symbolic Play

Objects are not used for their intended purpose e.g. make a cake from sand and bake it. This is symbolic play.

Pretend play, like language, involves the use of symbols, which is why it is called symbolic play. During pretend play objects can be used as symbols to represent absent objects e.g. a shoebox for a car. This ability to use objects symbolically and to take something else’s perspective is thought to be an important part of cognitive and language devel opment. The child understands that one picture or object can symbolise another, just as a spoken word represents an object.

Children whose ability to use symbols is impaired (as with children with developmental delays) usually have delays in both language and play.

The child will begin to create sequences at this point in play and will often follow the same sequences over and over in their play e.g. a child pretending to be the teacher .

Social play skills develop firstly with adults and then with children.

« Play with Adults - Early social play takes place through imitation of an adult’s actions and sounds. - Games such as pat -a-cake and peek-a-boo are early social games. - Later children will later look at picture books with adults and early turn taking also begins. - Children will begin to imitate the actions which adults do with toys e.g. running a car along and saying ‘brum brum’.

« Play with Children - Initially children play alongside other children rather than with them. They often play different games. - Group activities e.g. story time at nursery, encourages children to imitate the actions of their peers. - Activities that encourage turn taking skills are good and ensure that children play with their peers at the same game. T his is co-operative play. - In social play, children learn to follow simple rules to games.

Play is the most important way in which children learn to communicate and get along with others. Try to spend some time playing with the child in a quiet area without too many distractions. Playing with peers is also an important developmental tool.

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 9 Encouraging Play Skills Play is a key skill in language development and social interact ion….. Please see section on ‘play development’ for information on the following play stages. Below are some ideas for encouraging skills at each stage.

Exploratory Play: Ø Sensory play experiences such as touching different textures. You could base this around a particular theme, e.g. autumn could focus on feeling crunchy leaves, touching the rough bark of a tree. Sensory play can also incorporate tastes, smell and touch. Ø Use lots of exciting interactive toys such as toys which light up or make sounds. Toys or books with different textures or parts to press are excellent for children to explore. Ø Don’t worry if children put (safe) objects in their mouths. This is how children explore the world and gain lots of stimulation through mouthing of toys. Ø Children also begin to relate toys to one another at this stage. This can be encouraged by e.g. banging bricks together, putting things in boxes, or pulling objects out of containers.

Functional Representative Play: Ø Once children have learnt the function of real objects, they begin to learn to be more imaginative and play with representational toys i.e. toys representing real objects. Ø Use toys which represent real objects and encourage the child to use these obj ects on themselves or relating them to each other. e.g. toy kitchen utensils, toy tools, toy food etc… Ø Set up a ‘play situation’ e.g. a teddy and toy clothes, try to follow the child’s lead but you can also guide them in how to use the objects together. Ø Some other ideas are: dolly, and teddy having a tea party, hospital related toys and ‘doctor teddy’, kitchen toys and doll y, school related objects and ‘teacher figure’. Ø Once the child begins to relate the objects appropriately, you can encourage them to initiate play sequences e.g. pretending to pour milk into a toy cup, then pouring from a pour tea pot, and stirring it with a spoon. Another idea could be washing and dressing dolly, or collecting items in shopping bask et then pretending to pay.

Symbolic Play: Ø At this stage the child begins to play more imaginatively e.g. pretending that inanimate objects are real. Ø A pile of cardboard boxes can be used to symboli se a house, bus, shop. Ø A range of materials can be used for dressing up, and character play. Ø A line of chairs can be used to symboli se a train with passengers getting on and off. Ø A home corner or shop will facilitate symbolic play. Ø Make masks of animals for the children to promote role playing.

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1. Encourage vocalisations and show you are listening

« Repeating back the child ’s sounds and actions

« Give meaning to sounds e.g. child says ‘ah’ and lifts up arms, then interpret this as a word and say ‘up’ ‘you want up’ ‘up we go’. It does not matter if ‘ah’ is not a real word but by adding meaning yourself it encourages future words.

2. Encourage imitation which is an imp ortant skill for learning language

« First imitate the child’s actions and vocalisations. It is best to do this in a face to face position, on the same level e.g. on the floor.

« Songs and rhymes encour age imitation e.g. clapping hands, ‘e i e i oh’

« Use simple sounds during play activities e.g. ‘oo’ – bubbles ‘mm’ – eating food ‘ah’ – hug doll

Remember that children learn through repetition and you are likely to be bored before they are.

3. Establish Turn Taking

« Take turns building towers with bricks say ‘my turn’, ‘your turn’ so you establish a routine.

« Post toys or pictures into a box.

« Take turn if the child vocalises by copying.

4. Encourage mouth movements and blowing

« Make noises such as tongue clicking, lip smacking, kissing, raspberries etc.

« Teach the child to blow e.g. blowing bubbles in the bath, making bubbles, blow paint on paper, blowing feathers off your hand etc.

« Wean the child off a dummy as soon as possible and encourage good feeding habits such as dri nking from a cup and chewi ng food.

« Try to have a quiet time without background noise so that the child can listen to you without any distractions.

« Songs and nursery rhymes have natural rhythm and tunes. Try to go slowly and when the child is familiar with the song then encourage participation e.g. pause for vocalisation or gesture.

« Encourage gestures al ongside the song e.g. the wheels on the bus.

« Use different voices e.g. quiet, loud whilst reading books. Adapt books to the l evel of the child as they will become bored if it is too difficult.

6. Concept Development

« Object Constancy This is the notion that a cup is a cup whether it is green, blue, at home or in a café.

« Object Permanence This is the idea that just because an object or a person is no longer in sight it still exists e.g. a toy dropped from a highchair.

« Object Identity This is a concept that an object has a name and it is recognised when named. A child will learn associations with words and very familiar objects or events.

« Relational Concepts Some early concepts include objects are here (now), objects disappear (gone) and objects come back ( more)

« Cause and Effect This is the awareness that something will consistently happen depending on an action e.g. press button, light will come on.

All of the above concept areas can be worked on in play situations:

« Sorting games where you sort out two different items e.g. cup/spoon, cars/people. « Hide interesting toys or food items partially under a cloth. Can the child reveal the toy? Cover with a range of items e.g. boxes, different cloth, hands, closed containers etc. Let the child find the items. « Name objects, animals, people during every day life. « Posting games, hiding games and repeating the words ‘more’, ‘gone’, ‘here’ and ‘there’ frequently. « Use reactive toys e.g. jack in the box, push down car s, sound maker s etc.

« Young children often have a fleeting attention span but this develops with maturity and is an essential foundation for language.

« Link environmental sounds to their source e.g. ‘listen, water’, ‘phone’ etc.

« Make shakers with different sounds e.g. rice, sand, pasta, coconut. Contrast quiet and noisy and match sounds that are the same.

« Encourage the child to notice their name when it is called.

« Play ready, steady, go games so the child has to wait for a time before an interesting activity starts.

Shared attention occurs when you and the child are focussed on the same thing. It may not involve much talking but some joint eye contact is essential e.g. blowing bubbles together, looking at a book, playing with toys.

Shared attention is essential for developing social interaction and language development because language is learnt in the context of sharing information. The child gains your attention and then social interaction and language starts together. A child who is self sufficient and happy ‘doing their own thing’ may not be establishing shared attention skills and thereby not creating opportunities to learn language. This kind of child needs our active involvement to start social interaction and shar ed attention.

When the child has established shared attention in that they will allow you to interact with them, they will begin to show an inter est in what you do.

1. Link your praise and attention, directly to what the chil d is doing at that moment.

2. Make your presence obvious and interesting. Do things to yourself that you think the child might find interesting, bring what you are doing close to him and attract his attention.

3. When you are out and about, show the child things especially if you can touch them. Show the child only one thing at a time and keep your language simple and use additional communication e.g. body language and gestur es such as pointing.

4. If the child is holding a toy and standing opposite you, behave as if he/she is showing YOU the toy. Show i nterest and talk about the toy befor e giving it back.

5. Try to follow the child’s lead as much as possible and take an interest in what they are interested in.

6. If you see that the child is focussed on something, show interest and enthusiasm yourself, let them know you are trying to share something with them.

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 15 7. Use books e.g. books with flaps. Show the child that you are interested in the book, talk about what you can both see. Wait and see if the child can point at some of the pictures too.

8. Point to objects to encour age the child to focus on the same thi ng that you are.

9. Encourage the child to show you/other s when they have compl eted an acti vity.

1. Keep distractions to a minimum. Turn off the TV and radio and choose a quiet time when it is likely you will be able to give the child your full attention.

2. It is advisable to work at the table with good back and feet support. Smaller children will require smaller tables and chairs.

3. Initially the child may be unwilling or even refuse to sit on a chair, in which case you will need to gently (but firmly) support them in the chair and help them complete the activity before praising them and letting them get up.

4. Always make sure you know what you are going to do at each session and have the toys you need at hand so that you won’t need to get up and look for something, or fumble about finding the pieces of a par ticular toy. The child will quickly become bored and distracted if they have to wai t for you to organise yourself!

5. When you begin the session tell the child you are going to play and encourage them to come and sit at the table. Always begin with an exciting activity you know they will be motivated by.

6. Try to use toys/play games that have a definite start and finish e.g. puzzle, posting a certain amount of car ds so that the child can see how long they are expected to attend for. If they begin to lose attention show them e.g. how many more puzzle pieces there are before the activity is finished. Begin with short activities and gradually increase the length as their attention and listening skills improve.

7. Initially it is better to engage the child in several short but interesting activities rather than one long one.

8. It is essential to have a large box and put in it the toys you are going to use that day. Encourage the child to put toys away as they are completed during the session. Make sure you tell them when the activity has “finished” and guide them to put the toy away if they don’t do this independently.

9. Make sure the child is looking at you when you ar e talking/giving instructions.

10. Give as much help and guidance as needed in order that the child doesn’t become frustrated and remember to praise achievements using a positive tone of voice. Remember to praise even if the session hasn’t gone completely to plan or if it seems as if you have done most of the wor k.

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 17 11. If the child gets up from the table, ask them to return, if they fail to do so begin to put the toys away. If they return to the table before you have finished putting the toys away then praise them before continuing with the session. If the child does not return and has lost interest completely, don’t worry just try again when you have the next session.

12. Try to record the length of time the child has spent sitting down and playing with you even if it’s only for a couple of minutes.

13. Use the following phrases:

Good looking Good listening Good sitting Good waiting

These can be used either as prompts if the child is becoming distracted, or as praise phrases if the child has e.g. listened to an instruction well or sat at the table for an increased length of time.

Balloons: Gain the child’s attention by calling them, blow up a balloon emphasising your movements. Let the child feel the air coming out of the balloon, throw and catch them, draw faces on them, pop them together!

Feely Boxes: Have an object of interest in the box and open the lid slowly. Let the child put their hand in the box and feel the object. Then take the object out together and look at it, and play with it together. Possible objects are: Ø A glove puppet. Ø An apple. Ø Playdough. Ø A squeaky toy.

Playdough: Roll out and cut out shapes with cutters. Make balls, sausages or models such as cats, snakes, or people.

Puzzles: Start with puzzles that have only a few pieces (e.g. 3 or 4), make sure the child can see the number of pieces that are left so they know what is expected of them. Gradually increase the number of pieces in the puzzle.

Music box/ Tape

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 19 Turn on the music and watch the child’s response. Talk about the music using simple language e.g. “listen! music!” If the child does not look to the direction of the source of the music, show them where it’s coming from. Turn the music off suddenly and stop your movement and noise. Encourage the child to look for the music and say “where’s the music gone?” Turn the music back on, and repeat this cycle a few times. See if the child will let you know they want the musi c to go back on by looking or making a gesture.

