Transcript National Early Years Conference 5th October 2010

National Early Years Conference
5th October 2010
Services that meet the needs of
children and families
‘Talk to your baby…and listen too!
Empowering Parents to create
confidents and effective
communicators’
Alison Pennie
Speech and Language Therapist
Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS
Why are good communication skills
important?
• “Communication skills are the foundation of
children’s intellectual, social and emotional
development. Crucially, the link between
language skills and literacy development has
been seen as fundamental to ensuring later
academic success, positive self-esteem and
improved life chances. This understood the
impact of unresolved CSN is clear in terms of
educational attainment, social and personal
development, behavioural and emotional
control – with the knock-on impact on
employability and likely involvement
in criminal activity.”
• ICAN The Cost to the Nation of Children’s Poor
Communication: Scotland Edition
• Parents generally don’t think about their
child’s speech and language development
and what they can do to help, until there is
a problem.
e.g. - parent of a 2year old who hasn’t
started saying his first words
- parent of an 18 month old who
doesn’t appear to be understanding
• Most brain development occurs in the first
2 years of life
• “If babies are ignored, if their care givers
do not provide this type of intensive verbal
interaction, their language development
may be delayed” Child Welfare Information
Gateway, 2001
• Parents need to be given the right
information at an early stage in their
baby’s development
• And so – speech and language therapists
are now involved in delivering this
information at weaning fayres across
Glasgow
SLT’s aim
• To empower parents to unleash their
child’s communication potential
• Prevention – giving parents information
about what they can do at this early stage
to develop their child’s speech, language
and communication skills.
We needed to find out what parents
know/don’t know
• Through talking to parents at groups and at
weaning fayres we found that parents were very
keen to find out what they could be doing to give
their baby the best chance of developing good
communication skills.
• Most parents did talk and play with their baby
but didn’t know how important it was
• Parents were confused about TV’s
• Parents were feeling guilty about their
baby using a dummy
• Parents didn’t know when to start reading
with their child
• Parents were confused about
dummies,thumb sucking,tongue – ties
• Multi-lingual parents were unsure which
language(s) to use with their baby
• Parents didn’t know wether or not to buy
into trendy new products – baby sign,
dvd’s to stimulate language development
It was clear that parents were not receiving
a clear message, but that they were keen
for information.
Now every parent is invited to attend a
weaning fayre, when their baby is between
12-24 weeks. Speech and Language
therapy are involved at all the fayres approx. 150 each year
Information given at weaning fayres
by SLT
• Why Speech , language and communication
skills are important
• How to talk to your baby
• Listening skills, background noise
• Non-verbal communication
• Singing and reading
• Relationship to weaning
• Dummies
• Bilingualism
• Comments from Parents:
“It makes sense that words need repeated and
repeated”
“I’ve been speaking to my baby in both
languages;I’ll stick to my first language all the
time”
“I didn’t realise that my baby wasn’t learning from
TV. I have it on all the time, but not I’ll make sure
we have some time with it switched off.”
• Parents are interested and have many
questions
• We give the same information to smaller
groups of parents supported by social
work teams.
• We don’t reach every parent, however the
more we can spread these messages the
better
• We now also talk at ante-natal classes and
my colleague , Liz Scott has developed a
DVD
“ There is no greater gift you can give your
child at the beginning of life than the ability
to communicate.”
Dr Sally ward (2000) Babytalk, Century,
London