Social Skills Development for Children with Communication Disorders

Communication Disorders in Children

• Children with communication disorders have trouble communicating with others, which can lead to difficulties in social skills, academic performance, and cognitive functioning.

Definition of Communication Disorders

• A child with a communication disorder may struggle with understanding or making sounds of speech, word choice, word order, or sentence structure.

Functions of Communication

• Communication serves several functions, including: • Narrating • Explaining • Informing • Requesting (manding) • Expressing feelings

Speech and Language

• Speech is the expression of language with sounds or oral production, produced through precise psychological and neuromuscular coordination involving respiration, phonation, and articulation.
• Language is a formalized code used by a group of people to communicate, and is primary arbitrary.
• Speech impairments include stuttering, impaired articulation, and language or voice impairment.
• Language disorders involve problems in one or more of the five components of language and are often classified as expressive or receptive.

Impact on Social Skills and Academic Performance

• Speech and language problems can affect: • Social skills: reluctance to interact with others, exclusion or rejection by peers, difficulty carrying on a conversation, and problems negotiating rules for games • Academic performance: reluctance to contribute to discussions, difficulty organizing ideas, difficulty recognizing phonemes, difficulty producing sounds, and failure to follow directions

Learning Characteristics

• Children with communication disorders may exhibit: • Cognitive functioning difficulties: difficulty organizing information for recall, slow responding, and inattentiveness • Behavioural difficulties: high level of frustration, frequent arguments, and withdrawing from interaction

Teaching Strategies

• Adaptations for students with communication disorders include: • Allowing more time to complete assignments • Providing individualized support • Modifying activities to meet student needs • Using positive reinforcement and peer assistance

Identification of Communication Disorders

• Children with communication disorders may struggle with: • Understanding spoken language • Following instructions • Making sense of what is being said to them • Describing past events in longer sentences
• Poor behaviour can be linked to language difficulties in children of all ages.
• Children with speech sound production difficulties may have problems with intelligibility, reduced sounds, and reluctance to speak.
• Attention and listening difficulties can affect concentration and following adult instructions.