Ready, steady, go games: Play with toys like a car run or bubbles. After you say “ready, steady…” wait and look to the child and see if they are attending and waiting, if they say “go” then release the car. When the child understands the routine of the game, let them control the game, and they must wait for “go” before carrying out the action.

Listening games: Match sounds (e.g. animal sounds, vehicles etc…) to pictures or objects. You can either make the sounds your self or you can buy tapes of these ki nds of sounds.

Below are some activities that you can do in a group (around 4 – 5 children is usually a good number). You can include children who have difficulties working as a group but try to have at least 2 children who have difficulties with attention and listening in a group situation.

Pick about 3 activities for a session.

Musical Chairs:

Equipment: Musical instrument or tape of songs.

Instructions: Children sit in a circle on their chairs with their backs facing the middle of the circle. An adult stands in the middle of the circle with the instrument or tape recorder. Tell the children that when they hear the instrument they have to walk round the chairs and sit down when the musi c stops.

Variations: a. Instruct the children to do different things when they hear the instrument play e.g. stay sat down but stamp thei r feet. b. Use 2 instruments and instruct the children to do different things when you play each one e.g. walk when you play the recorder, jump when you play the tambourine.

Tap the Tambourine:

Equipment: Tambourine.

Instructions: All the children sit in a circle. The adult starts by tapping a beat on the tambourine (keep it simple to begin with e.g. one – two). Pass the tambourine on to the child on the right who has to copy the beat and then pass it onto the next child.

Variations: The adult starts the game as above, and each child then takes turns to tap a beat for the others to copy.

Equipment: None.

Instructions: Divide the group into two – one called ‘bananas’ and one ‘apples’. Tell the group that ‘bananas’ have to make a banana shape on the fl oor, and ‘apples’ have to curl up into a ball shape like an apple. Let the children practice this. Get all the children to stand up again. Give instructions to either group e.g. “I want all the apples to jump up and down”. Every now and again say “bananas!”, or “apples”! On hearing this, all the children in both groups have to make that shape.

Variations: To make the game more difficult introduce a new command e.g. “oranges!”. On this instruction the ‘bananas’ become ‘apples’, and the ‘apples’ become ‘bananas’.

Building Blocks:

Equipment: Different coloured blocks; one colour for each group member. Pictures of towers built from coloured blocks.

Instructions: Teacher/leader keeps the cards and gives each child a pile of bricks. Point out to each child the colour of their bricks. Pick a card and tell the children that you are going to help them buil d the tower on the picture. Tell them how to do it step by step e.g. “I want a red brick first”, “now a yellow one on top of it” etc… Each child must listen for their colour and follow the instructions. You can make the game as easy or difficult as you like by drawing simple or more difficult towers.

Changing Places:

Equipment: None.

Instructions: All the children sit in a circle. The teacher shouts out commands “Jake change with Sophie”, “Andrew change with Becky” etc… The children must listen for their name and swap wi th the appropriate person.

Variations: Alternatively each child has a picture of an animal on. The adult must say the name of two animals and the children with the corresponding animal pictures must swap pl aces.

Cause and effect is an important early communication skill as children need to learn that they can make things happen and have control over their environment. That is, their action causes an effect on something else. This is an important concept for communication, because if children learn that they can influence others, they will want to communicate!

Below are some ideas that will help develop cause and effect:

Ø Find things that are likely to motivate the child, and which require them to do something to make it work e.g. music, keyboard, toy with a button or switch that makes it work.

Ø First of all demonstrate to the child how the toy works by pressing the button and enjoying the toy together a few ti mes.

Ø Make the toy stop and then look at the child expectantly, if the child does not reach to activate the toy then suppor t them in doing so.

Ø Use simple gesture and action and take any response from the child e.g. eye contact or vocalisation as indication that they want you to act ivate the toy again.

Ø When the child begins to realise that they mu st do something to activate the toy play a ‘stop’ and ‘go’ game where the child must wait before activating the toy.

Children must participate in interactions in order to learn to communicate and use language. Once basic rules of interaction are established e.g. taking turns, looking, listening, the ability to participate in conversations improves and this increases opportunities for learning language.

You can help by creating opportunities for the child to interact and using strategies which help them to actively participate.By playing games frequently you can set up familiar ‘social routines’ e.g. ‘peek a boo’, ‘pat a cake’, ‘row row row your boat’ etc. Children learn the basics of turn taking and are exposed to si mple, repetitive language which helps them learn early words.FIRST – You need to get the routine going and make it easy for the child to take a turn. Be in a face to face position, call the child’s name in an animated way, touch the chil d or show a toy if there is one.

Get the child’s attention.Play the game/song in an animated way to familiarise it for the child. SECOND – with practice the child becomes familiar with the routine and takes a turn spontaneously.Pause at an appropriate time and look expectantly at the child as if to say ‘it’s your turn to do something’. Treat any reaction initially as a turn e.g. look, smile, vocalisation. If there is no response take the turn and continue with the game. The child is learning the routine and will hopefully take the turn next time. THIRD – The child will initiate the routine and you will follow.The child may show anticipation of a fun part of a routine e.g. the tickling in ‘round the garden’. They may then request this by taking your hand or beginning the tune. If the child does not initiate then your can get into position and wait expectantly for a signal to re-commence the routine.

Many children are visual learners and using a visual means of communication can greatly help them to understand language and communication. Unlike the spoken word which is over in a second and i s then gone, a picture is present for as long as the child is looking at it.

There is a structured development of visual understanding:

hardest

« Understanding of written or spoken words apple

« Understanding of black and white line drawings and symbol s

« Understanding of the coloured picture

« Understanding of the colour photo of the real object

« Understanding of signing and gestures

« Understanding of miniature objects

« Understanding of the real object

easiest

It is necessary to consider the child’s level of understanding when choosing a visual system as well as the practicalities of using the system in everyday life.

A visual timetable helps a child to see what is to come throughout a period of time e.g. a day, morning, work session. This will enable the child to ‘see’ the routine and where the rewards and motivating activities are planned. They also encourage movement from one activity to another and change. The child can also see that there is a progression through activities and that there will be an end to the tasks.

How to make an visual timetable

1. Take photos/symbols/drawings of any activities the child participates in during the daily routine e.g. at home, nursery. Include things like toilet, dinner, home time, cooking, story time, table work, play time, break time, art, sleeping etc.

2. Make a strip with Velcro on to hold the cards. This strip could be vertical or horizontal. Make it long enough to hold at least four pictures but as the child becomes more confident with a timetable you may want to make it long enough to hold all the day’s activities.

3. You could make a section of this timetable into a ‘now’ square where the activity currently being completed is placed.

4. Make a box or an envelope for the end of the timetable so that the activities that are ‘finished’ can be placed in it.

Some examples of visual timetables:

NOW NOW

FINISHED

1. At the beginning of a new activity say to the child ‘what’s next?’. Guide the child to the timetable and to the picture/symbol that is first. This may be placed on the ‘now’ square if the timetable has one. Say what activi ty it is and then begi n it straight away.

2. When the activity finishes, say that it has finished. Guide the child to the timetable again and place the finished activity into the ‘finished’ box/envelope. Again say that the activity is finished.

3. Ask the child ‘what’s next?’ and let them look at the timetable. Place the next picture/symbol into the ‘now’ square and begin the act ivity.

Repeat the process throughout the day. Initially you may have only three of four activities on the timetable but these can be increased as the child becomes more familiar with the process and is able to understand the routines better.

You may feel that you would like a visual timetable for particular routines performed during the day e.g. washing hands. These mini timetables can be placed at the point the activity takes place e.g. the sink and can help guide the child through the routine. These timetables will not need a ‘now’ and ‘finished’ section and may be lami nated to last longer.

Points to remember

1. Over time you will only need to help the child occasionally to physically move the pictures/symbols. Gradually reduce the help you give.

2. All people involved with the child should use the same language or phrases with the timetable. This will help the child to get into the routine of the timetable as they will constantly hear ‘(activity) is finished, what’s next?’ and become increasingly independent in using the timetable.

3. For the timetable to be successful, ensure that the same words are used for every change of activity.

4. In the beginning make sure that there is at least one activity on the timetable that is highly motivating for the child. This will help them to see what they are working towards and make the m want to work towards that point.

Choice making is an important skill for children as they can learn that they can have control over their environment and it gives them a good incentive to communicate with others.

You can teach choi ce making skills in the following way:

Ø Show the child 2 things that they might like to have/play with. Some ideas are; food e.g. choice of snacks or snack and a drink, 2 exciting toys, 2 books.

Ø If they reach for and take one of the objects, great! Praise them for it and give them their choice.

Ø If they find this difficult e.g. do not respond, you can say the names of the toys; “do you want X or Y?”, manipulate the toys as you say each name, for example, you coul d move one of them for ward or operate the toy.

Ø Initially accept any glance or movement towards one of the objects as a choice but gradually expect the child to look for longer at their choice, or to reach for it.

Ø If the child frequently reaches for both objects you could initially present an object that you know they will dislike and one you know they will choose. As their choice making skills develop between liked and disliked items you can begin to make the items more similar in preference.

Ø When the child is able to make a clear choice then you can increase the number of items they chose from, or use a representation of the real object e.g. photo or drawing.

Ø The child will begin to realise that they can have an effect on what they receive and do, the next stage is beginning to ask for things themselves!

The idea of sounds making can be introduced through play. These activities are to help children to explore the range of different sounds we can make with our mouths and voices (both speech and non speech sounds). Do not worry if the child cannot make all the sounds suggested. They will be learning from watching and listening to you and having a try. Encourage and praise any sounds the child makes for example, it does not matter if they say ‘ah’ for the sheep sound – the success is that the child has responded verbally. Specific sounds can be worked on at a later date.

Activities

1. Microphone: try making different noises into an ‘echo’ mike as this is often very rewarding for children.

2. Puppets: make the puppet do a sound and see if the child can make their puppet copy the sound. Some children find it easier to join in if the pressure is taken off them to speak.

3. Puppets: feeding the puppets different food stuff (toy food, real fruit and vegetables, silly items like toy spiders and toys etc.) and make the puppets go ‘mmmm’ or ‘yuck’ depending on whether or not they like the food items.

4. Blow raspberries or noisy kisses (this could be done with dolls and teddies).

5. Animal noises: In play with animal toys or pictures, encourage use of animal noises e.g.

Cat – miaow Dog – woof woof Cow – mooo Sheep – baaa Donkey – eeyor Owl – ooooo Bee – zzzzzzz Snake – ssssss Lion – rrrrrrrr

6. Transport noises: In play make noises for vehicles e.g.

Car – brum brum Ambulance – nee nor Train – ch ch ch

7. Babbling: get face to face with the child (i.e. sit on lap, same level on the floor) and make babbling noises e.g. ba ba ba, ga ga ga, da da da. Encourage the child to copy and when they do, say it back to them and this often encourages more sound making. It is also good practice for ‘conversation’ later on.

9. Meal time: say ‘mmm’ for nice food and encour age the child to do the same.

10. Mirror: play with sounds in front of the mirror, use sounds where mouth movements are visible e.g. ‘oo’, ‘ee’, ‘ah’, ‘p’, ‘b’, ‘m’, ‘f’, ‘l’

11. House activities: listen to noises made by certain activities and try to reproduce these. Hoover – v…. v…. v…. v…. Washing up – sh…sh…. sh…. sh…. Plug noises – glug, glug/g-g-g-g Rain/dripping tap – t…. t…. t…. Clock – tik tok tik tok Wind – whistly noise (lip rounding and blowing) Quiet – sh Bouncy ball – b…. b…. b….

