Talking less equals talking more

For the young child, the failure to make typically observed progress in learning their first language is likely to curtail the child’s capacity to communicate effectively, as well as having a major negative effect on other areas of development and learning.

It has been estimated that up to 40 per cent of preschool children have some language delay or difficulty, although more conservative estimates would be 10 per cent with a significant difficulty and about 20 per cent showing some delay in the early years. There is clear evidence that early language delays have a significant impact on later language and communication skills, literacy skills, and behaviour, and are linked to a range of psychopathologies.

Therefore, it is important to implement successful early language intervention programs.

I recently developed and researched such a program. Importantly the “therapists” were the children’s own mothers and the interventions put the young child with language delays in charge of the conversation, with mothers in a new role as listeners and facilitators of quality interactions.

The training context was book reading, which is often used in home and early childhood settings by parents and teachers, often implicitly for language facilitation, particularly for enhancing vocabulary, or when developing early reading skills.

Significant and large changes in expressive, receptive and overall language were achieved in children with language delays when their mothers were trained and then implemented a set of simple strategies over a four-month period. My research confirmed that when adults speak less and listen more, children are able to speak more. Further, this change in the pattern of interaction leads to quite startling improvements in the quality of child language.

There are four key elements to the training program:

1. the intervention technique of pausing to allow the child an opportunity to talk first, that is, to initiate the topic of interest to them;
2. the technique of asking the child to say more on the topic s/he has initiated, using an open question or request for elaboration, as occurred in the original format of the first milieu language intervention technique of incidental teaching;
3. children’s picture books as the stimulus for language teaching and learning; and
4. the encouraging of parents to use the same key strategies of pausing and conversation building in everyday settings as often as they are able.

Individualised notes were provided to each mother, emphasising the importance of pausing so the child could comment first on every page of the book, rather than the adult reading the book, as typically occurs. Then the adult was asked to develop a conversation with the child using open questioning, such that the child was encouraged to understand and say something a little more complex than their original comment.

In simple terms, if the child says“truck” as an initiating comment, the adult might ask what colour it is, with the child saying “red truck” being a possible outcome. In developing a short turn taking conversation with her child, the mother demonstrates that they are really interested in the child’s choice of topic.

The intervention strategies ensure that the child chooses what they want to talk about, and consequently are motivated and attentive, and their “control” of the conversational topic is established.

Generally adults initiate and dominate conversations with young children with language delays. Unfortunately the consequence of this is effectively to prevent the child from having opportunities to communicate and so to use and learn language. When trained to pause, listen and interact as a facilitator, mothers allow opportunities for child initiations and child-led conversations. The success of the present program would suggest that certain assumptions about the need for directive teaching for young children with delays are not justified.

Generalisation of the technique and opportunities for more conversations were created when the mothers in the study used pausing and open questioning as often as possible in their everyday conversations with their child, as well as engaging in the book reading daily.

The book reading context functioned, in effect, as a “practice” time, both for the mother to learn the technique in a semi-structured setting and for the child to experience a conversation on their own chosen topic in an enjoyable, typically emotionally warm context. In addition books are a wonderful source of conversational topics with the advantage of picture stimuli, potentially a range of new and varied vocabulary, and a storyline to enhance conversation building.

Many early language programs are complex and parents need extensive training, whereas my approach involved a single training session, provision of sample children’s picture books and a single follow up phone call during the intervention period. Its hallmark was accessibility, simplicity and effectiveness, as confirmed by the participating mothers, noting that “the program was great, excellent”.

When compared to a control group, the children receiving the intervention made statistically significant gains in three measured areas of language using the Test Of Early Language (TELD 3). The significance levels confirm that the gains made by the children are attributable to the intervention, not to chance.

In addition, the effect sizes or amount of change in language skills, were very large. For the individual children, this means that they made a lot of progress and did this with a relatively short and simple intervention.

Interestingly, as well as the intervention impacting in positive measurable ways on children’s language, mothers also enjoyed the program. The mothers realised that changing from a pattern of being directive and controlling to one of pausing, listening and facilitating was the key to the child’s progress. One mother noted that “giving him control and choice has made an enormous difference - it is a much more effective way for him to learn”.

Comments in follow-up interviews included remarks such as: “it unlocked him”; “he is more confident and assertive”; “I didn’t think he would respond to more than a page of a book because he is so boisterous but he did really well and has improved a lot”, and “he was anxious, now he’s happy and confident”.

The results for one boy, Joshua, demonstrate the types of individual impact and changes that occurred with the program. For this boy, his mother and preschool worker both implemented the strategies for four months, although the preschool worker only did this for a few weeks on two or three days. Further, at the conclusion of the study Joshua’s mother asked to continue with the intervention for an additional four months.

When he began the program Joshua was four-years two-months old and his language was delayed (over a year behind); however, his response was excellent. After the initial four months Joshua’s scores had moved from ratings of poor to low average to average. After four more months Joshua’s talking or expressive language was average and his understanding of language or receptive language was above average. He enjoyed books and spoke out more confidently, initiating conversations more often. His mother noted that Joshua had “had a language explosion”.

In summary, a simple, consultative level intervention was developed. Mothers were trained, with a demonstration and explanation, in two key techniques of pausing and asking open questions contingent on the child’s initiated comment, aiming to develop a turn-taking conversation. Initially, the mothers instigated this change in a book-reading context, but were also encouraged to use it in other contexts.

The key element of the program was providing children with two opportunities: (a) to initiate conversations and (b) to participate in a conversation with a significant adult listening and facilitating more talk on their chosen topic. Over a period of four months children’s language improved significantly and with large effect sizes in an intervention group compared with a control group.

Importantly, this work has also confirmed that mothers can be a powerful agent for positive change when working with their own child with language delays.