News from Traditional Parenting, LLC

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         Most of you know by now that I am a pediatric speech and language pathologist, by profession.    My previous newsletter contributions have deviated slightly from my vocational course, in order to address the use of electronics by young children and the preponderance of rushed academics inflicted upon this generation of prematurely stressed children.   Certainly these issues of electronics misuse and "academania" have an effect upon language competency and are, therefore, justified and logical digressions. Active and imaginative play is facilitative for language development. The time taken from play and diverted to the bombardment of young children with academics, therefore, may have a negative effect upon the development of communication skills. Likewise, children holed up in their rooms with video games are not likely to develop interpersonal communication skills as they would in social play.
          In working with young families, I have been surprised by many to whom seemingly natural communication patterns and use of "motherese" does not come naturally. It is amazing to observe the many quiet households in which parents and children do little inter-communicating. Often, rushed parents do for their children, rather than take the time to teach them to do for themselves. Just as often, children are placed in front of televisions or other electronic media in order to give them a perceived educational experience, while busy parents get their own work done. A recent article I read indicates that many preschool children are placed in front of televisions for up to two hours daily while attending their preschool programs. These hours are in addition to the two to three hours that many parents allow once their preschoolers return home for the day. Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, has proclaimed that preschoolers who attend child care may spend more than one third of their waking hours in front of television screens.
          This month, I'd like to offer some common-sense approaches to facilitating communication skills for your babies, toddlers and pre-school children. None of the suggestions offered below involve the use of electronic devices. Additionally, all of the activities suggested below occur in natural learning environments, rather than in artificially imposed, heavily academic contexts.
                                       GENERAL LANGUAGE FACILITATION TIPS
1.     Look at picture books with your child on a regular basis. Books that have large, simple pictures of objects, and people engaged in actions are best at first. No need to read the story word for word; rather, stimulate with the object and action names, as you point to each. Next, have your child point to each as you name it. If this is difficult for him, use hand-over-hand to guide his finger to point to the named object or action. Using your hand over your child's hand is a viable technique for many skills. In fact, you can work stimulation into everyday tasks using this technique. For example, if you are opening something, put your hand on the child's as you turn the lid, simultaneously saying "open". Follow that with a model of that word in context, by saying something like, "now the jar is open: we can eat the cereal." Use extra voice volume and emphasis on the target word (in this case, "open"). Once you start to think in this way, you will find numerous opportunities to train object and action vocabulary throughout the course of each day's natural activities.
2.     Ask your child to do simple tasks, such as "go get your shoes". Again, if he does not follow the verbal direction, lead his to it, and use hand-over-hand to guide his through complying with the verbal request. If these simple commands are mastered without help, then add complexity or length, for example, "go get your white shoes" (ie: complexity increase, by adding qualifying adjective, in this case, "white"), or "go get your shoes, and put them in your room" (ie: length increase to two-part command).
3.     When you model names of objects and actions, put vocal volume emphasis upon the final sound of each word, as you simultaneously use an open-to-closed hand gesture to indicate that words close/finish. For example, if naming the action "push", prolong and emphasize the "sh" at the end, as your hands close from open-palm position to fists. Your child might spontaneously imitate those hand gestures, which is fine, but not necessary. Also, when you are naming a picture, try as much as possible to hold the picture at the level of your mouth, so that your child sees your mouth position as you produce the word, simultaneous with his viewing the picture.
4.     If you have individual picture cards (ie: vocabulary flash cards), place an array of three on the table, and ask your child to point to or give you one (ie: "get the broom"). To stimulate object-function associations, you can also ask him to get the one that is used for a certain purpose (ie; "the one we sweep with").
5.     Require your child to ask for what he wants: Be very consistent in your demands for his highest level responses. If he is capable of saying "orange juice", for example, require that phrase, rather than settling for just the single word, "juice", before you give him the desired orange juice. Depending upon your child's current communication level (ie: non-verbal versus verbal), you might have to begin with just a gesture, such as hand to mouth, to indicate "juice". Assist the child to do this with your hand over his at first; then, require him to do it on his own. Always expand the child's utterances. If he says "orange juice", for example, then provide the juice and expand your model to a longer utterance (ie: "Here's your orange juice. You want to drink orange juice.")
6.     Use play for facilitating "yours" and "mine", "his" and "hers" pronoun concepts and vocabulary: You might have a tea party with favorite dolls and stuffed animals, identifying each utensil in terms of who possesses it. Enrich by adding vocabulary for qualities and attributes (ie "You have a big cup. Bear's is little-His spoonis a shiny spoon. Mommy has a heavy plate-Mine is heavy," etc.) You might also ask your child to give you an item based upon its attribute (ie: "Give me the little spoon.")

      My book, the ABC's of Childhood-Active Play, Best Educational Practices and Consistent Discipline," researches and discusses electronic media use by children in depth.

For those interested in obtaining a copy of my book, please search by title at http://amazon.com or use the following direct link:
http://www.amazon.com/ABCs-Childhood-Educational-Consistent-Discipline/dp/143828411X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246285093&sr=1-2