Pointing is a pre-verbal form of naming. Pointing at something for someone else to see is the earliest expression of a desir e to share with another person what we see, think or want the other person to know about.

It is in this context of ‘shared attention’ with another person that meaningful language develops (the child points and the adul t names the item).

Some children do not point out items for others to name. These children are missing out on important language learning opportunities. It is therefore a worthwhile aim to promote pointing as a foundation skill for language development.

1. Research suggests that the gesture of pointing only seems to occur in children who have developed ‘pincer grip’ i.e. the ability to pick up small objects such as bl ocks with their thumb and for efinger. Activities that encourage pincer grip and the isolation of the index finger may help with developing pointing.

« Poke out the pieces of a board jigsaw through the back. « Push items through holes e.g. push raisins through holes in an upside down egg box. Demonstrate a pincer grip when picking up the objects. « Posting and sorting boxes encour age fine motor control. « Form boards with knobs on to li ft pieces out and then replace. « Finger painting, playdough, threading beads, craft activities etc. « Songs with finger actions or pointing e.g. ‘Peter Pointer’, ‘Two Little Dickie Birds’, ‘One finger one thumb, keep moving’ etc. « Make up songs with actions that go with daily routines such as washing, dressing etc.

2. Demonstrate lots of pointing yourself. Point to things that the child is interested in and already looking at so that ‘shared attention’ is established i.e. you are both looking at the same thing.

« Before giving the child something like a biscuit or a coat, stop and make a conscious effort to pause at some distance from the directed object and point to what the child is looking at. Exaggerate your voice and facial expression to grab your child’s interest e.g. ‘coat’, ‘look coat’, ‘Joey’s coat’ and emphasise pointing gesture each time. « Picture books give lots of opportunities for pointing. You may be able to take the child’s finger and point to the pictures. « Point to interesting items when you play outside e.g. planes, animals, buildings etc. Point at what the chil d is looking at and name it.

It can be tempting to talk for a child who does not readily communicate or to over- anticipate the child’s needs. This can have the effect of the child not needing to communicate which can delay language development. It requires effort and patience to wait for a child to do something themselves. Some children are not naturally sociable or communicative and it becomes essential that opportunities for communication are actively promoted.

Discretion is needed when considering any of the suggestions below e.g. it is not wise to eat in front of a hungry child or sabotage an acti vity when the child is excited or tired.

Enhancement Str ategies:

1. Make favourite items inaccessi ble

Place the child’s favourite items out of reach but within view. Put the items on a high shelf, on a counter top, in clear containers with tight lids etc. Don’t automatically offer items.

2. Give small portions

At meal or snack times, offer bite-sized or small portions. Cut up a sandwich and give the child only part of it at a time. Put one or two swallows of a drink in a cup at a time. Help your child to understand that more is available by giving subtle cues such as making noises, using gestures/signs or asking using words.

3. Consume a portion of a favourite food/drink in front of the child

In view of the child, eat or drink a portion of the item that they really want. Show your extreme pleasure at being able to consume the i tem e.g. ‘mmm’.

4. Create the need for assistance

Give the child access to a favourite item that they need your assistance to enjoy. Encourage the child to seek assistance from you to wind the toy, turn on the TV, open a container etc.

5. Interrupt a favourite co-operative activity

Begin a favourite activity that both you and the child can participate in. Once you are both enjoying yourselves, stop the activity and encourage the child to signal to you that they want to continue e.g. while pushing your child on the swing, stop them in mid air.

6. Offer the child something they do not like

Offer the child a non-preferred activity or item and encourage them to tell you ‘no’ in an appropriate way.

Hold out two favourite items and say nothing. Encourage the child to let you know which one they want in a way they ar e able to e.g. looking, pointing, saying a word.

8. Sabotage

Set up an activity e.g. painting but leave out an essential piece of equipment e.g. the brush. Wait for the child to show you there is something wrong and request the item in whatever way they are able to.

Eye contact is an important skill for developing interaction and learning. It is essential that a child is looking and listening in order to learn language. Eye contact is also the way we let others know we want to communicate and that we ar e interested in listening.

Some children need hel p to develop eye contact e.g. very busy children or ‘hard to reach’ children.

The following are suggestions for encouraging eye contact:-

1. Position yourself in close face to face contact to the child. Make your facial expressions and voice animated to draw attention to your eyes. A child sitting on your lap is a good position for eye contact. Songs and rhymes (especially with actions) are excellent for promoting both eye contact and listening.

2. Motivating toys can be held up to your eyes before play. Wait for some eye contact (even if brief) before giving the child the toy.

3. Hold a squeaky toy near your face and press it to make a noise. Stop the noise and wait for eye contact before starting again.

4. Peepo games are motivating and promote eye contact. They can be part of many everyday activities e.g. getting dressed, making a bed etc…

5. Taking items on and off your face encourages the child to look more closely at your face and eyes e.g. sunglasses, masks, hats. The child might enjoy playing with these and looking in the mirror.

6. Children enjoy looking through items e.g. pipes, binoculars, toilet rolls etc… You can take turns looking through the items.

7. Play a game the child really enjoys e.g. blowing bubbles, tickling games, and stop the activity briefly. Wait for eye contact and then begin again. This encourages eye contact as well as initiation and intentional communication.

8. When you want the child to look at you, move into their line of sight and say e.g. “Johnny look”.

9. You may find it also helps to touch the child’s face and gently turn their head towards you, if they will allow, as you say their name.

10. If you see that the child is looking at something, talk to them about it and move into the line of gaze as you talk. If you find the child is looking at you, respond with a smile and a greeting, or make conversation. Turn away naturally, but try to catch his gaze again and repeat.

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 34 Imitation of Actions This is a very important aspect of development – not only in terms of communication development but also for learning as it encourages us to ‘do as others do’. Learning to imitate actions is a pre-cursor to learning to copy sounds and words.

You can begi n to teach a chil d about imitating actions by initially imitating their actions e.g. if they wave thei r hands then you wave your hands. You can then wai t to see if they repeat this action and turn it into a game.

You can carry out activities on a 1:1 basi s with the child (particularly if they are distractible) but group tasks are also good as children enjoy activities with their peers.

Remember to reward and praise the child!

Some ideas for encouraging imitation of actions are:

Musical Instruments:

Banging on a drum and encouraging the child to copy you. You could change the number of bangs to make it different. Shaking rattles. Banging instruments together . Squeezing a musi cal toy. Playing a musical keyboard.

Action Rhymes:

Sing songs which involve lots of movement e.g. Head, shoulders, knees and toes This is the way we….(this can be used to sing about lots of events). If you’re happy and you know i t. The wheels on the bus. Incy wincy spider.

Mirror Play:

Look in the mirror with the child. Pull funny faces e.g. sticking out your tongue, opening and closing your eyes, and puffing out your cheeks.

Simon Says:

Play a game of Simon says and demonstrate the actions for the child/children as well as describing it. Some ideas are: Clapping hands Covering eyes with hands. Waving arms. Touching body parts. Stamping feet. Jumping.

Incorporate actions into everyday activities:

Encourage the child to copy actions during day to day act ivities. e.g. rubbing your tummy when eating Pretending to stir when cooking. Pretending to brush the floor or wipe a window when cleaning. Patting body parts when dressing e.g. head when putt ing hat on. Rubbing eyes when goi ng to bed. Blowing kisses and waving when saying goodbye.

Objects of reference refer to an object which holds the meaning of a location, an event or a person e.g. a cup coul d refer to a drink.

Objects of reference are important to early communication as a child can be taught to recognise these objects and relate them to what the object means before they can understand actual words.

Objects of reference can be used:

• Initially to help the child understand what is happening or what is about to happen e.g. showing the child a spade means they are about to be encouraged to move to the sand ar ea.

• Gradually to help the child make choices e.g. the child can be shown a spade or a watering can to enable him to indicate whether he wants to play with the sand or water.

• Eventually to help the child understand a sequence of events e.g. feeling the spade and then cup means that it is now time to play in the sand tray and afterwards it is drink time.

• Finally to create a bridge between understanding the meaning of an object, to understanding photos, pictures and symbols.

Below are some ideas for how you can implement objects of reference:

Ø You can begin by deciding on some objects and what they represent. It is important to choose the object carefully and that it is meaningful for the child.

Ø Use the objects consistently so that the child begins to associate the object with the items/action it represents.

Ø You may find it useful to use toys of the object or smaller items so that you can take them out with you.

Ø Make the objects accessible to the child e.g. by keeping them on a special shelf or in a particular labelled box. This way the child will be able to get one of the objects if they wish to use it to communicate with you.

Objects of reference are an excellent way of not only increasing a child’s understanding but the child can also be encouraged to use the objects themselves to request. For example, if the child wants to let you know they want to go swimming they could get a rubber ring.

EEAARRLLYY WWOORRDDSS

A proto word can be described as a sound which represents a word. The sound often sounds like the object/action. Proto words often develop before real words but can be related to the object they are used for.

Some examples of proto words and how you can incorporate them into play are given below:

Animal play:

You could take toy animals out of a bag and make noises together or you could hide them around the room.

Ø Cat “miaow” Ø Dog “woof” Ø Cow “moo” Ø Pig oinking noise Ø Horse “neigh” Ø Snake “sssss” Ø Bird “tweet” Ø Duck “quack” Ø Sheep “baa” Ø And any other s you can think of!

Toy play:

Ø Pretending to pour tea and saying “psshhhhh”. Ø Making teddy drink and clicking tongue to make drinking noise. Ø Dolly eating, you can smack your lips and say “mmmmmm”. Ø Pretend to make a pl ane dive and say “niiiiooooow” Ø Pushing train along and say “choo choo”. Ø Pushing fire engine and saying “ni naw ni naw”. Ø Pushing car and saying “beep”. Ø Banging things together and saying “bang!”

There are lots of other noises you could use in everyday life e.g. rubbing your tummy and saying “yum yum” when eating, lifting child up “up”, something exciting “oooooh” or surprising “uhoh”.

Use your imagination and try to use the same ones so the child will get used to them and be more likely to copy you!

The following ideas will help to encourage the child to listen, understand and begin to use early words.

1. Hiya: Play a game of hiding your face behind your hands, or a blanket, or ducking down behind a chair, and say “hiya” when you reappear. Encourage the child to join in. You can play this game by hiding toys such as teddy too. Another idea is to put a towel or blanket over the child’s face and say the target word every time either you, or the child removes the blanket.

2. More: ‘More’ can be used a many times during the day particularly at drink and meal times. You could give the child only a small amount of milk so that they need to ask for ‘more’. You can model the word for them and encour age them to copy you. ‘More’ can also be used in repetitive games such as tickling, swinging, using noisy toys. Again, give your child lots of oppor tunity to hear the word and initially take any r esponse such as eye contact or vocalisation and ‘yes’. Wait before you repeat an action to see if the child asks for ‘more’.

3. Gone: You can incorporate this word into meal times and drink times when you can co mment “gone” and gesture to the empty plate or cup. As with ‘bye bye’ you can hide objects and say “gone!”.

4. Go: This can be used as a signal to activate a pop-up toy, push a swing, roll a ball etc. Start by saying ‘ready steady go!’ and then performing the action. When the child has listened to this a few times, pause before saying ‘go’ and look at the child expectantly to see if they will copy what they have hear d.

