National Early Years Conference 5 th October 2010 Services that meet the needs of children and families ‘Talk to your baby…and listen too! Empowering Parents to create confidents and effective communicators’ Alison Pennie Speech and Language Therapist Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS

Why are good communication skills important? “Communication skills are the foundation of children’s intellectual, social and emotional development. Crucially, the link between language skills and literacy development has been seen as fundamental to ensuring later academic success, positive self-esteem and improved life chances. This understood the impact of unresolved CSN is clear in terms of educational attainment, social and personal development, behavioural and emotional control – with the knock-on impact on employability and likely involvement in criminal activity.” ICAN The Cost to the Nation of Children’s Poor Communication: Scotland Edition

Parents generally don’t think about their child’s speech and language development and what they can do to help, until there is a problem. e.g. - parent of a 2year old who hasn’t started saying his first words - parent of an 18 month old who doesn’t appear to be understanding

Most brain development occurs in the first 2 years of life “If babies are ignored, if their care givers do not provide this type of intensive verbal interaction, their language development may be delayed” Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2001

Parents need to be given the right information at an early stage in their baby’s development And so – speech and language therapists are now involved in delivering this information at weaning fayres across Glasgow

SLT’s aim To empower parents to unleash their child’s communication potential Prevention – giving parents information about what they can do at this early stage to develop their child’s speech, language and communication skills.

We needed to find out what parents know/don’t know Through talking to parents at groups and at weaning fayres we found that parents were very keen to find out what they could be doing to give their baby the best chance of developing good communication skills. Most parents did talk and play with their baby but didn’t know how important it was Parents were confused about TV’s Parents were feeling guilty about their baby using a dummy

Parents didn’t know when to start reading with their child Parents were confused about dummies,thumb sucking,tongue – ties Multi-lingual parents were unsure which language(s) to use with their baby Parents didn’t know wether or not to buy into trendy new products – baby sign, dvd’s to stimulate language development

It was clear that parents were not receiving a clear message, but that they were keen for information. Now every parent is invited to attend a weaning fayre, when their baby is between weeks. Speech and Language therapy are involved at all the fayres - approx. 150 each year

Information given at weaning fayres by SLT Why Speech, language and communication skills are important How to talk to your baby Listening skills, background noise Non-verbal communication Singing and reading Relationship to weaning Dummies Bilingualism

Comments from Parents: “It makes sense that words need repeated and repeated” “I’ve been speaking to my baby in both languages;I’ll stick to my first language all the time” “I didn’t realise that my baby wasn’t learning from TV. I have it on all the time, but not I’ll make sure we have some time with it switched off.”

Parents are interested and have many questions We give the same information to smaller groups of parents supported by social work teams. We don’t reach every parent, however the more we can spread these messages the better We now also talk at ante-natal classes and my colleague, Liz Scott has developed a DVD

“ There is no greater gift you can give your child at the beginning of life than the ability to communicate.” Dr Sally ward (2000) Babytalk, Century, London