The competent use of language can increase young clients’ self-esteem, motivate them to learn, engage their willing cooperation, defuse power struggles, and teach conflict resolution skills, but the question is: How do we get kids talking?
One suggestion is to use their own language.
Conducting experiments to explore the language gap between rich and poor children that emerges during infancy, Anne Fernald, a psychology professor at Stanford University, identified one likely cause: infants who heard more child-directed speech developed greater efficiency in language processing and learned new words more quickly (Fernald et al., 2015).
Using special technology to make all-day recordings of low-SES Spanish-learning children in their home environments, Fernald and her colleagues found that exposure to child-directed speech – as opposed to overheard speech – sharpened infants’ language processing skills, with cascading benefits for vocabulary learning (Fernald et al., 2015).
Fernald’s work has led to the creation of a parent-education intervention study with low-income Spanish-speaking mothers in East San Jose, California, funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. This new program, called ¡Habla conmigo! (Talk with Me!), teaches Latina mothers how they can support their infants’ early brain development and helps them learn new strategies for engaging verbally with their children. Although they only have data from 32 families so far, the preliminary results are promising. Mothers in the ¡Habla conmigo! program are communicating more and using higher quality language with their 18-month-olds compared to mothers in a control group (Fernald et al., 2015).
“What’s most exciting,” said Fernald, “is that by 24 months the children of more engaged moms are developing bigger vocabularies and processing spoken language more efficiently. Our goal is to help parents understand that by starting in infancy, they can play a role in changing their children’s life trajectories” (Fernald, 2015).
Related Online Continuing Education (CE) Courses:
Improving Communication with Your Young Clients is a 3-hour online continuing education (CE/CEU) course that teaches communication skills for use with young clients and their families.
Healthy professional and personal relationships rely heavily on effective and respectful communication skills. Professionals can benefit from enhancing their repertoire of communication techniques to improve the quality of relationships with families and children who have communication skills deficits. The competent use of language can increase young clients’ self-esteem, motivate them to learn, engage their willing cooperation, defuse power struggles, and teach conflict resolution skills.
The purpose of this course is to teach clinicians effective and practical communication and conversational skills to use in the classroom and in one-on-one situations with young clients and their families. Using these strategies, participants will be better prepared to manage difficult situations and conversations. Course #31-06 | 2018 | 59 pages | 20 posttest questions
Improving Social Skills in Children & Adolescents is a 4-hour online continuing education (CE/CEU) course that discusses the social skills children and adolescents will need to develop to be successful in school and beyond. It will demonstrate the challenges and difficulties that arise from a deficit of these crucial skills, as well as the benefits and advantages that can come about with well-developed social skills.
This course will also provide practical tools that teachers and therapists can employ to guide children to overcome their difficulties in the social realm and gain social competence. While there are hundreds of important social skills for students to learn, we can organize them into skill areas to make it easier to identify and determine appropriate interventions. This course is divided into 10 chapters, each detailing various aspects of social skills that children, teens, and adults must master to have normative, healthy relationships with the people they encounter every day. This course provides tools and suggestions that, with practice and support, can assist them in managing their social skills deficits to function in society and nurture relationships with the peers and adults in their lives. Course #40-40 | 2016 | 62 pages | 35 posttest questions
Supportive Communication for the Child with Special Needs is a 1-hour audio continuing education (CE/CEU) course that provides practical tips for helping parents to communicate with their child who has special needs.
Parenting a child with special needs comes with many challenges. Parents are often under pressure, not knowing what to expect or how to react and manage the behaviors their child may present. Children who have supportive and caring parents who understand their needs generally experience better outcomes, both in school and in general. In their desire to help, parents frequently look to their child’s school-based professionals for ideas on how to communicate and connect with their child. It is imperative that speech-language pathologists and other helping professionals like counselors and occupational therapists have practical ideas and skills in order to help parents do this. This course will discuss multiple practical ways to help parents communicate and connect with their child who has special needs, thereby gaining the competence they need to improve their child’s chances for success. A course handout with slides that flow with the audio file is included. Course #11-15 | 2018 | 58 minute audio | 10 posttest questions
Our online courses provide instant access to the course materials and CE test. Successful completion of the online CE test (80% required to pass, 3 chances to take) and course evaluation are required to earn a certificate of completion. Click here to learn more. Have a question? Contact us. We’re here to help!
Professional Development Resources is a nonprofit educational corporation 501(c)(3) organized in 1992. We are approved to sponsor continuing education by the American Psychological Association (APA); the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA); the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR); the Alabama State Board of Occupational Therapy; the Florida Boards of Social Work, Mental Health Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy, Psychology & School Psychology, Dietetics & Nutrition, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy Practice; the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker & MFT Board and Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology; the South Carolina Board of Professional Counselors & MFTs; the Texas Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists and State Board of Social Worker Examiners; and are CE Broker compliant (all courses are reported within a few days of completion).
Target Audience: Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers, Marriage & Family Therapist (MFTs), Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs), Occupational Therapists (OTs), Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs), School Psychologists, and Teachers