5. Body Parts: As you are washing the child’s face name the different parts. You could get some foamy soap or shaving foam and put it on different parts of a doll or teddy together and name them as you do this, you can then do the same on your body or the child’s body. You can sing songs like “this is way we…” and sing verses which include body parts such as “nod your head”.

6. Bye-bye: Use “bye-bye” and wave whenever people leave. You could also make a toy disappear and say “bye-bye” and wave to it as it disappears.

There are various ways to target learning body parts; this is just one example.

Understanding of body parts:

Place a good sized teddy in front of the child. Give the child one circle sticker and say ‘put on nose’. If the child puts the sticker on teddy’s nose, praise him/her. If they have difficulty, demonstrate how to do it e.g. place a sticker on teddy’s nose and say ‘nose’. If the child is not motivated by putting stickers on teddy, try getting him to put stickers on you – it might be a bit more rewarding.

Target easier body parts first and work your way through to more abstract body parts e.g. eye, nose, ear, mouth, head, arm, hand, leg, foot, tummy, back, neck, elbow, knee, bottom, finger, thumb, toe etc.

You might like to use symbols as a prompt e.g. if you want the child to put the sticker on the teddy’s nose, have a symbol of a nose and show it to them when you give them the command.

Use of body parts:

Again, this is just one way to target getting your child to expressively communicate about body parts. Use a teddy or doll. This time you either point or put a sticker on a certain body part on teddy. Then point to the body part and say ‘what’s this?’ or ‘where’s the sticker?’. Encourage the child to either label the body part verbally or choose from a range of symbols of body parts and indicate the appropriate one. If they get it wrong, simply name the body par t and move on to try a new one.

Similarly, begin with easier body parts and work up to harder body parts.

Also, in every day conversation with your child talk about body parts a lot. For example, ‘itchy nose, my nose ’ or ‘ow, my finger, poor finger’ - use simple phrases and emphasis the body part word.

Gone:

Be animated and put particular emphasis on “gone” by stressing the word with your voice. You can add gesture too if this helps e.g. putting both hands up with palms upturned. Give the child a chance to respond to you and try to respond to them with positive language and praise. Be prepared to adapt any activity and do not persist with ‘gone’ if the child starts something new. There will be many opportunities throughout the day to r epeat and model ‘gone’.

Ø Name pictures or objects, then post them together and say “gone!” and “shoe gone” etc…

Ø Hide something around the room and say “where’s teddy gone?” (emphasising ‘gone’) “teddy gone!” and encourage the child to look for teddy, when they find him praise them and say “teddy not gone! ”.

Ø Have two objects, hide one under a cloth or box and say “what’s gone?”. Let the child guess what the obj ect is, reveal the object and repeat this game.

Ø Roll a ball across the table into a bin and say “ball gone”. Try rolling or blowing different items e.g. feather s, paper fish.

Ø Play with a cuddly toy and tea set wi th food. Pretend the toy i s eating the food and say “oh banana gone, sausage gone! ”.

Ø Draw simple pictures on a ‘magic board’ and then make them disappear. Say “gone!” and then “start again!”.

Ø Pop bubbles together and say “gone” each time.

The main aim is to teach understanding of the word/sign ‘more’ by frequently meaningful repetition. Later you can wait and see if the child will say/sign ‘more’ during a motivating activity or everyday routine e.g. songs, tickling, splashing in the bath, mealtimes.

Ø Playdough, food and drink, give only a little at a time so that the child is likely to ask for more.

Ø Begin a motivating activity e.g. bubbles and then wait a little with the hope that the child will say “more”. Again, model the word a lot particularly if the child is not yet saying the word.

Ø Build brick towers or post objects into a box, say “more?” and hold up a brick, encourage the child to copy you when r eaching for the brick.

Ø Put toy money into a money box, post letters in a letter box etc…say “more?” each time.

Ø Blow up a balloon slowly, between each breathe ask “more?” before continuing.

Ø Lucky ducks game or fishing games allow ‘more’ to be modelled frequently.

Ø Wind up toys or reactive toys e.g. singing cuddly toy which can motivate the child to use “more”.

As with the other target words discussed above, remember to incorporate ‘up’ into everyday conversations and situations. You can use gesture e.g. moving your hand in an upwards to direction.

Ø Play rough and tumble games lifting your child up and down and saying “up!” as you lift them.

Ø Whenever the child wants to be lifted, get down to their level and say “one two three…” and then pause and wai t for them to say “up!” before you lift them.

Ø Toys that climb up objects give lots of opportunities to repeat ‘up’ e.g. a toy monkey climbing up a wall or tree and say “up” each time it ascends. W ait and see if the child copies you. Make the toy wobble and fall and then repeat the game again. This game can also be played with a slide, a ladder furniture etc..

Ø Bricks can be stacked up. Say “up” each time a new brick is placed on top, knock the tower “down!” and then begin again.

Ø Bubbles can be blown up or down. Give your child the choice; “bubbles go up, or down?” and emphasise the two direction words. Later the child can be asked “where shall we blow the bubbles?”.

Verbs are often described as ‘action’ or ‘doing’ words, some examples are; sleeping, sitting, eating, drinking, brushing, walking, jumping, running. Learning verbs is more difficult than learning nouns, since they refer to actions rather than objects that can be seen or touched.

1. Toys such as dolls, teddies, or ‘action man’ can be made to perform lots of different actions e.g. eating, sleeping, climbing. Play allows for frequent repetition of words “teddy eat apple” etc.

2. Songs and nursery rhymes often include action words e.g. “this is the way we wash our hands”. You can leave a gap for the child to fill in e.g. “this is the way we ____ our hands”. You can invent new verses to suit the routine e.g. “this is the way we walk to the shops”.

3. Games such as ‘Simon says’ or follow the leader are useful for matching words to real actions e.g. “daddy jump”, “Mary jump”.

4. It is common to use simple picture books to teach children the names of objects. Pictures can also be used with verbs e.g. “dog sit”, “cat sleep”. Make a scrap book of people doing different things, copy the actions yourself to make sure the child understands them.

5. Giving choices is a good way to encourage new words e.g. “shall I throw or kick the ball?”. Emphasise the verbs as you say them.

6. If the child responds with an action or a gesture, accept this as a response and add the words in yourself e.g. “yes, teddy jump”.

7. Give the child two toys and ask them to complete commands e.g. “make teddy dance”, “make dolly sit”. Again, demonstrate the command if the child is unsure or unable to follow after a repetition.

Children need to under stand words before they are able to use them.

Place 2 – 3 familiar items (or photos or pictures) in front of the child. Hold out your hand and ask for one of the items, say “ball” (there is no need to say ‘give me the ball’ or anything else at this time because it may be too much for them to listen to). Look expectant and repeat the word a few times if necessary.

If they give you the correct item, reward them with praise. Every 2 – 3 times the child chooses correctly, you could also reward them with a tangible reward (e.g. a piece of puzzle, a short turn at a game, bubbles, etc). With a reward the child is more likely to be motivated to achi eve the task but be car eful that the child is not distracted from the task.

If the child gives you nothing, you could try one of the following: a) Use a symbol or photo of the item and hold it close to your open hand as a prompt. Still clearly name the item you want the chil d to give you. b) Show the child the reward which they will receive if they give you the correct item, but hold it away from them, and again name the item you want them to give you. Remember to hold your hand out as a cue that they need to give you something. c) Repeat the instruction, and then guide their hand to pick up the item and place it in your open hand. Praise them immediately and reward them also (as above).

• Begin by presenting familiar or common items (or photos or pictures) and then begin introducing less familiar items. • Once the child can identify what you ask for from a choice of 2 – 3 items, try placing 4 – 6 items in front of them and ask them to select one.

NOTE: familiar items include things that are well known to the child and found in their everyday environment, e.g. cup, for k, spoon, chair, ball, hat, shoe, key, pencil , book, etc.

CCOOMMBBIINNIINNGG WWOORRDDSS

Learning to put two words together will help the child to use language in a much larger variety of situations. Possible reasons for a child needing to combine 2 words could be:

1. Requesting: e.g. “want biccy”. Powerful words for this group are action words e.g. “want”, “come”, “go”, “get”, and words like “more”.

2. Rejecting: e.g. “no more”. Powerful words for this group are negatives e.g. “no”, “can’t”, or “don’t”.

3. Commenting: e.g. “red car”. Powerful words for this group are describing words e.g. colours, sizes, appearance.

4. Social reasons: e.g. “bye mummy”. Powerful words for this group are those that we use for e.g. greeting, farewell and manners.

Teaching 2 Word Combinations:

Choose some target combinations that you think will be useful for the child, will be rewarding for them and that involve words they are already familiar with. For example; a child whose favourite toy is teddy you could encourage “my teddy”, “more teddy”, or “look teddy!” Try to think of one combination from each category and then work on these until they are fully established. The stages for teachi ng your chosen combi nations are described below:

1. Try to put your chosen phrases into everyday situations. You may find it helpful to use visual cues in addition to the words e.g. waving for ‘bye’, and shaking your head for ‘no’. Try to use simple language and emphasise the tar gets words. Do this as often as possible so the child has lots of opportunity to hear models of the phrases you are wor king on.

2. Try to incorporate these phrases into ‘games’ e.g. using a car run could target “more car”. You could also reward using the target words with natural rewards e.g. “want drink” will result in the child receiving some more drink.

3. When the child is able to use these word combinations within an activity then you can begin to generalise these phrases so that the child is expected to use them in everyday situations. You can encourage this by e.g. withholding a toy so the child needs to ask, or giving the child something they don’t want so they need to reject it.

4. Repeat action words frequently in games such as Simon says and everyday routines e.g. playing in the park “Sally jump”, “Sally sit” etc.

Big and little are early concepts for children. They are very important in terms of language development as once they can use these words the child can begin to join to words together e.g. “big teddy”.

Below are some ideas of how you can teach a child ‘big’ and ‘little’.

Ø Use these words to describe everyday objects and emphasise ‘big’/’little’ in your sentences. E.g. when sorting out the washing you can talk about daddy’s big socks and Jack’s little socks.

Ø When having a dri nk talk about big and little cups, or when playing with toys talk about big and little teddy/dolly.

Ø Sort out objects according to size. Have a container for big things and another for little ones. Talk about each i tem and it’s size and encour age the child to put i t in the correct container. Here are some ideas for some objects you could use: - Spoons - Blocks - Balls - Pieces of playdough

Ø When the child is able to UNDERSTAND and discriminate between big and little on request e.g. if you present them with a big and little item and ask them “where’s the big….?” Then you can move on to enco uraging them to USE the se words.

Ø Again, use big and little items but this time, encourage the child to describe the picture. If they just name it then give them a choice, e.g. “is it big or little?”. You can also model the correct phrase for them if they are finding it difficult e.g. “yes! BIG teddy!”.

Prepositions are words that indicate place and include; on, in, under, behind, next to and in front.

Understanding of prepositions:

• Have 2 cups/boxes; one upsi de down and one the ri ght way up. Also have a brick. • Ask the child to pl ace the brick either ‘in’ or ‘on’, e.g. “put brick in (or on)”.

If correct, reward them with praise. Every 2 – 3 times the child chooses correctly, you could also reward him with a tangible reward (e.g. a piece of puzzle, a short turn at a game, bubbles, etc). With a real reward the child is more likely to be motivated to achieve the task.

If incorrect, take the brick and demonstrate, ‘in’ saying the word clearly.

• When the child can follow your instructions for this well, you may choose the next preposition listed above (e.g. under) and practise in the same way. However, only work on two prepositions at any one time, e.g. in and on, on and under, under and behind, etc.

