Childrens communication skills

I don't know where you got the impression Eleothan that the Scandinavian countries have a lesser problem with children starting school with insufficient language skills, but the article, documentary or whatever was, to put it bluntly, lying.

We have the same problems, due to over-crowded nurseries and kindergartens, immigrant children, whose parents are learning a new language and don't speak it with their children, or 2nd and 3rd generations of immigrants who have two half-languages instead of two or even just one full language. Some children have reasonable language skills, but have never not been the centre of attention, so they don't work well as part of a group.

And I am not racist: we also have a lot of immigrant families who send fully bilingual children to school, but no-one ever talks about them, and plenty of Danish or other Scandinavian families with next to no communications skills.

Mobile phones are probably part of the problem, but young parents today have by and large absolutely no experience of looking after children before they have their own - we had helped bring up younger siblings and cousins, they haven't.

Children develop at different rates, and in different ways. Nurseries provide a different kind of support to parents/children, not as much one-to-one but so much more peer interaction. Sadly not all the staff are particularly well trained, and those who have qualifications may not have been that articulate themselves in the first place. (Letting parents know there may be a problem early can cause problems in itself - first-time parents don't need any more encouragement to compare their child with others)
And technology is not always a force for bad. FaceTime is brilliant for grandparents, non-resident parent etc, and toddlers are technology savvy at 18months

The very real and complex issues which are involved in communication are only just being recognised and still can be badly diagnosed. A friend's daughter was consistently described as having speech and language difficulties and was treated by many speech therapists but has now been diagnosed as autistic something unrecognised because it is rarer in girls.

gillybob please don't think I thought you were being flippant and I could be completely off base. Believe me I want to be so every story I hear which tells me different is music to my ears. ?

My DGS used to chat away earnestly with perfect intonation what sounded like Martian but could be untangled easily enough once we understood the sound substitutions. His raucous singing was especially funny - he used to sound like an old glaswegian drunk. He's fine now though.

You obviously have the experience to recognise when something isn't quite right ican and I didn't mean to sound flippant by comparing my GD.

Reading your post again though.... At a very similar time we recognised that our GD, whilst very slow to talk (sense) had the most amazing sense of humour too. She obviously knew she was funny and often laughed at her own antics. Her giggles and chitchat were so infectious.

Looking an an old video where she made no sense at the time..... it suddenly all fit into place and made perfect sense, albeit 7 years too late.

The film shows her aged about 3, dressed in a little nightie, with a pair of wings on her back wearing knee and arm pads belonging to her older sister who was learning to ride a bike at the time. We lived in a partially furnished rented flat at the time which was very overcrowded with their stuff and some of ours (we were waiting for a chain to complete so were forced to move out) . Getting around the sitting room was difficult for us never mind the children as it was very crowded and watching the video again and listening to what I think she was trying to say, together with the wings, knee and arm pads it all makes perfect sense. What a clever little girl she was.

One of ours has speech delay. His Mum is very worried about being judged. The family worked hard to help their child with professional advice and recommended activities Things are not always what they seem, please don’t be too quick to judge.

Have you heard some of the parents these days? Most cannot enunciate or pronounce their words and are unable to string a sentence together. Is it any wonder their kids speak gobbledygook? Nah, yeh, nuffink, ger off, come 'ere, waugher (water) ......not to mention the swear words every other word!

My dgs is not yet three years old and already he can count beyond twelve. He knows all the colours there are.

My Dd is always pointing out things if interest to him and he picks stuff up very quickly. When we go up and down stairs, we always count them. He just loves learning new things.

A pity a lot of parents don’t do the same instead of always having their heads over their phones.
In my opinion, learning starts at home, long before they start school.

Jane10, I agree. We are signing now and I have just ordered some picture cards to help DGS connect the language with the concept which is where we seem to have an additional problem. When he was young, he did mimic words but has now regressed.

Thank you gillybob, that is nice to hear. I am hoping that my anxiety is unfounded but as an ex-teacher, mother of 6 and 7 other GC, I have a little idea of some of the red flags of other developmental problems of which he displays very efficiently! Whatever, he is a gorgeous little boy with the most incredible sense of humour with those he knows well so we'll just get him to be the best person he can be no matter what problems he has.

