BECOMING A CONSTANT SOCIAL SOUNDER
Please use this ‘tutorial’ to learn and help others learn to get your child to communicate first frequently with sounds before they move to the difficult motor job of combining sounds into words ( particularly for children with little practice communicate or with motor delays as in Down Syndrome.) You ay use it at home and give it to teachers and therapists. Let me know how it works.
LEARN
Most of us make sounds with little effort and no awareness. However, for many children ( some adults) making sounds is a very difficult physical activity. These persons may have low motor tone (Down syndrome), weak listening skills, neurological concerns (apraxia), few effective speech models, etc.
If your child is not speaking easily, realize that making sounds may actually be difficult. Many children with delayed speech make more sounds when they are playing alone than when interacting with people. Our research shows that these children often have to compete with speech that is too difficult for him to try to do. Speech does not just come like hair and height, your child’s speech come from you. How you talk, how often you talk with your child, and what you talk about have profound effects and your child’s speech development.
It is understandable that parents are in a hurry for thief child to talk. Parents often assume that if a child has sounds he will communicate with them. That is often not true. Many children do not communicate much with sounds. This happens when his partners do not frequently respond to the little sounds that they may not consider important.
When a child has difficulty making sounds, it is essential that his life partners respond to all his sounds so he learns that sounds are the best way to communicate. Too often adults give up on speech far too soon. Many children can learn to speak as tale as 6,10, 15. But to do that he needs partners who have frequent conversations with any sounds he can do.
SEE
Observe your child several times and ask a few questions: how often does he make sounds? 1-10 1 = never 10 = constantly
- How often does the child make sounds by himself (not to others)? 1-10
- How often does the child direct sounds to others?
- How often do you respond to your child’s sounds (not words)?
- How often do you keep your child sounding in conversations?
- How often does your child imitate your sounds/
CONSIDER THIS!
Be fair: If you expect your child to learn your language, you must learn and speak his first.
PRACTICE
Make sounding conversations a daily frequent habit.
Begin by selecting five daily routines a day to practice sounding conversations with your child.
Use these strategies every day. You may want to practice one at a time.
- Wait for child to initiate sounding
- Respond to your entire child’s sounds then wait.
- Take turns with sounds playfully
- Respond to sounds with a word that fits the situation.
- Treat your child as his own language-your job is to learn his language then translate it simply to yours.
- Accept all sounds at first without corrections. -You can give him a new sound but do not consider his a mistake.
- Match: Half the time: talk in ways your child can talk- the other half talk normally.
- Make you life one long conversation with sounds your chill can do.