This guide offers a programme to encourage language acquisition, and teach the child to use appropriate language and communication in differing situations. The author's early intervention programmes are widely practised in Sweden, and are based on the belief that language and communication develop as a key part of the child's overall development.
Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.
Introduction to the core concepts of teaching and supporting children with disabilities alongside their peers will help teachers ensure that all children meet their potential.
The Rossetti Infant-Toddler Language Scale is designed to provide the clinician with a comprehensive, easy-to-administer, and relevant tool to assess the preverbal and verbal aspects of communication and interaction in the young child. The Rossetti Infant-Toddler Language Scale is a criterion referenced instrument that assesses Interaction-Attachment, Pragmatics, Gesture, Play, Language Comprehension, and Language Expression. Behaviors can be directly elicited from the child, directly observed, or reported by parent or caregiver to credit the child's performance. All carry equal weight when scoring the scale. Results reflect the child's mastery of skills in each of the areas assessed at three-month intervals across developmental domains tested. The test items guide you in directing and structuring observations in order to monitor the child's progress in language developmental areas. The items are based on a compilation of author observation and descriptions from developmental hierarchies and behaviors recognized and used by leading authorities in the field of infant-toddler assessment. Only items considered discriminating and representative of a skill at an age were included. Severity rating guidelines help you interpret the results and confidently communicate the severity of the child's delay. Parent Questionnaire and report questions are in English and Spanish, found on the CD-ROM for quick printing.
Manual signs are used worldwide to support the communication and language development of children who have developmental disabilities. This book provides an overview of forty years of research and practice by recognised experts, from a developmental perspective. Uniquely, the book includes contributions on both sign languages and sign systems, linking the two fields of Deaf studies and Augmentative and Alternative Communication which have historically been seen as separate. This text is the most authoritative single text to date on the topic, providing an invaluable resource for speech pathologists, researchers, psychologists and educators. The main sections of the book include: the typical development of sign language and of gesture; literature reviews on sign acquisition in children with disabilities such as Down syndrome, autism spectrum disorders, Llandau Kleffner syndrome and deaf blindness. An important chapter deals with the latest research on sign language impairments in deaf children with developmental language difficulties, or autism spectrum disorders. The third section of the book addresses assessment and intervention, covering vocabulary, sign production difficulties and intelligibility, grammar and multi-signing, and pragmatics and discourse skills. The final two sections are concerned with use of signs in context: in the home, in school, and in different cultures. Throughout, care is taken to ensure that the voices of users are present and vivid, whether these be family members, teaching staff or the children themselves, with an entire chapter given over to an interview with a young adult's reflections on her use of sign since childhood. The book concludes with a call for a multimodal perspective on augmentative communication to be adopted in the future.
Speech and language are central to the human experience; they are the vital means by which people convey and receive knowledge, thoughts, feelings, and other internal experiences. Acquisition of communication skills begins early in childhood and is foundational to the ability to gain access to culturally transmitted knowledge, organize and share thoughts and feelings, and participate in social interactions and relationships. Thus, speech disorders and language disorders-disruptions in communication development-can have wide-ranging and adverse impacts on the ability to communicate and also to acquire new knowledge and fully participate in society. Severe disruptions in speech or language acquisition have both direct and indirect consequences for child and adolescent development, not only in communication, but also in associated abilities such as reading and academic achievement that depend on speech and language skills. The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program for children provides financial assistance to children from low-income, resource-limited families who are determined to have conditions that meet the disability standard required under law. Between 2000 and 2010, there was an unprecedented rise in the number of applications and the number of children found to meet the disability criteria. The factors that contribute to these changes are a primary focus of this report. Speech and Language Disorders in Children provides an overview of the current status of the diagnosis and treatment of speech and language disorders and levels of impairment in the U.S. population under age 18. This study identifies past and current trends in the prevalence and persistence of speech disorders and language disorders for the general U.S. population under age 18 and compares those trends to trends in the SSI childhood disability population.
Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