Use of prepositions:

Once the child can appropriately follow your instructions as above for several prepositions, next…

• Ask them to name the preposition you demonstrate, e.g. place a brick ‘on’ a cup/box and say ‘where is the brick?’.

If the child then answers correctly, praise and reward them (as above).

If they do not answer or have difficulty, say “where is the brick, …. Is it on or under?”, or say “on or under?” and point at the brick.

If this is still too hard, you may have to demonstrate by putting the brick on a cup and saying “where is it?, … it is on.” By doing this you are demonstrating the question and the appropriate way to answer it. Then put the brick in the cup and say “where is it?” and wait for a response.

NOTE: You may also use other items to practise prepositions, e.g. a teddy and a chair, a ball and a box, etc. as long as you only have one item that is being placed somewhere.

SSEESSSSIIOONN PPLLAANNSS

Children who are slow to learn language benefit from short individual sessions with an adult who can facilitate communication. The following gives advice on how to run a successful session. Children with communication difficulties often have a short attention span and poor listening skills so it is important to structure the session carefully.

Environment: • Work in a relatively quiet place, free from excessive distractions. • Ensure that you are both comfortable. You can work on the floor on a mat or have a small table and chairs. • Lighting conditions coul d be important for a child with a sensory impairment.

Timing: • Choose a time of day when the chil d is alert. • The session should last no longer than 10-15 minutes. For a child with attention and listening difficulties the sessions may only be 5 minutes initially. • Daily practice is more beneficial than prolonged sessions. • Sometimes the child is not interested and the session may need to be rearranged for another time but it is important that the child is not allowed to continually opt out of structured activity.

Equipment/Toys: • Select toys that are developmentally appropriate and motivating for the child e.g. a 3 year old at exploratory play stage may enjoy tactile materials. • Keep all equipment in a box out of sight – this will help you to be in control of the session. Bring them out one at a t ime and show interest in the toy yourself. • Never go back to a toy when the task has been completed. It is important that children learn to finish activities. • Make it clear that an activity is finished by praising the child and saying/signing ‘finished’ and putting the toy out of sight.

Session Routine:

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 52 • Always start the session in the same way so that the chil d learns the routine. • The first activity should grab the child’s attention so they are ready to sit and look. • Know the order of the activities to keep the session flowing and engage the child’s interest throughout. • Always end the sessi on in the same way with something the child enjoys.

The Adult: • Keep your language at the level of the child e.g. single words. • Be animated and lively. • The session must be fun for you both. • Use gestures/signing to support language.

Stage 1: Pre- intentional Communication

A child at a pre- intentional stage of communication reacts to change in his own body (comfort/discomfort) and changes in the immediate environment e.g. cold, noise. The child is not able to control these reactions and is not sending purposeful messages yet.

A parent or carer interprets the child’s movement and vocalisations and tries to meet the child’s needs. The child is actively learning to make sense of the world and storing experiences. The carer and child are also learning to interact together and developing a relationship.

Stage 2: Anticipating Communication

A child starts to remember routine events and shows anticipation of what will happen next. Anticipating things demonstrates that the child has a memory of an event.

When the child is able to purposefully signal a message using gesture and facial expressions then they are devel oping intentional communication.

Stage 3: Intentional Communication

Intentional communicators have acquired some key ski lls which include: • Giving brief attention to another per son • Sharing attention with another person • Taking turns • Using and understanding non-verbal communication e.g. eye contact, facial expressions, pointing, tone of voice • Using and understanding a range of vocalisations

The following session plans aim to develop the skills needed to help a child move from the intentional stage of communication to early words.

Session One

Equipment Needed:

Ø Age appropriate toy Ø Bag of textured materials Ø Bubbles Ø Balloons Ø Piece of material Ø Sound shakers

Warm Up Activity: Ø Aim: To promote cause and eff ect. Ø Start with an interesting toy e.g. with sound and light. Say the child’s name and encourage eye contact (be face to face). Activate the toy a few times and observe the child’s response. Pause during the play and wait for the child to react, interpret the reaction as “more” (say the word too) and activate the toy again. Repeat this routine a few more times. Ø Can the child activate the toy on their own? Encourage this by gently holding your hand over the child’s to press the buttons.

Activity Two: Ø Aim: To encourage exploratory play skills. Ø Have a bag of materials with different textures and properties e.g. light, sound, vibration. Bring out the items one at a time and hold them up in front of the child. Can the child reach for the items? If you move it from side to side or up and down can the child watch as it moves? Ø Let the child touch the items and explore them. Take note of the sensations that the child enjoyed and those that are disliked. Have fun with the materials and follow the child’s lead.

Activity Three: Ø Aim: To facilitate vocalisations and gestur es. Ø Use bubble and balloons to gain the chi ld’s attention and to encour age vocalisations. Ø Blow lots of bubbles initially to let the child see and feel them. Catch a few bubbles on the wand and let the child pop them. Point upwards and blow bubbles. Say “up”, “up” or “down”, “down”. Wait and see if the child will indicate more e.g. by eye contact, gesture, vocalisation etc. and then car ry on blowing bubbles. Ø It is fun to experiment with balloons and it is a great way to focus a child’s attention on your face. Blow the balloon up and let the air out repeatedly. Blow the balloon up and then release the balloon with a whistling sound. Blow up the balloon and tie it so the child can hold it. Ø Copy any sounds the chi ld makes to reinforce vocalisations.

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 55 Activity Four: Ø Aim: To promote eye contact and turn taki ng. Ø Play ‘peepo’ with a piece of bright, light material. Put the material over your head and let the child reach up to pull the material off. Be animated with the “peepo!”. If the child will allow put the mater ial over their head so you coul d take turns

Activity Five: Ø Aim: To develop listening skills. Ø Facilitate listening skills by exploring sounds e.g. quiet/noisy shakes. Contrast louder sounds with quiet e.g. make a loud sound and then wait 10 seconds before making the sound agai n. Ø Give out some instruments such as shakers and bells. Start up some music and let the child join in with the instrument. When the music stops then the child should stop the instrument too. Wait a little while before repeating the activity.

Cool Down Activity: Ø Finish the session by singing songs that involve being face to face and have accompanying actions e.g. ‘row, row, row your boat’, ‘ride a cock horse’, ‘mi welais Jac y do’, ‘Old MacDonald’. Slow the words down and be animated. When the child is familiar with the song you can pause and see if they can join in e.g. with sounds “e, i, e, i, oh”, vocalisations, gestures. Ø You could make up a ‘goodbye’ song to show that the session has ended.

Equipment Needed: Ø Animal toys Ø Mirror Ø Torch Ø Balls Ø Hats

Activities: 1. Animal toys that make sounds. 2. Mirror and torches, shiny materials. Experiment with light and make faces/sounds in the mirror. 3. Passing balls to and fro. 4. Placing textured balls or beanbags in containers or taking them out. 5. Putting hats on and off. Take tur ns. 6. Sing songs and rhymes.

Session Three

Equipment Needed: Ø Toy food Ø Puppet Ø Pipe Ø Balls Ø Toys Ø Cloth Ø Beanbags and contai ner Ø Finger puppets

Activities: 1. Feed the toy food to a puppet. Make l ots of sounds such as ‘yum, yum’, ‘ow, hot’, ‘brrr, cold’, ‘mmm, nice’, ‘urgh, nasty’. 2. Send small items down a length of pipe. Encourage eye contact and anticipation. 3. Hide objects under a cloth. Let the child lift off the cloth and then name the object ‘look, cup’. 4. Place beanbags in different containers. Shake them and let the child put them in or out of the contai ners. 5. Sing songs and rhymes with finger puppets.

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Session One – ‘Go’

Equipment Needed: Ø Bubbles Ø Toy cars Ø Empty tube e.g. inside a roll of wrapping paper Ø Spinning top Ø Skittles/Blocks Ø Any other toy/object that motivates the child

It is important to remember that ‘go’ can be indicated in a number of ways and does not necessarily have to be spoken by the chi ld.

Warm Up Activity: Ø Aim: To gain the child’s attention and motivate the child to complete further tasks. To introduce the concept of ‘go’ or ‘ready, steady, go’. Ø Activity: Use the spinning top. When you have the top use the word ‘go’ only when you are making it spin so the child is beginning to associate the word with an action. This could also be signed at the same time. When the child is using the toy also use ‘go’ to reinforce.

Activity Two: Ø Aim: To encourage the child to listen to the word ‘go’. Ø Activity: Use skittles or building blocks. Set up the task together e.g. taking turns to build a tower. Then allow the child to knock down the blocks/skittles when you say ‘go’. You may need to gently hold the child’s hands and release them on ‘go’ to indicate that the child may now knock over the objects. The child should eventually wait until ‘go’ is signalled to move.

Activity Three: Ø Aim: To encourage the child to indicate ‘go’ themselves. Ø Activity: Use the cars and tube. Start with the car at the top of the tube and let it roll down. Set the acti vity up again and wai t for the child to signal they want the car to roll, this can be through eye contact, movement or vocalisations. When you have a clear signal let the car roll again. You can prompt ‘ready, steady, …..’ and wait for the child to indicate ‘go’ in their own way. Allow the child to have turns in rolling the car down, you could even have two tubes and cr eate races.

Cool Down Activity: Ø Aim: To end the session in a calm way. Ø Activity: Use bubbles as these can be very calming. Blow some bubbles to gain the child’s attention. When they are watching you dip the bubble wand and raise it to your mouth. Wait for the child to indicate ‘go’ to you and blow the bubbles. Allow the child to have a go at making bubbles on your command.

Equipment Needed: Ø Animal toys (either plastic or cuddly). Ø Toys that can have actions e.g. ball, cars, drum, bell, comb, cup, spoon, fork, towel, blocks, teddy etc.

Warm Up Activity: Ø Aim: To gain the child’s attention. Introduce the child to copying. Ø Activity: Use yourself as the main instrument. Encourage the child to look at you and you actions. Do an action e.g. clap hands and then get the child to copy you. In the beginning you may need to gently manipulate the child’s arms/hands to do the action. Do a variety of actions for the child to copy e.g. covering eyes with hands, touch nose, touch floor, jump, wave, open mouth, smi le etc.

Activity Two: Ø Aim: To encourage copying using objects. Ø Activity: Use the toys that you have found. Do an action with an object e.g. push the car to encourage the child to copy. The child may need a repetition of the action to be able to copy or again may need to be gent ly shown with their own hands. Al so say the word that descri bes the action e.g. push, roll, eat, hug, wash, comb, hit, fly.

Activity Three: Ø Aim: To encourage the production of noises. Ø Activity: Use the animal toys. Place the toys in front of the child. Follow their lead to see which one interests them and when they play with it make the noise of the animal. Show the child the other animals and make their noises while you play with them. The child may need to hear the noises on a number of occasions before they actually make the noises themselves.

Cool Down Activity: Ø Aim: To calm the child and further encourage noise production. Ø Activity: Use the animal toys. Introduce the song ‘Old McDonald’. You could have a toy or puppet which you could use as McDonald. When you sing the song leave gaps for the child to attempt to make the appropriate noises. Show the animal you are singing about to prompt them. Give the child ample time to respond before doing it yourself and carrying on with the song.

Equipment Needed: Ø Motivating food e.g. fruit Ø Bubbles Ø Empty tube e.g. inside a roll of wrapping paper Ø An assortment of different balls

IMPORTANT: Decide if you are going to use ‘more’ or ‘again’ and stick to the one word. It is important to be consistent and not use the words interchangeably. Remember that ‘more’/‘again’ can be indicated in a number of ways by the child and does not necessarily have to be spoken.

