I’ve changed the name of the child for privacy and confidentiality purposes. This is just one example, but I’m quite sure most centres would have at least one child at their service that presents similar to Zack.

Who:

Zack, 3-yo, boy

What:

Very limited language, single words, not clear at all. No diagnosis. Reactive, aggressive behaviours of concern, including hitting, biting, screaming, kicking. Zack was enrolled 5 days a week at childcare.

The process:

After an initial assessment process involving observations of Zack, interview with parents and carers at childcare, and some informal language assessments with Zack, I began intervention sessions.

Each intervention session involved 45-minutes of entirely 1:1 play with repetitive, predictable language. Lots of fun and games, and key word signs. We practiced turn-taking (a foundation language skill needed to participate in a conversation) and setting and holding boundaries (first we play, then you can have the light board). During sessions we focused on function words (often children like this have lots of nouns – they can label everything – but not verbs to describe what is happening!) and connecting.

In addition to weekly language intervention sessions, educators also committed to 10 minutes per day of 1:1 play with Zack where their full attention was on him, and no other child.

After 3 months of regular language intervention sessions, and a whole team targeted response, Zack was speaking in 3 word sentences, his speech was clearer and his problem behaviours decreased. He engaged in more play with his peers and both parents and educators reported better communication.

Zack’s story is very common. Often when children display poor behaviour, it’s because they don’t have the language to express themselves appropriately. What we typically see is when children’s language improves, so does their behaviour. Which makes sense! If a child can say “Stop I don’t like it” or “Help please” they don’t need to act out physically to get their needs met.

There is an increasing number of children on waitlists for speech therapists, when really, there are simple and effective things we can be doing TODAY to help children achieve their full potential. Better language supports better behaviour, which improves social and emotional outcomes, and better learning! Key word signing is one of the most simple and highly effective strategies parents and educators can implement to support children.