Learning to Talk Sue Roulstone Todays plan How do children learn to talk Factors that affect how fast they learn to talk How do parents think children learn to talk What Early Years Practitioners do to support children learning to talk How do babies learn to talk? Little scientists taking statistics Learning words saliency repetition relevance contextparents/child-language-talks/how-do-we- learn-words/ Recognising patterns What is that/ wassat Wheres mummy gone Recognising patterns Whats that Wheres cuddle gone Recognising patterns Whats that Wheres dog gone Whats dog done Recognising patterns Sitdownsuma Im plyering Its winding Robin Hood the margerine = satsuma = Im working with plyers = the winds blowing = rub in the margerine Correcting grammar mistakes? Example 2 Child: Nobody dont like me. Mother: No. Say nobody likes me. Child: Nobody dont like me. This exchange is repeated eight times and then: Mother: No. Now listen carefully; say nobody likes me. Child: Oh! Nobody dont likes me. Julian Pine, Nursery World, November 2015 Factors that affect the rate of learning to talk Child basis Nature Social basis Nurture Child Social Conceptual Perceptual Linguistic Cognitive Social background Mothers education, Parents employment, Housing, Overcrowding, Car ownership, Poverty Maternal mental health and attitudes to talking Verbal input Number of words, Lexical richness, Sentence complexity, Scaffolding Physical context (space, amenities, toys) Chaotic homes Activities and outings Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children University of Bristol Language at 2 years BabblingSingle words Two words together 3-4 Words together Total 3.7% (41) 14.8% (164) 27.1% (303) 54.5% (609)1117 Social background Language Mothers education or parents employment, income, housing status Vocabulary Mothers education or parents employment, income, housing status Vocabulary Number of words used Activities related to communciation Vocabulary and use of 2 words together at 2 yrs of age Mothers education etc Activities related to communciation Vocabulary and use of 2 words together at 2 yrs of age Mothers education etc School entry score Key findings What mothers do and say is more important for their childs early vocabulary than them having a good education, an expensive car or a big house Childrens vocabulary at the age of two and their early communication environment from 0-2 years make a difference to how well they do at school What are the things that parents do that might be linked to language development? Activities associated with language development Books owned at 6 months Frequency of trips to the library Home and parenting score Amount of TV on at home at 18 months Books Model of reading and enjoying books Experience of handling books Naming of pictures in books Hearing stories Scaffolding of shared book activity Books owned at 6 months Nothing beats a live social interaction Lost opportunities Noise background to conversations But it can be a life saver less TV Amount of time the TV is on in the home at 18mths Parents ideas about learning to talk Parents ideas Hearing Gender Personality Input from parents Input from other people Experiences Educational TV/video Marshall et al, 2007 I repeat everything she says so she knows how its supposed to be said I think they would learn to speak in their own time if parents didnt learn them at all but a hell of a lot quicker with the parents teaching them They need to see more than the immediate family surroundings Watching the right sorts of videos and hearing the same things repeated again and again helps Sister can teach him things other children and he will respond to that better than maybe me Child Talk Evidence-based intervention for pre-school children with primary speech and language impairment pgfar03050.pdf or google Sue Roulstone NIHR Programme grant journal Under-served communities poor attendance rates compared to other groups in the catchment area under-represented on the speech and language therapy services caseloads compared with their representation in the general local population parents/children to whom managers considered that they do not provide appropriate services. Under-served parents ideas Competent and less competent supporters Ideas that fit with professional advice Less common ideas Mixed views about television Impact of bilingualism and dialect variants Its due to us as parents to encourage talking to the children, to prompt them to start talking early, things like reading them books, telling them stories if youre singing the nursery rhymes, theyre learning the words in a happy way he just reads the story like hes reading the paper not everyday words that wed say oh look thats a flamingo, cos youre not going to say flamingo at home are you Early years practitioners a universal provision 26 EYPs & 40 SLTs were interviewed or attended focus groups We asked about: interventions used with preschool children with PSLI ways in which they modify their interventions the rationale and purposes for the interventions We compared how EYPs and SLTs talked about their interventions Early Years Practitioners a universal provision Maintaining attention and motivating the child Bags and bubbles a repertoire of activities Communication all the time in all the rooms Dealing with all the issues Helping transitions and routines Increasing childs confidence and self esteem Observation Improving participation and interactions with other children Working with SLTs Supporting parents Speech & language therapists Improving Foundation skills Comprehension Expressive language Speech Functional communication Self monitoring Generalisation Improving Adult-child interactions Adult understanding of the nature of the impairment and the role of the adult Foundation skills... it really is really important to get their attention and things, if you havent got that, even if youre modelling, you could be talking nineteen to the dozen and theyre not taking a single word in. Comprehension use lots of props, especially you know during story telling as well. We use lots of props and visual aids I think it helps them to understand the story better, so they can follow it. And for children whose concentration is quite, their listening and attention is quite poor. I think it helps them to keep a focus and visualise a bit better than reading it from the book. Expressive language you do things with simple words simple vocabulary, repetition, and then um, listening for the childs response, repeating what theyve said. Um... its this kind of interaction to children, following their line of interest, depending on what they talk to you about or volunteer, and following that up. Speech... basically weve got a bag with a kind of a little kind of bag within that. Weve got, um just some pictures of objects and kind of associated words. So for example, the suggestions [the SLT] gave us were to have one object with the picture sound only. So a snake to emphasize the s sound a rabbit or a toy fish to emphasize the f sound. And then it becomes a little bit more involved, so like a camera, so when it clicks you say c. Self monitoring Its just a matter of, just constantly picking her up if its something really silly like shell say something like oh yeah I want some oast, just out of lazy, its not lazy cos thats not right, its not lazy its habit I think, Ill say to her whats oast? and then shell go toast and cos then shell realise what Ive said, Generalisation... [parents are] aware the targets and we give them ideas of how they can support that with the home. Functional communication... we try to use [symbols] in most of our sessions that we deliver, find its helpful for parents as well if youre wanting children to wash their hands, and the parents are, wanting the parents to help them, you show them that sign, Adult child interaction. it is role modelling you getting down on the floor, maybe starting off that play and then trying to bring, if they are not confident to do so, bring them into that play. So we are role modelling from probably the minute we walk in the centre in the morning. Adult understanding I think, sometimes parents dont really understand how important it is to just talk through experiences, so at the end of the day, you know, what did you do, um, and that, all that sort of information is just gone, and now onto the next thing, so they dont really get to talk, and live experiences, and therefore the sort of whole, the whole speech just doesnt thrive Todays plan How do children learn to talk Factors that affect how fast they learn to talk How do parents think children learn to talk What Early Years Practitioners do to support children learning to talk And finally.. Children learning to talk are amazing But they need social interactions to learn how to do it Communication in all the rooms all the time Acknowledgements Early Years Professionals who took part in Child Talk: Focus Groups National workshops Parents who took part in Child Talk: Focus Groups National surveys Families and children of ALSPAC To the teams of researchers at ALSPAC and SLTRU, Including the ALSPAC speech team and our data buddy Laura Miller The ALSPAC project was funded by Department for Education Child Talk is an independent research programme funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grant for Applied Research Programme (Grant Reference Number RP-PG ). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. For further information Website:Reports: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE- RR134.pdf119/FullReport-pgfar03050.pdfhttp://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/ /FullReport-pgfar03050.pdf or google Sue Roulstone NIHR Programme grant journal