Warm Up Activity: Ø Aim: To gain the child’s attention. To introduce the concept of ‘more’ or ‘again’. Ø Activity: Action songs. For example, ‘Ring a Ring a Roses’, ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ etc. Sing the songs together with all the actions. At the end look at the child and say ‘more’/‘again’ and start the song again. The child will begin to associate the word with the concept.

Activity Two: Ø Aim: To reinforce the concept of ‘more’/‘again’ and for the child to begin to use it. Ø Activity: Use the food. Cut up the food in front of the child so that can see what there is. Offer them the plate to chose what they would like and then place the plate out of reach. The child needs to i ndicate to you that they would like some more food. Accept vocalisations, eye contact or signs.

Activity Three: Ø Aim: To encourage requests for ‘more’/‘again’. Ø Activity: Use the tube and the assorted balls e.g. ones that make a noise, light up, different textures, different smells. Roll a ball down the tube. Show the child the other balls and place one at the top of the tube, ready to roll down. Wait to see if the child will indicate ‘more’/’again’ and roll the ball down. Give the child a choice of balls and again wait for a response to let the ball go. Encourage use of the words or signs.

Cool Down Activity: Ø Aim: To continue the use of ‘more’/’again’. Ø Activity: Use bubbles. Blow the bubbles to get the child’s attention. When they are watching you dip the bubble wand, raise it to your mouth, say ‘more’/‘again’ and blow more bubbles. Wait for the child to indicate ‘more’/‘again’ to you on the next go and blow the bubbles. Allow the child to have a go at maki ng bubbles on your command.

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Building vocabulary and understanding

The child is now copying sounds and actions and has a small vocabulary of consistent words. These words may not be clearly pronounced but are used meaningfully. The next stage is to expand on the number of words the child understands and then uses appropriately.

The following activities aim to build vocabulary in either a small group setting or an individual session. Children at this stage often l earn better in small groups with peers but a child with poor attention and listening skills may need individual support.

Session One – Food

Equipment Needed: Ø Large puppet. Ø Bag (preferably not see-through). Ø Plastic food toys e.g. fruit and veg, biscuit, bread, ice-cream. Ø Toy shopping basket. Ø Pictures of common food items (it may be useful to begin by using photos, and then move onto col oured pictures). Ø Brightly coloured or shaped post-it notes. Ø Hungry caterpillar book with toy caterpillar and corresponding food items.

Warm Up Activity: Ø Aim: To gain the children’s attention and introduce the vocabul ary for the session. Ø Activity: Introduce the puppet to the children, you could even name it together! Put the plastic food items into a bag and shake it around building ant icipation. Let the chil dren take it in turns to select an item from the bag, you can name it together and then they can feed it to the puppet.

Activity Two: Ø Aim: To develop under standing of common food words. Ø Activity: Make sure the children are settled and then introduce the ‘shopping game’. The children must take it in turns to hold the shopping basket and then listen to you tell them what they must get e.g. “Apple please (child’s name)”. You may want to put the objects on a separate surface (this would be particularly useful for those active children as they will have a reason to move around a little). Praise them for bringing you the correct item. To make it harder you can increase the number of items you request to 2, and then 3. To make it easier gain the child’s attention and just name the item “apple”. Repeat the instruction if needed and use gesture.

Activity Three: Ø Aim: To encourage ability to name food items. Ø Activity: Before the session collect together some photos or pictures of common food items, and place a post-it on top of each picture. Put them out in front of the children and let them take it in turns to select a picture, pull off a post-it note and show and tell their peers what’s on the picture.

Cool Down Activity: Ø Aim: To round off the session and calm the children. Stories also promote good attention and listening skills. Ø Activity: Place the corresponding food objects on the table in front of the children. As you are reading the story, let the children take it in turns to find the correct item and give it to the caterpillar. You could use a number of different stories for the activity e.g. ‘there was an ol d woman who swallowed a fly’.

Equipment Needed: Ø Tape of animal sounds (or make the sounds yourselves!) Ø Animal toys (either plastic or cuddly). Ø Toy farm. Ø Photos or pictures of animals Ø Fishing game (with magnetic rods). Ø Pictures corresponding to ‘Old MacDonald’.

Warm Up Activity: Ø Aim: To gain the children’s attention, promote good listening and matching skills, and introduce topic vocabulary. Ø Activity: Place the animal toys on the table in front of the children. They must then take it in turns either to listen to a sound played on a tape (or made by you), and select the corresponding animal. Name the ani mals together.

Activity Two: Ø Aim: To encourage understanding of animal words. Ø Activity: Place the toy farm in front of the children and a number of toy animals (small enough to fit on the farm). Encourage the children to all close their eyes. Whilst they are doing this, put 3 animals on the farm, and hide the rest. When you tell the children to open their eyes, select a child to take their turn and ask them to find one of the animals e.g, “where’s pig?”. You can increase the difficulty of this activity by putting more animals on the farm and asking them for 2, then 3 at a time.

Activity Three: Ø Aim: To increase ability to name animals. Ø Activity: Either put an animal picture inside each one of the fish included with the fishing game. Or if you only have the magnetic rod, then put a paper clip on each picture. Spread the pictures face down on the table or floor. You could even put some blue paper down to look more like water. The children must take it in turns to catch a fish with the rod and the n name the picture they have found.

Cool Down Activity: Ø Aim: To calm the children, develop choice making skills, and consolidate vocabulary they have learnt. Ø Activity: Introduce the song ‘Old McDonald’. You could even have a toy or puppet which you could use as McDonald. W hen it is each child’s turn, give them a choice of animal picture (begin with 2 then you can increase the number). When they have selected one, encourage them to hold it up whilst singing the verse. You can also incorporate the animal signs into this song.

Equipment Needed: Ø Teddy or dolly and clothes. Ø Small washing line (a length of string will do), and pegs. Ø Photos or pictures of clothes items. Ø Posting box (this can be a painted or covered cardboard box with a hole in, you could design it as an animal or a monster!) Ø Hats and scar ves.

Warm Up Activity: Ø Aim: To gain the children’s attention, and introduce topic vocabulary. Ø Activity: Present the children with a teddy or dolly with no clothes on! Ask the children what’s wrong and see if they can tell you. Then put some clothes out on the table. Let the children take it in turns to select an item of clothing and put it on teddy or dolly. You can name the i tems together.

Activity Two: Ø Aim: To increase under standing of clothes vocabular y. Ø Activity: Put up a s mall washing line (you could tie a piece of string between 2 thi ngs). Put out some pegs and either small dolls clothes, or clothes pictures. The children take it in turns to listen to you naming a clothes item. They must then select the correct item and peg i t up on the li ne. You could make this more difficult by increasing the number of items you ask for, or introducing the concepts ‘big’, and ‘little’. You can do this by providing the chil dren with big and little identical objects or pictures and ask them for one.

Activity Three: Ø Aim: To increase ability to use clothes vocabulary. Ø Activity: Put clothes photos or pictures face down on the table. Let the children take it in turns to look at the pictures and name them, then they can post them i n the box.

Cool Down Activity: Ø Aim: To calm the children and consoli date vocabulary. Ø Activity: Put some hats and scarves out for the children or other clothes items which can be easily put on and taken off. They may choose an item when it’s their turn and put it on. The rest of you can then sing ‘the sun has got his hat on’ but substitute those words for “(childs name) has got his/her (item) on etc…”.

Basic Skills

Session 1 – Eye Contact/face to face

Equipment Needed

ü Bags of bricks and giraffe ( or posting box ü Pipe and cars ü Head Scarves/hats ü Bag of textured balls/objects ü Bubbles/balloons ü Book

Position yourself in close face to face contact to the child. Make your facial expressions and voice animated to gain the child’s attention.

Warm Up Activity

Aim: To gain the child’s attention and promote co-operation for adult directed tasks.

Activity 1

Have a bag of bricks and give them one at a time to the child to post into the giraffe (box). After a few turns hold the brick and pause (wait for eye contact) before giving the brick to the child.

Activity 2

Aim: To encourage eye contact and ant icipation.

Post small cars or bricks down a cardboard tube or piece of pipe, let the child catch the cars. Hold the pipe up and look through it to encourage eye contact . Take turns catching, and post ing the cars. Say “ ready steady go” before letting go of the cars so that the child can anticipate the action. Model simple language such as “ go car” “ down” “ car stop” “ my turn” “look” “ wait”.

Activity 3

Aim: To reinforce a close face to face position with the child.

Have a bag of head scarves to pull out and place over your head. Pull them off suddenly and say “peepo” or the child’s name “hello Joe”. Do the same things with hats and let the child reach up to pull the hat off. Let the child have a turn with the scarves and hats.

Activity 4

Have a bag full of textured balls or a range o small rubber toys to explore. Let the child choose one fr om the bag and encourage hi m/her to show you the item. Take turns pulling out the balls and look at them together . Hold the balls up to your eyes and wait for eye contact. Place each ball away in a box or container so that each one pull ed form the bag is different. Use phrases such as “more balls” “look ball” “ball gone” “Joe’s turn” and “my turn”.

Activity 5

Aim: To facilitate flexible eye contact with a person and object. (Joint attention)

Use bubbles to encourage eye contact and visual tracking. pause after blowing some bubbles and wait for eye contact and possi ble for the child to request “more” (a gesture or vocalisation may suffice) Use a balloon to encourage the child look at your face. Blow it up and let it down again. Blow it up and let the air whistle out or let it go. Tie one of the balloons and let the chi ld keep it.

Wind Down Activity

Sing “Two little Dickie Birds” and use your fingers or finger puppets for the actions. Share a book e.g. “Pi-po (Gomer Press) which has holes for the child to look through.

Session 2 – Turn Talking and Joint Attention

Equipment Needed

ü Car/slide toy or balls/pipe ü Bag of objects and posting box ü Blocks or skittles/ball ü Feely bag or textured materials ü Bubbles/balloons ü Book

It is essential to be organised if you want a busy chil d to attend to your activities. Have all the toys in a bag or box so they can be br ought out one at a time and are out of sight. Each act ivity can also be enclosed in a bag or box which builds up anticipation and means they can all be tidied up afterwards. The aim is for the child to complete a range of short, motivating activities with an adult. Make sure you t ell the child when the activity has “finished” (say it clearly and perhaps use a si gn or gesture). Praise the child even if you have had to gi ve a lot of help so that s/he learns to complete activities successfully. Encourage good looking, sitting and waiting by praising any examples of these behavi ours.

Warm Up Activity

Aim: To ensure the child is comfortable and in a position to look and attend for all the activities e.g. facing you on the floor or seated at a smal l table and chairs.

Use a car and slide toy to engage t he child’s interest. Demonstrate the activity first and then give the child a car to place on the slide. Only use one car initially so you can keep hol d of it and control the activity. You can take turns or give choices when the chil d is familiar with the task and has better attention control.

Activity 2

Aim: To take turns with the child in a simple posting game.

Have a bag of interesting objects for the child to post in a box. These can be animal toys, a mixed range of toys such as car s or everyday objects such as cup, sock, ball etc. Let the child reach in a bag to sel ect the item to be posted. Take turns selecting the items and say cl early “Clare’s turn” or “my turn” and “Joes turn”. Children learn to wait and listen to the prompt.

Activity 3

Aim: To extend waiting by playing ready, steady, go games.

Use skittles or building blocks. Take turns to build a tower and then allow the child to knock it down when you say “go” you may need to gent ly hold the child’s hands and release them on “go” to indicate that s/he may now know over the objects. The child should eventually wait until “go” is signalled to move. Activity 4

Aim: To encourage joint attention using a feely bag to explore textured materials.

