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23 SEPTEMBER 2009
NO 1491
Communication
This paper reports findings from two specialist settings, where young children's communication difficulties were an important concern within the daily practice. In the first setting, (the "Team Service"), a multidisciplinary team of practitioners assessed children's communication and other health, welfare or educational needs. The second setting was a day nursery (the "Children's Centre"), where disabled children were receiving additional support and education in a therapeutic environment. Although entirely different settings, the practices in both were based on clinical and therapeutic knowledges of children with special needs, typically including communication needs. The two settings operated in the framework of current legal and ethical guidelines for good practice, which aimed to maximise the child's potential through early intervention (for example, Friel, 1997; Dockrell and Messer, 1999).
The sociological approach here is fundamentally different from practice orientation in clinical/therapeutic settings, where the child is typically treated as a "case"; or as an individual with specific needs. Instead of looking at the child, the focus is on "communication" and communication difficulties as part and outcomes of human interaction. The data analysis has drawn on interpretivist, constructionist approaches (Schwandt, 1994) in social theory, which question individualist and cognition-based definitions of "good" and "normal" communication ...
Commonplace understandings of human (face-to-face) communication in both expert and lay perspectives tend to understand it as a rather straightforward activity. It is typically defined as a process where thought is formed, translated into a sequence of words, and transferred into speech (for example, Glennen, 1997). The important social function of communication is to exchange information, make requests, socialise, and interact with others: communication is understood as central to the formation of the social bonds that bind people to each other, their communities and their culture.
Child welfare literature typically delineates "good communication" as a matter of the child's skill, right and need, and promotes the importance of early intervention. Communication difficulties are perceived potentially not only as a risk in terms of the child's well-being, but also a wider-reaching social problem. For instance, in recent educational views, communication is seen as a key skill: the ability to create good relationships through empathy, listening and responding determines success in every area of life. For Phillips (1998), there is an overwhelming consensus from parents, teachers and politicians that the lack of communication skills among young people is proving to have disastrous results for them both socially and academically.
These views draw on a developmental emphasis on language as crucial for a child's inner development as well as for healthy social bonding and emotional stability. It is argued that a child who is hampered by a communication disorder tends to become marginalised in society and to suffer from a natural frustration and resentment. For Bogle (1994) — unlike, for instance, the deaf and the blind — these children all too frequently slip through the early-detection net. Hence there is currently a heightened emphasis on targeting these children in early intervention practices.
In addition, in the past two decades multidisciplinary and multiagency child assessment, instead of single practitioner or single agency assessment, has become recommended as good practice (McConachie, Salt, McClachlan and Logan, 1999)". "Good practice" in this area (Read and Clements, 2001) entails that together with the children and the adults concerned, practitioners consider the needs that have to be met in their daily lives, plan an individualised package of provision that addresses those needs, as well as monitor and review how it is working at agreed intervals and modify it as needs and circumstances change. The specialist work in the "Team Service" setting operated on this basis. The outcomes of the assessments were subsequently implemented, for instance, in special needs nurseries, such as the "Children's Centre".
SIRKKA KOMULAINEN
Komulainen, S. (2005).
The contextuality of children's communication difficulties in specialist
practice: A sociological account. Child Care in Practice, 11,
3. pp. 358-359.
REFERENCES
Bogle, D. (1994). Phonological indicators of specific language difficulties. In J. Watson (Ed.), Working with communication difficulties; Volume five. Edinburgh: Moray House Publications.
Dockrell, J. and Messer, D. J. (1999). Children's language and communication difficulties; Understanding, identification and intervention. London: Cassell.
Friel, J. (1997). Children with special needs: Assessment, law and practice – caught in the acts (4th ed.). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Glennen, S. H. (1997). Introduction to augmentative and alternative communication. In S. H. Glennen and D. C. Decoste (Eds.), The handbook of augmentative and alternative communication. London: Singular Publishing Group.
McConachie, H. R., Salt, A., MClachlan, A. and Logan, S. (1999). How do child development teams work? Findings from a UK national survey. Child: Care, Health and Development, 25, 2. pp. 157-168.
Phillips, A. (1998). Communication: A key skill for education. London: BT Forum.
Read, J. and Clements, L. (2001). Disabled children and the law; Research and good practice. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Schwandt, T. A. (1994). Constructivist, interpretivist approaches to human inquiry. In N. K. Denzin and Y S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research. London: Sage.
