Tag Archives: joint attention

Let’s Play! The Stepping Stones to Verbal Communicators

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If you are a parent of a toddler receiving speech and language therapy, you may have noticed your child’s therapist playing games such as peak-a-boo, and wondered to yourself, “What do these games have to do with learning to talk?” While learning to talk is of course the ultimate goal in speech and language therapy, there are actually many skills a child needs to develop before they are ready to start talking. Some of these skills include joint attention, turn-taking, and responding to people and their environment, among others. One of the best ways to support acquisition of these pre-linguistic skills is to engage in social games with your child.

What are social games and why are the important?

Social games are people-based in that they are interactive games between you and your child rather than the use of toys. Examples include peek-a-boo, songs with corresponding actions, hide and seek, tickles, etc. Engaging in social games with your child will help to develop their interaction, communication, and social skills. Through social games, children learn to pay attention to others, anticipate what will happen next, and imitate actions. Additionally, through these games children learn important skills such as how to take turns and connect with others. These pre-linguistic skills are the foundation of verbal language. For example, a child who has difficulty using joint attention, which is shared attention with another person, will not have as many opportunities to learn about their environment from the people around them. Additionally, a child who is not using turn-taking will have difficulty understanding the back and forth nature of conversation. Through acquisition of these pre-linguistic skills a child becomes ready for communication and verbal language use.

How to play and what to look for?

You will want to engage in social games repeatedly so that your child learns the routine. For example, if you play peak-a-boo with your child play it over and over again and look for your child learning the game. You may notice that they have learned the game once they start to smile or laugh in anticipation of you saying, “boo!” Over time, you might see your child’s initiation skills emerging when they cover their eyes with their hands or cover themselves up with a blanket to request playing a peek-a-boo game with you. Eventually, you can try to pause after “peak-a…” and see if your child can fill in the word, “boo!” Once your child has learned the routine they will be able to anticipate what is going to happen next.

When thinking about your child’s language development it is important to remember that there are many steps that come before talking and children must master pre-linguistic skills before they can be successful with verbal language. So, when think you are just “playing” remember that you are actually teaching your child foundational skills to become an active learner and communicator!

Questions or concerns?

If you have questions or concerns about the importance of social games and your child’s language development, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.com or 773-332-9439.

Claire Hacker MS, CCC-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist

Photo Credit: from Pixabay

Parent Question: How does developmental therapy support speech and communication skills?

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“The initial evaluation team recommended developmental therapy for my child but my concerns are with her speech. How can developmental therapy help support her speech? I thought that it focused on preschool readiness skills?” — Concerned Parent

Developmental therapy (DT) focuses on the whole child and often addresses different areas of development, including speech and communication. DT can often be used to complement and support speech therapy by helping your child learn pre-communication skills. These skills include sharing joint attention, attention span, imitation of gestures and play ideas, and general play skills and are essential in learning how to speak! This blog will explain these skills and how you as a parent can help your child with their pre-communication skills.

Pre-communication skills
Joint attention: Joint attention is when two people share attention with an object or activity. This can be demonstrated by sharing eye contact, using gestures, and/or other non-verbal and verbal communication. While children can learn some skills from toys and objects independently, they absolutely need to be able to share joint attention with another person to learn language and how to communicate with others.

Attention span: In order to learn any new skill, one must have the attention span to attend to an activity. On average, a child is expected to attend to a single activity for – at minimum – one to one-and-a-half minutes per year of age. And as they age, a child should be able to attend to several activities in a row.

Imitation of gestures: Imitation of gestures always comes before imitation of words. It is important for your child to learn that they can imitate what other people are doing! Once your child is consistently imitating familiar gestures (such as waving or clapping), novel or play gestures (feeding the baby a bottle, for example), and “invisible” gestures (this is a gesture that you can do but not see yourself do, such as sticking out your tongue or tugging your ear), we know that your child is on track to using sounds and words to communicate.

Play skills: A child’s “work” is play! It is important for your child to engage in functional play with toys to learn the concept the toys are targeting. Engaging in functional play provides your child opportunities to use language to communicate. Play is also a great measure of a child’s cognition!

How can parents support pre-communication skills?
Joint attention: Engage in a preferred activity that your child has mastered – we want to make sure they can focus on learning the skill of joint attention and not forcing too many cognitive demands at once. For example, if your child does not yet match, you would not use a puzzle for this activity. Activities with lower cognitive demands – such as popping bubbles – is much more appropriate for a joint attention activity (but if your child has mastered matching, feel free to use a puzzle!) After blowing bubbles a few times for your child, pause the activity. Give him or her the opportunity to come to you and show you that they want “more” by using eye contact or gesturing to you what they want. If they only look at or touch the bubbles, bring the bubbles near your face to encourage eye contact. Once they look to you, provide praise and blow more bubbles! Continue this routine as long as your child will tolerate.

Attention span: Toddlers are notorious for having a decreased attention span! Everything is so new and interesting to them, no wonder they want to bop around the room and get into everything! Make sure you create a learning and play space that is conducive to attending to activities. Having a large number of toys available at all times or always having the television can create many distractions for your child.

When starting to work on increasing your child’s attention span, your goal should be to complete one activity – that’s it! An activity with a clear beginning and end, such as a puzzle or book, are great activities to start with. Engaging in symbolic play with a baby doll, for example, would be considered an open-ended activity that can be finished after one minute or ten. And again, you want to choose something that they have mastered so they are not expected to complete an activity that is new or particularly challenging.