Take it in turns to feel and then pull out a range of objects or materials from a draw string bag. You could try guessing what i s inside the bag before pulling them out. Encour age the child to look at whatever you have pulled out as well as their own. This promotes joint attention skill s and facilitates co-operative behaviours such as sharing.

Activity 5

Aim: Add a highly motivating activity so that the child has completed a sequence of adul t- directed tasks.

Use balloons and/or bubbles to engage the chil d a little longer. S/he may want to stand up and p op the bubbles with hands of feet. Thi s is fine at this stage (be flexible). Remember to use language that is relevant to the task (bubble, pop bubble, all gone, more bubbles etc) and at the right level for the child.

Wind Down Activity

Sing “ Row, row , row the boat” with the child. This is good for busy children because it entails holding the child’s hands. Share a book e.g “That’s not my …..” (Usbome range) or books with pop out pictures e.g. “Pop up Jungle”

Basic Skills Pack

Session 3 – Listening and Attention

Equipment Needed

ü Bag of sound maki ng materials (Instruments). ü 2 Containers and objects to hide inside ü Farm animals/bag ü Pairs of instruments ü Skittles/ball ü Book

Warm Up Activity

Aim: To gain the child’s interest and encourage eye c ontact with the adult.

Activity 1

Have a bag of sound making items which could include homemade shakers, instruments, squeaky ball s, bells etc. Make sure there is a range of sounds from loud to quiet and even some that make no sound at all e.g. skittle to shake.

Let the child pull out an item from the bag and encour age him/her to shake it and listen to the sound. Keep your language simple and only comment on the items/sounds e.g. “shake, shake”, “listen”, “quiet”, “noisy”.

Activity 2

Aim: To promote the ability to localise sounds to thei r source.

Find two containers which look similar and place one or two small objects in just one of them. Let the chil d observe you place the obj ect in one of the containers and then hold them up and shake them. Ask the child “where’s the……?” (name object). See if the child can select the correct container and open it up to show hi m/her the inside.

Finally hide the object out of sight of the child so s/he has to listen carefully to locate the sound wi thout a visual clue.

Activity 3

Aim: To promote listening and copying skil ls by linking animal sounds to farm animals.

Pull toy farm animals out of a box or bag and make the animal sound “woof, woof”. Let the chil d hold the animal and repeat the soun ds with an expectant facial expression. Can the child copy the sounds and/or name the animal?

Next, make the animal sound before pulling out the animal from the bag. Can the child name animal? If not, pull out the animal with a flourish and name it “it’s a cow, moo, moo”

Activity 4

Aim: To encourage more precise listening skills by playing sound matchi ng games.

Have pairs of sound makers such as bells, shakers and whistles. Start with two pairs which make very different sounds e.g. bells and shakers. Experiment with the sounds and then pl ace one pair in front of the child and shake one of your instruments. Encour age the child to listen and then choose the same instrument (matching). Finally play your instrument out of si ght (behind your back or cover the child’s eyes briefly) so that s/he has to listen and then match the i nstrument.

Activity 5

Aim: To develop the abili ty to listen to a key word in a phrase.

Play “ready, steady, god” games with the child but let the child wait until s/he hears “go” before activating the toy or game. Examples of games could be knocking down some ski ttles with a ball. Only use a few ski ttles to begin with and a good si zed ball so the game is not difficult. The child needs to hold on to the ball (s/he may need you to hold it too, initially) and then release it on hearing the key word “go”.

Wind Down Activity

Sing “Round and round the garden goes the teddybear”. Share a book e.g. “Baa” (DrefWen) which has animals under flaps.

Session 4 – Choices and Labelling

Equipment Needed

ü Objects and matchi ng pictures ü Pop-up Frogs ü Cutting fruit set ü Tea set, soft toys ü Book

Warm up Activity

Aim: To ready the child prior to starting the activities.

Activity 1

Build towers with a bag of bricks. Encourage interaction by letting the child knock the tower down.

Activity 2

Aim: To extend vocabul ary and demonstrate the importance of labelling.

Use a bag of obj ects with a set of matchi ng pictures. Take it in turns to pull out the objects and match the m up to the pictures (place each object on top of the picture). Name the objects as you show them to de monstrate labelling. Do the activity again but see it the child can match the pi ctures to the objects. If the child can name all the objects you coul d add a new word to describe it e.g. “red cup”, “big stock” and “dirty shoe”.

Activity 3

Aim: To give the child a choice of two offered items.

Use the pop-up frog toy but give the child a choice of items to place inside e.g. frog/cat. Frog/ball (soft one). Give choices of plastic fruit for the child to cut using a toy knife e.g. “banana or apple”. Hold the items up so the child can see them and accept a gestur e initially as a choice (but prompt for a word).

Set up a tea party with toys or puppets and toy food. Have a pl ate of food items and encour age the child to choose one of them verbally. If the child finds this difficult then give him/her a forced alternative e.g. “apple or cake?” Make comments such as “monkey likes bananas” and see if the child can select a banana for the monkey.

Wind Down Activity

Give a choice of books such as “Dear Zoo; Rod Campbel l (puffin) and the Hungry Caterpillar; Eric Carle (Puffin).

Sing “round and round the mulberry bush” giving choices during the verse e.g. “wash or dry our hands?”

Basic Skills

Session 5 - Copying

Equipment Needed

o Bag of paired instruments/sound maker s o Pipes/tubes o Puppet, nice and nasty food o Animal toys, matching pictures o Play scene e.g. house or farm o Book

Warm up Activity

Aim: Introduce copying using actions

Activity 1

Have a bag of paired instruments and sound makers. Pull out each pair and give one to the chil d whilst keeping the other for yourself. Perform different actions with the instruments such as shaki ng, banging together, banging on the floor etc. If the child initiates actions then copy these so the concept of copying is being practised.

Activity 2

Aim: Introduce copying of sounds.

Use a variety of pipes and play around with them. Look thr ough the pipes and then make different sounds through them e.g. bbb, wee3e, oyoy, uhoh. Encourage the childe to copy by looking expectant and prompting “your turn” etc. A toy microphone can al so work well but remember that you cannot force a child to copy but only facilitate this.

Activity 3

Aim: To encourage copying of specific sounds.

Introduce a puppet and set up a game so that the puppet is going to have some dinner. Have all the food items in a bag (combination of nice food e.g. apple, toast, cake and nasty food e.g. spider, eyeball, sock) and give them to the puppet one at a t ime. It is probably best if you control the puppet so it can pretend to eat the food. The puppet can say “yum yum” “mmm” “nice” “oo, mm” etc for nice food and “yuk” “ err” aaa” “ nasty”. The aim is to for the child to join in and copy these sounds.

Aim: To encourage the production of animal sounds.

Turn the pictures over and then show them to the child one at a time. Name the animal and make the appr opriate sound e.g. “cow” moo, moo. Repeat the sound frequent ly and pause to see if the child can copy it. Pull the matching animal out of the bag and place it on the picture. This gives further opportunities to say the sound.

Activity 5

Aim: To encourage copying of a range of play sounds.

Set up a play scene such as a far m and farm house or a house wi th dolls. Facilitate play with the child and model play sounds such as “shsh” (sleep), “whee” “uhoh” “ouch” “yum, yum” “woof, woof” etc.

Wind down activity

Sing “This is the way we clap our hands, clap our hands, clap our hands” etc (tune of Mulberry Bush). Share a book e.g. Number One, Tickle Your Tum, (John Prater).

Equipment • Frog jack in the box with extra animals • Puppets • Pictures of actions • Bag with cloth, brush, toy food, cup. • Fishing game with action pictures. • Play scene materials e.g. Playmobile • Book, song.

Warm up

Aim: To focus child on action words.

Activity 1

Use the frog jack in the box toy and repeat the word ‘Jump’ frequently.

Place other animals in the box and repeat the phrase “Frog Jump”, “Bear Jump”, “mouse jump”.

Aim: To develop under standing of the animal names.

Activity 2

Let the child choose a puppet or soft toy and sel ect one yourself. Have a set of pictures of the actions and turn them over one at a time. Name the acti on and then act it out using the puppet. Encour age the child to copy you, and repeat the two word phrase frequently “monkey sit”, “dog sit”, etc. Let the child select the pictures and see if s/he can name the acti ons.

Aim: To extend the tar get vocabulary to include Brush, Wash, Eat, Drink.

Activity 3

Bring out objects from a bag and per form the actions on the puppets repeat the two word phrase frequently. “Brush dog” “Wash monkey” “Dog eat” “Monkey drink”

Aim: To reinforce vocabulary in a picture naming task

Place pictures of the target vocabulary in the fish of the fishing game. Take it in turns to name the action pi ctures and fish them up. Model the word into a two word phrase .”Bear sit” The fish can be placed wi th the pictures showing on top , or with the pictures downwards, which is less distracting.. If the child is co-operative you could ask for specific pictures to promote careful listening. “Where’s the bear jumping?” Only put a few fish out at a time, and obviously the pictures need to be on vi ew.

Aim : To facilitate vocabulary in a play activity.

Activity 5

Set up a play scene with figures and props e.g. Playmobil, Farm set with farmer, tea set and soft toys. Expand on any comments that the chil d makes and repeat phrases including actions yourself.

Wind down activity.

A song that incorporates lots of actions is “ Here we go round the Mulberry bush” You could use actions such as clap hands, wave arms, stamp feet, shake head. A good book is “Baby Bear, What do you see?” by Bill Martin & Eric Carle. Or “Amser Chwararae Grwndi’r Gath/ Playtime Poppycat” by Lara Jones

Equipment

o Animal sound jigsaw o Toy animals (two sets if possible) o Animals/matching pictures o Animal Pictures o Book

Warm up

Aim: To prepare the chil d for the session and introduce vocabul ary.

Activity 1

An animal sound jigsaw is a good way to tal k about animals. Take it in turns to complete the jigsaw if it takes longer than 5 minutes to complete.

Aim: To develop under standing of the animal names.

Activity 2

Pull out toy animals from a bag and name them. Place them in a row in front of the child (5 would be enough) and then ask for them back again “give me the cow” Emphasise the animals name with your voice repeat the name i f necessary and you could even point if the child is struggling. The task will get easier as all the animals are removed one at a time.

Aim: To encourage the ability to name animals.

Activity 3

Match a set of ani mals to pictures. Bring out the pictures one at a time and name them for the child. Let the child select a picture and wait for him/her to name it. If the child does not does this then give a choi ce “Is it a dog or cat?” (The target word should be the last word of the choice to make it easier) or perhaps make the ani mal sound “maiow” and first sound of the word “c” (wait expectantly). When the child has named the picture then bring out the toy animal with a flourish and match it to the picture.

Aim: To facilitate the use of ani mal vocabulary in short phrases.

Activity 4

Set up a simple farm scene with a building and a field. This could be a box and a piece of green material. Put out the animals into the building or field and use shor t 2/3 word phrases e.g. “house eat” “ sheep drink” “ cow sleep” “pig walk”. It is useful to have more than one example of each animal which gives the opportunity to repeat the words frequently.

Aim: To teach naming of animal pictures.

Activity 5

Place an animal picture in each one of the fish in a magnetic fishing game. Take it in turns to name one of the pictures and then fish it up.

Wind down activity

“Old McDonald had a farm” is a good choice of song. Use animal puppets or pictures to accompany the song. “Siarad Fferm” (Dref Wen) would be a good choice of book.

