The early years of a child’s life are key to the development of their speech, language and cognitive skills. For this reason it is important to give them all the stimulation, positive role modeling and human contact that we can. Providing positive input to help develop childrens speech and language skills is not a science and can be done easily through play and simple daily interactions.

The child’s brain is like a sponge, they are keen to learn about the world around them and are soaking up all the information and experiences they have.

Play

The importance of play

Play is absolutely vital to a child’s healthy development. A child’s exposure to play provides physical, intellectual, emotional and social development. Some research shows that up to 75% of brain development happens after birth, and the early years of a child’s life are the foundation for healthy growth and development.

Every time a baby or child engages in an activity the nerve cells in the brain are stimulated and connections are made. This process influences the development of fine and gross motor skills, language, speech, socialization, personal awareness, listening and attention, emotional well-being, creativity, problem solving and learning ability. A child learns to master his environment by practicing things over and over again.

The stages of play and the development of the child

Jean Paiget’s ground breaking theories have influenced the way we think about child development. Although some researchers now have differing opinions on Paiget’s theories, many of his observations and research still dominates the explanation of children’s thinking and development. Paiget saw play in 3 stages:

• Practice play – this takes place in the first 2 years and involves a lot of repetition of simple actions. The child learns about the properties of objects and how to manipulate them. The child also learns to monitor the effects of play on their environment.
• Symbolic Play – the child then starts to create a world of pretend and make-believe play. Children start to identify one object as another, e.g. a brush becomes a boat. This play later develops into imitation and elaborate sequences where the child may take on the role of a doctor or a teacher. The child starts to become less self focused and have more of an awareness of others. By age four the child starts to show an interest in games that have rules and they will move away from parallel play to play that involves more social interaction. These rules are very much based around sensori-motor aspects of play which provide structure and repetition. This play continues to ages 6 or 7 years.
• Games with Rules – these games, such as sports, involve rules and are not made up games created spontaneously. Children may occasionally negotiate the rules of the game. There is also more focus on the social aspects of play and the acceptance of the group.

Although there is discussion around the ages at which these forms of play begin to emerge and whether some of these stages can be broken down into further stages, Paiget’s explanation gives us a simple guideline on child development. These stages involve key processes that will influence the child for the rest of their lives. Their involvement in play will help them learn the concept of rules, it will develop their social skills, speech and language, cognition and imagination. Play is vital to a child’s healthy development.

Building a loving, learning and language rich environment through play and positive daily interaction

Building a language rich environment is, on the face of it, an easy thing to do. Unfortunately, in today’s busy households and with the busy lifestyles of parents who have to work full-time it is harder than many of us realize. However, there are many opportunities to use and teach language in everyday situations.

Firstly, if you can make time to spend with your children and have a shared focus, then great, because this is premium one-to-one time that will benefit your child in the long term. If you have the time, but just put your child in front of the TV with a dummy in his mouth, you are doing him no favours whatsoever. There are a few (and only a few!!) children’s TV programs that are in any way educational, and the child is more likely to learn about things from one-to-one playtime with his parent or carer. TV and video games are passive entertainment and do not encourage any interaction. Studies are now showing that many children who watch too much TV have difficulties with attention and listening when they reach school.

Building a language rich environment is about using every opportunity to use speech and language, to interact, to share a focus, to talk, to take turns. Building a language rich environment is also about building a nurturing environment, giving your child love and affection and building their self-confidence. And finally, it is about building a learning environment, creating a place where love, language and learning can all take place together.

This all might seem quite complicated, but let me give you a small example. You are a dad and you have 15 minutes to spend with your 4-year old son, Bill. You decide to be firemen and imagine that you have just got a call to put out a fire in a big building.

Firstly lets think about the language we will be using:
Nouns - fire, fireman, hat, boots, hose, water, fire engine, smoke, ladder
Verbs – drive, climb, run, jump, smell
Adjectives – hot, wet
Prepositions – in front, in, on

Social skills: - turntaking and shared focus

Self confidence – let your son be the chief fireman, let him give you the orders

Affection – give him a hug to celebrate when you put the fire out and save all the people

How easy was that!! This is just one short simple little role play where Bill is playing, learning, hearing and using language, building social skills, building self confidence, and bonding with his dad. Dad only needed 15 minutes out of his day to do it. So it is not always hard to do, you can do it in short bursts when you have little pieces of time.

Here is another example. Mum has to wash 2 year old Amy’s hands.

Mum: "look your hands are dirty" (takes Amy to the sink)
Amy: "baa"
Mum: "lets turn on the tap….whoosh, here comes the water, whoosh"
Amy: squeals with laughter
Mum: "put some soap on"
Mum: (rubs Amy’s hands together and sings) "wash, wash, wash, wash your hands"
Amy: laughs
Mum: "lets dry them now" (dries Amy’s hands)

Here is a typical example of a daily activity, but mum makes it fun and at the same time uses lots of language. This is a learning activity, with lots of language and it is a fun moment for mum and daughter. How easy is that!! Positive interaction like this is enriching interaction for the child. Surely these activities that last only a few minutes are worth more than an hour sitting passively in front of the TV.

Activities to develop early Social Skills

Day to day interaction and play will develop children’s social skills naturally. Children will take time to learn the rules of interaction such as turn taking and eye contact, but there are activities you can incorporate into your play which will help children understand these rules.

Turntaking can be learnt with all manner of games that require 2 or more people to take turns. Listening skills can be worked on by playing games where the child has to pause and listen and then acknowledge when he hears a sound. Staying on topic can be practiced by having a shared focus.

There is a happy medium as well, because although we may want to build self confidence and assertiveness, we do not want this to grow to a point where it becomes a negative trait. These things are part of good parenting and some of these issues will be focused on in this site.