T/K, D/S etc etc are very common developmental speech anomalies which clear up in time.
There is a difference between speech and underlying language. It's the problem with language that is the major concern. If people don't learn and understand the shared code of words and how they represent objects, people, emotions and concepts it's extremely hard to function effectively in society and can lead to tremendous frustration and tendency to finding more physical rather than verbal ways of dealing with situations.
Talk to small children. Give them time and attention and encourage their language use irrespective of its pronunciation.

Also my son couldn't pronounce the "C" sound or the "F" sound until he was at least 4 and used the letter "T" instead.

Tootball and Tritmas !

Sorry that should have read "exactly the same as what Craftycat has said".

My 10 year old DGD spoke complete gobbledegook until she was well over 3 ican . A cross between what sounded like Chinese and Martian (with a little bit of English thrown in here and there). It was exactly the same as what you have said that her older sister was doing most of her communicating for her. These days she is very articulate and by far one of the brightest in her class, but I found an old video we took when she was little and I wanted to bottle her little voice and open the lid every time I am feeling sad. It was so adorable.

Mcem. Unable to or not interested ? As an only child, during the late 40's and into the 50's with both parents at work when I look at todays children do I feel I missed out on anything. What did we kids have ? We had parents who may not have been wealthy but who gave us their time . Surely worth far more than all the laptops,I pads and the like many indulge their children.

My DGS is nearly three and is struggling with his language...he doesn't really use words and is only just waving goodbye consistently. Yes, his parents use electronic devices sometimes and he has watched too much tv but it goes so much deeper than that. His parents are looking for every excuse as to why he is not progressing like other children and this report will just make them think that he is a product of today's society. I strongly suspect that there is a bigger problem underlying his struggles and they are doing everything not to face it. I do wish this report hadn't come out just yet!

It's not all lazy parenting. Our youngest DGS does not speak clearly & he has just turned 4. Starts school in September. He talks non stop but sometimes it is hard to understand what he is saying & he gets very frustrated if he has to keep repeating it until we get it. It got better once he started Nursery but we have identified the main problem is his sister who talks for him all the time. She is 6 & has mothered him from day 1 & won't let him speak for himself- he gets cross with her too. We are constantly telling her that he has to learn to pronounce words properly & she is not helping him but you know what 6 year old girls are like. They know it all!
He pronounces 'S' as 'D' etc. so although he has a very good vocabulary for his age it is not clear speech. He got a lot better when they gave him extra help at Nursery but still has a way to go. Funnily enough other children seem to understand him perfectly!
It is possible that he may have to have speech therapy but they have suggested waiting until he has had a term at school to see if it improves.

I might have misconstrued something you said, mon. The bit about matching shapes. Nevertheless, a child still doesn't need to know what a shape is called to match it to another.

Why does only speaking one language mean that.....

Clearly these parents don't talk or read to their children

How on earth do you surmise that mabon1?

A huge jump to conclusions!

Not that I'm knocking kids knowing how books work, etc. I'm all for it but, then, I'm all well-educated middle class as well, brought up in a house full of books.

My husband wasn't. There were no books in his parents' house. He discovered his local library when he was about nine years old and never looked back.

pile, not pule

What is middle class about expecting a child aged 5 to recognise simple shapes and be able to match them, to understand words and concepts like up, down, over under, to know how a book works and to have at some time in their first 5 years held a pen or crayon and done some drawing?

Pretty much everything, I'd say. Why does a five year old need to know what certain shapes are called? Why can't it just play with shapes with no verbosity attached? I bet most five year olds understand the concepts of the examples given, and many more, IF they have been allowed to play enough during their preschool years.

As for knowing how books work and how to hold a pencil, isn't that what schools are there to teach? It seems we are expecting kids to pule into academic stuff as soon as they go to school? Why? c/f Erika Christakis's book: The Importance of Being Little.

M0nica have you seen the assessment on which entry to reception is based? One of the examples shows a swimming pool and children playing. The adult asks the child where the children are, answering at the beach is not acceptable. How much moe middle class can you get

The constant use of mobile phones, tablets etc has contributed to the lack of conversation,communication skills both in children and adults.
Children learn to use tablets etc. at a very early age,I was recently travelling on a very crowded train and a little boy sitting behing me, cant have been three years old, he was sitting with his Mum a bit away from his Dad the boy kept shouting," I want my I-pad" he didnt get it, but shouted for it for about fifteeen minutes, until they got off the train,thank goodness!