Equipment

Bag of Hats Several Socks Trousers T-Shirts Clothing and Matching Pictures

Warm Up

Aim: To introduce vocabul ary and prepare the child for the session.

Activity One:

Have a bag of hats, pull them out one at a time and play with them informally. Take them on and off your head and encourage the child to try them on. Name the hats and make the appropriate noise; for example, fireman: “nee nor, nee nor”.

Aim: To reinforce vocabulary using a sorting task.

Activity Two:

Have a bag/box of clothing; for example, socks, trousers, T-shirts, and sort them into piles. This gives the opportunity to repeat the words frequently; for example, “sock”, “more socks”, “my sock”, and “your sock”. You could set up a scenario whereby socks go in the box, t-shirts in the bag, and trousers on the floor.

Aim: To reinforce a wider range of vocabul ary.

Activity Three:

Have about five items of clothing; for example, hat, T-shirt, trousers, socks, and shoes, with matching pictures. Play a game of packing a suitcase for a holiday. A toy suitcase is a good prop or otherwise just use a bag. Put the pictures on the floor and turn them over one at a time and name the item; for example, “Look, a shoe”. Find the shoe object and place it in the case, then take the items out of the suitcase and give the pictures to the child to name. You could back the suitcase as the child names the clothing, making comments as you do it; for example, “Yes, a shoe”, and “Here’s a sock”.

Aim: To introduce the words “clean” and “dirty” in relation to clothing.

Activity Four:

Have a pile of mixed clothes (or pictures of clothes if the child is able to respond to pictures). Use a pretend washing machine and tell the child that all

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 80 the dirty clothes go in the washing machine and clean ones go i n the box. The clothing needs to be visibly clean or visibly dirty; for example, there could be black ink on the dirty clothes. Encourage the child to sort them and reinforce phrases using the key vocabular y; for example, “clean sock”, and “dirty dress”.

Aim: To reinforce the vocabulary in a functional task, such as dr essing.

Activity Five:

Use a doll or teddy bear and clothes, and play a dressing-up game. Reinforce phrases such as “pants on”, “jumper on”, “socks off”, and “hat off”. This activity can be done usi ng a picture of a doll or teddy bear and clothes to stick on.

Wind Down Activity

Food

Equipment

Puppet Bag of toy food Cloth Shopping basket Food and matchi ng pictures Post – It notes/ Food pictures Book

Warm up

Aim: To introduce vocabul ary and stimulate the child.

Activity 1

Pull some plastic food out of a bag one at a t ime and place each one under a cloth. Name the food and when all the items are under the cloth then you can start uncovering them and pretending to eat each one “yum, yum, apple gone” “eat banana” etc.

Aim: To develop understanding of food vocabulary.

Activity 2

Introduce a puppet, you coul d name it together. Explain that the puppet is hungry and wants somethi ng to eat. Place two or three items of toy food in front of the child and say that the puppet wants one of t hem e.g. “Monkey wants and apple” Emphasise the key food word so that the child pays attention to it. You can give further prompts if the child does not select the correct one such as poi nting and repeating the word or reduce the choice to only one or two items. When the child gives the food to the puppet make it fun by act ing out eating “yum, yum, I like apples” etc.

Aim: To encourage the ability to name food items.

Activity 3

Introduce a pretend shopping game with a basket and toy food. Have a “shopping list” which will be one or two pictures of the food items. Place the food items on a box and ask the chi ld to put requested items in the basket. Let him/her see the pictures to ensure success e.g. “I want a biscuit” (with a picture visible). When all the food is in the basket, take it out again and swap roles so that the child needs to tell you what goes in the basket. Some

Aim: To facilitate the use of food vocabul ary in short phrases.

Activity 4

Use a fruit/vegetable cutting game to reinforce phrases such as “cut the orange” “eat the potato” Some children need help using the knife to cut the items which is fine. Placing the food on a piece of carpet can be helpful as it gives more grip.

Aim: To encourage the ability to name food items using picture materials.

Activity 5

Place a post – it note on top of a range of food pictures. Spread them out and then take it in turns to sel ect a picture, pull of the post-it note and name the food illustrated.

Wind Down Activity

The Hungry caterpillar has lots of food but the story may be too long so reduce it, appropriately. A song could be an adaptation of “If you’re happy and you know i t eat a grape, cut a banana bake a cake ”.

Equipment

Transport Jigsaw Bag of Transport Toys Pipe and/or posting box Transport Toys and Matching Pi ctures Fishing Game and T ransport Pictures Book

Warm Up

Aim:- To promote attention/listening skills and to introduce transport vocabulary.

Activity 1

A transport jigsaw which makes all the sounds is a good way of introducing the vocabulary and the child may be able to copy the sounds. Repeat the names of the pi ctures frequently whilst doing the jigsaw. Give the child lots of help if s/he needs it to complete the jigsaw.

Aim: To encourage naming of common tr ansport toys.

Activity 2

Choose three types of transpor t such as cars, trains and boats. Have a bag with about five each of these inside, which can be pulled out and named. Match the transport toys to pictures. This gives lots of opportunities for repeated naming e.g. “car” “more cars” “car go” “there is the car” etc. You could take it in turns to pull out the toys from the bag. Hold your s up and look expectantly at the child and see if s/he can name i t for you. Waiting expectantly is a better technique than al ways asking “what’s this?” which can become a prompt and habi t for a child (although asking directly can get a child started sometimes).

Aim: To reinforce a wider range of transport vocabulary.

Activity 3

Post a range of transport toys into a box which could be made to look like a garage or car park. Take it in turns to pull out a toy form a bag, name it and then post it. The toys coul d also be posted through a rope on to a car park/mat.

© 2008 Clare Price, Emily Evans, Suzy Brown 84 When you are putting away the toys ask the child to find you the ones you name “give me the bus” “give me the bike” etc. This promotes understanding of the vocabul ary which is essential for effective use. Aim: To reinforce transport words using picture materials.

Activity 4

Put a range of transport pictures inside each one of the f ish in a magnetic fishing game. Demonstrate the technique to the child and then take it in turns to request a picture and fish it up e.g. “Give me the fire engine”. The child will fish the fire engine picture and then it is his/her turn to name one for you to fish. This gives practice of both using and understanding the vocabul ary.

Wind Down Activity

“That’s not a tractor” is a good book. “Wheels on the bus” would be an appropriate song to end the session.

Complex needs before words

Equipment needed

Scarves or Squares of cloth Objects for visual tracking Textured balls/bubbles Shakers, rattles Textured materials Spinning top Sound drum Book

Warm up activity

Make sure the child is appropriately positioned and suppor ted; begin the session by alerting the child to your presence.

Activity 1

Play pee-po with a piece of light bright material. Gradually pull the fabric away and say “pee-po”

Activity 2

Aim: To promote visual tracking on moving objects. This is needed for joint attention and eye contact whi ch are essential for the development of communication skills.

Gain the child’s attention by saying his/her name and using a motivating toy. This toy needs to have visual appeal (shiny or lights) and perhaps make a sound too, so that it can attract the child’s attention. Gradually move the object to one si de, and watch to see if the child’s eyes follow it. Move it across to the other side at a pace the chi ld can follow. Repeat a coupl e of times and change the object over the next sessi ons to keep interest. Can the child track the object up and down? Bubbl es could be used to keep the child’s attention.

Activity 3

Aim: To encourage two handed grasping with objects and expl oratory play.

Place an object where the child can see and reach for it. You could be holding the object within easy reach but wai t for the child to make the fir st move. Observe any message such as like or dislike, and say somethi ng simple such as “ooo ball” “uh... no, ta” Copy back any vocali sations made by the child too.

Activity 4

Aim: To Broaden sensor y experiences by using textur ed materials and touch.

Use a bag of textur ed materials and encourage the child to feel these. If the child responds negatively to one of the textures, then keep thi s sensation to a minimum initially but build up the tolerance gradually over the sessi ons. Play games with the materials by introducing songs or rhymes .e.g. “Round and round the garden ” on the Childs hand or foot. Some children like vibrating toys and these can be pl aced on different parts of the Childs body as par t of a game.

Activity 5

Aim: To promote object permanence which is when the chil d starts to realize an object exists even when it is out of sight.

Use an object that the child really likes, and focus the chil d’s attention on it. Then cover it with a light piece of material and say “where‘s it gone?” remove the fabric say “Here it is” Repeat the routine and wait to see if the child can remove the fabri c. Help him/her to remove the fabri c if needed and you can also partially cover the object to give an extra clue...

Activity 6

Aim To promote cause and effect whi ch is an important communication skill. As the child needs to learn that s/he can mak e things happen/have control over their environment.

Use toys that are reactive i.e. Have buttons t hat can be pressed to activate lights or sounds or both, spinning tops are useful as they are easy to activate or musical drums. Demonstrate to the child how the toy wor ks a few times and then pause and wait expectantly. Respond to any si mple gesture or vocalisation and activate the toy again (say “more” or “stop” or “go”) let the child have a turn at activating the toy.

Wind down activity.

Sing “Row, row, row your boat” as this song encourages eye contact, and involves movement. Choose a book whi ch has lots of textures and sounds e.g. “The Farm” a cloth book by Mothercare with rustling pages and shi ny materials to explore.

Additional sessions Part III session 2

Complex needs Fun with Textures and food

Equipment needed

Piece of material Drum Teether type toys Vibrating Toys Bowls of dry and wet food Wipes Tomato sauce or cream

Warm up activity

Make sure the child is appropriately positioned and suppor ted; begin the session by alerting the child to your presence.

Activity 1

Play pee-po with a piece of light bright material. Gradually pull the fabric away and say “pee-po” Start touching the child (Firm touch rather than light) on a part of the body which is easily tolerated such as ar m and hands. Clappi ng games are a good way to introduce touch to the hands or banging together on a drum

Activity 2

Aim: To encourage mouthing of objects to broaden hand to mouth experiences. Select toys with shapes appr opriate to oral and intra-oral stimulation: Teething rings, chewy tubes, t oys with appendages. Puppets or dolls can be used t o model mouthing if the chil d is at a developmental level to enjoy this. Vibrating toothbrushes can be used to stimulate the face and mouth. It may be best to star t on the hands and work up to the Face/mouth. It is not recommended to put the t ooth brush inside the child’s mouth, but if the child does this him/her self, it should be praised and encouraged.

Activity 3

Aim: To develop tolerance of textures through exploratory play

Use a bowl of food with one texture, such as cooked past a, tinned beans or carrots. Jelly or custard. It would be best to start with a bowl of drier food such as pasta and progr ess to wetter foods like Jelly.

Let the child touch the food with hid/her hands and make a mess. The aim is for exploration of textures, rather than eating any of the food. If the child does put food up to the mouth, then ensur e this is safe by carefull y observing, but encourage mess around the face. Don ’t immediately wipe the face but let the child become accustomed to the new sensati on. If you do wipe the face or hands use firm dabbing strokes, rather than light swiping which can be too stimulating.

Activity 4

Aim: To introduce some mixed textures to extend the sensor y experience.

Add another texture to one of the bowls of food e.g eg Tomato sauce to the pasta, or squi rty cream to the jelly. Again the aim is for the child to experience the textures, and there should be no pr essure to eat.

Wind down activity.

Wash the Childs’ hand in a bowl of water and let him/her splash a bit. Toys could be used to float in the water, or play foam sprayed on the surface. Sing a song whil st splashing in the water eg. “This is the way we spl ash our hands” (to the tune of here we go round the mulberry bush). A suitable book would be “Don’t put your finger in the jelly Nelly” (Nick Sharatt)

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