What is social communication?
Social communication (Pragmatics) refers to the way in which people use language to interact within social situations.
How do I know if my child is experiencing social communication difficulties?
If your child presents with any of the following, they may be experiencing social communication difficulties:
- His/ her understanding of language is very literal (e.g. struggles with humour, sarcasm)
- He/ she finds it difficult to make friends
- He/ she finds it hard to play with others
- He/ she finds it hard to cope with changes to his/ her routine
- He/ she struggles to initiate interactions with others
- He/ she struggles to maintain an interaction/ conversation
Why might my child have difficulty understanding spoken language?
Some children present with social communication difficulties due to:
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)
- Learning difficulties
- Social Communication Disorder
What should my child be doing?
Birth – 9 Months:
- Your child will start to use signals such as vocalisations, cries, smiles and eye-gaze; however they will not yet be using them with specific communicative intent
- Your child will start to pay attention to different human voices & human faces
- Your child will start to respond to interaction by looking, smiling & laughing
- Your child will start to enjoy action games, such as “The Wheels on the Bus”, and he/ she will will begin to smile in recognition of familiar words
- Early interactions between yourself & your child will involve turn-taking and temporarily linked behaviours. These interactions may begin when your child looks at your face & are ended when your child looks away. Interactions often include repetitive games (e.g. “peekaboo”), which also involve turn-taking
9 – 18 Months:
- Your child will start to express a range of communicative intentions:
- Gestures combined with vocalisations/ words
- Attention-seeking
- Requesting objects, actions or information
- Rejecting or protesting
- Greeting others
- Naming objects or actions
- Your child will start to understand your gestures e.g. pointing
- Your child will respond appropriately to simple instructions e.g. “get your coat”
- Your child will initiate interactions non-verbally e.g. pointing, vocalising, requesting using gesture
- Your child will respond to questions using gestures & vocalisations
18 Months to 3 Years:
- Your child will use single words or multiword phrases to communicate e.g. comment on what they see, express their feelings, assert their independence
- Your child will start to use language imaginatively in play
- Your child will respond to questions asked using speech e.g. “yes” or “no” to yes/ no questions or specific location as a response to “what” questions
- Your child will initiate interactions with you e.g. “Mummy”
3 – 4 Years:
- Your child will use language to:
- Talk about past & future events
- Give information
- Request
- Retell simple stores
- Your child will notice changes in the wording of familiar stories & rhymes
- Your child can now initiate conversations with others e.g. using someone’s name, commenting or asking a question
- Your child is better able to communicate with less familiar adults
- Your child will be able to engage in imaginative conversation & change from one speech code to another when taking on different roles in play
- Your child will start to react to things they overhear in other people’s conversations
- Your child will quickly change from one topic to another
- If your child is not understood, they will often repeat themselves unprompted
4 – 7 Years:
- Your child will use language to:
- Gain & hold an adult’s attention e.g. “Know what?”
- Give Information
- Seek information from other people
- Give instructions to children their own age
- Negotiate & bargain
- Hypothesise
- Express a range of feelings
- State their beliefs & opinions
- Taunt & threaten
- Your child will learn to use language in a variety of ways to meet the needs of the listener e.g. manners
- Your child will begin to tell jokes (punchline often misses the point). They also start to use non-literal language e.g. idioms, metaphors
- Your child will start to use sarcasm & irony
- Your child’s narratives now become longer & more complex e.g. can sequence events
- Your child will ask for clarification when they have not understood a question asked/ information provided
- Your child will follow instructions given by their friends & respond to their questions
- Your child will become more efficient at starting & ending conversations. They will also be able to increase the number & length of conversational turns
- Your child is better able to identify the appropriate time to join in other people’s conversations
- Your child will often assume the knowledge of the listener
7 Years + :
- Your child will get better at setting the scene to take account of the listener’s needs
- When a conversation breaks down you child will be able to repair the error by addressing the source of the breakdown & elaborating appropriately
- Your child will understand & use social rules relating to facial expression, gesture, posture, distance & eye contact
Refrences:
- Adapted from Hazel Dewart & Susie Summers – Pragmatic Profile.
- https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Social-Communication/
- https://www.autism.org.uk/about/communication/social-children.aspx
No Comments