Imitation: To work on a child’s imitation skills, you can start by imitating them! If they bang a toy on their highchair, you do the same. Encourage your child to do the gesture again before imitating it again. Once you go back and forth a few times, change the gesture – rub an object on the highchair instead for example. If your child does not imitate this gesture, do it again. If they continue to not imitate this gesture, provide hand over hand assistance to show them exactly how to imitate this gesture.

Play skills: Sometimes, children need to be taught how to play functionally with objects! Just like any other skill, play needs to supported and taught and it is up to the child’s first teacher – their parents – to show them just that. Parents should be modeling appropriate play with toys and encouraging the child to do the same (this is also where those imitation skills come in handy!) Help your child master functional play by setting aside a few minutes every day to provide your child your undivided attention and PLAY!

Questions or concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s pre-communication skills, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.com or 773-332-9439.

Kimberly Shlaes, MAT, DT
Director of Developmental Therapy Services

Reference:

Teach Me to Talk. (July 30, 2018). Sorting Out the 11 Prelinguistic Skills… Retrieved April 25, 2019 from http://teachmetotalk.com/2018/07/30/sorting-out-the-11-prelinguistic-skills/

Photo Credit: PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

What is joint attention and how can I work on it with my child?

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Joint attention is the shared focus of two people on an object. It is achieved when one person alerts another to an object via eye contact, pointing, or other verbal or non-verbal means. Joint attention is an important part of learning language, because we learn through interaction with other people. Language is ultimately a social way of interacting, and in order to communicate with others we must first demonstrate the social skill of jointly attending with them. When a child does not independently engage in joint attention it is important to target this skill to increase their ability to absorb language and other developmentally appropriate skills.

Strategies to encourage Joint attention include the following:

  • Give your child objects at your eye level to encourage eye contact
  • Try to be at your child’s eye level while playing
  • Play social games such as peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, hide and seek, etc.
  • If your child becomes overly focused on a toy, tap them and say their name to remind him that you are there and playing with the toy too.
  • Use animated voices and exaggerated faces while playing. Animated voices and faces are fun for kids and will create a positive experience that may encourage future eye contact.
  • Use verbal routines such as “ready, set…go!” to alert your child that something exciting is about to happen. This should encourage them to look towards you to find out what that is.
  • Do what your child likes. They will be more likely to wish to interact with you if you are doing something that is fun for them.

Activity ideas to practice joint attention:

  • Peek-a-Boo: Peek-a-Boo is a fun social game that encourages turn taking and eye contact.
  • Bubbles: Bring the bubble wand to your eyes before blowing a bubble to encourage your child to look at you. Once they look at you blow bubbles as a reward. To make the game more interactive you can move around the room and only blow more bubbles when your child follows you and looks at you.
  • Scavenger Hunt: Hide objects around the house (or a specific room) and try to find them together. When you find an object point and say “look!” to encourage your child to jointly attend to the object with you. You can then bring the object to your eye level to encourage eye contact. If they find something celebrate while standing/sitting/laying at his or her eye level.
  • Choo-Choo Train: Lay your child on their back and hold their legs while leaning over them. Say: “the train is going up the track” while lifting their legs in the air. Say: “the train is going down the track” while bringing their legs down to the floor. Repeat this several times. Then push their legs in and out while saying “chuga chuga chuga chuga chuga chuga”. When your child makes eye contact with you say “choo-choo!” while lifting their legs into the air. (activity credit: Laura Mize teachmetotalk.com).
Katie Dabkowski, MS, CF-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist

Joint Attention: How to Engage in Joint Attention with Your Child

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Joint attention uses shared gaze and/or behaviors to communicate with a social partner. Joint attention is an important developmental skill that helps develop a child’s social language. This social developmental skill shows that a child is not only interested in objects in their environment, but in people too.

Joint attention usually first occurs between a child and their caretaker. A child can indicate, to their caretaker, their interest in an object or activity through gaze. A child can also use gestures such as pointing to engage their social partner in communication.

Social referencing: occurs when a child looks at an object, then back to the caretaker to see their reaction to the object

Milestones of Joint Attention

  1. 2 Months: taking turns with looks, noises, and/or mouth movements
  2. 6 Months: following caretakers gaze
  3. 8 Months: pointing
  4. 9 Months: gestures and social referencing
  5. 12 Months: point intentionally
  6. 12-14 Months: direct attention through pointing and then looking back at caretaker

Tips for engaging your child in joint attention

  • Follow your lead: Use vocal engagement to have your child share enjoyment with you. Pointing to an object such as a ball or a toy will teach your child to share in your enjoyment.
  • Establish your child’s interest: experiment with different toys, books, or movement activities (ex: tickling). Discover which activities seem to get your child’s attention best.
  • Reinforce Proximity: reinforce your child’s interest by engaging them in an activity. Place the toy or walk away from the activity a couple of feet. To reengage the child wait for them to come towards you and engage you before beginning the activity again.
  • Level of engagement: have your child increase their level of engagement with you
    1. Looking directly at you or the object
    2. Reaching for the object
    3. Pointing for the object
    4. Pointing at the object and looking at you
  • Increase the amount of time the child is engaged
  • You choose: Interest your child in a variety of activities and toys to open their interest in an activity that is something of your choosing.

 Rachel Weiser, MS, DT

Developmental Therapist

Additional References:

https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/establishing-joint-attention-therapy-for-children-who-arent-tuned-in/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ab4vLMMAbY