communicating partners

TO HELP ANY CHILD COMMUNICATE MORE. FIRST: Believe that your child will learn to interact and communicate with you more than anyone else. SECOND: Understand that every interaction you have will help your child learn. The more you interact back and forth every day, the more your child will learn with you. THIRD: Be a possible partner. Ask yourself, "Can my child try to do what I am doing?" If not, try hard to act like your child, plus one. "Plus one" means you to do what your child can do and frequently show the next step-- for example, another sound or word. FOURTH: Make your life together one of frequently taking turns and waiting for your child to respond. Silent waiting is one most effective ways to help a child communicate. Note: I suggest that you post this list where you see it frequently. These habits have helped many adults help children to communicate more. Let us know what happens. Dr. Jim macdonaldj86@gmail.com

Your child needs any kinds of practice that increases his interacting- with actions, gestures, sounds, words. Absolutely do not ignore his gestures - they are important building blocks to speech. Instead of ignoring them, respond with a word that fits the situation. And do not INSIST on any communicative behavior--insisting on difficult communications will only turn the child off and decrease the interactions he needs. Your child is mainly a person of action and sounds so support them, and translate them into words. Far too many professionals are pushing a child to words before they are ready. The developmental path starts with interaction, nonverbal communication and then, and only then, words. But be sure to match what he does in actions and sounds then show a next step. The key is to do whatever gets him to interact more and stay for more turntaking. I have known many children who have been submitted to developmental programs that force the child to do the difficult and ignore the n