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Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on special needs.

non verbal communication resource

3 replies

oodlesofdoodles · 23/01/2012 21:10

I've just ordered a book from this site: www.notjusttalking.co.uk/. The author says that you can help an older child retrace the steps of preverbal/nonverbal communication development.

Has anyone else come across this? Moondog or Working9while5?

The author is also in discussion with ICAN about training up other SLTs to use her system for teaching non verbal communication.

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working9while5 · 23/01/2012 22:18

I haven't... but the video was light on details re: what this "system" is. If it's just the same old, same old "what is eye contact?", "what is proximity?" discrimination/modelling/role play (even in child-friendly language), I wouldn't be impressed.

I also have to say that in several of the clips with the very young babies, the babies were giving clear cues that they wanted a break by looking away and this wasn't being responded to. At that early stage of development, my understanding is that the whole system develops through a reciprocal, dynamic relationship where mother/baby (or other dyad) are very attuned to eachother, and very young babies take frequent breaks to signal the end of an interaction/to process what has happened, which they often initially signal by looking away before sending more overt distress signals if the communication partner doesn't respond by giving them the break they need... but that is by the by in some ways, just made me wonder...

I wonder what the author's take is on why things go wrong, too? It's not what has happened at this stage IMO, it's more basically neurological than this. That's not to say I don't think that an early communication approach might reap benefits, but I would want to know that there was no blame going to be attributed to parents for their children's lifelong neurological conditions!

I am broadly in favour of parents knowing more about how babies communicate, just not entirely sure how she goes about doing this with other kids... and would need to know more.

oodlesofdoodles · 24/01/2012 07:59

Thanks working. My rickety old computer didn't show all the clips. There were lots of happy testimonials, so I'll give it a try and see how we get on.

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oodlesofdoodles · 24/01/2012 08:20

Re: what's gone wrong, my ds spent ages 7 to 12 months paralysed in hospital, so for him I definitely believe that he missed developing non verbal communication skills rather than he's hard wired to avoid non verbal communication.

I the wretched medics who discharged him knew anything about child development such issues would have been flagged up a lot earlier.

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