Banter Speech & Language

Sydney speech pathologists helping adults and children speak for themselves.

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Parents of children aged 6 – 12 years: 11 practical ideas to increase your child’s participation and communication skills

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In this, our fourth infographic on functional communication, our speech pathologist Emma Robinson, outlines 11 practical ideas parents of children aged 6-12 years can use to increase their child’s participation and communication skills.

  1. Learning new things (but not to be helpless): Increase opportunities for learning to occur through independent or supported completion of self-care tasks (e.g. getting dressed, brushing teeth), chores (e.g. making beds, laying the table, cleaning rooms), routines (e.g. for homework and bedtimes), and activities in real life situations.
  2. More unstructured play. Encourage children to play with siblings, cousins, neighbours’ children, including older and younger children, and extended family members. You can read more about play: here.
  3. More inclusion: Increase opportunities for your child to befriend and interact with peers by attending the local school, and taking part in after-school, and vacation programs.
  4. More participation: Involve your child in age-appropriate family, cultural and religious practices, and expect your child to fulfil obligations that are part of such practices.
  5. More teamwork: Encourage your child to join local sports teams (e.g. soccer, basketball, netball) and interest groups (e.g. drama, bushwalking, art, chess, music, Scouts, technology, computer-game, or youth groups).
  6. More choice-making: Encourage children to make their own choices (e.g. between chores, about topics for speeches, characters for Book Week, extracurricular activities, and to make difficult ethical decisions and trade-offs).
  7. More initiative:  Encourage your child to take action to achieve their wants and goals (e.g. by making enquiries at local shops, researching gifts for others, self-study, extra training for sports).
  8. More accountability: Support children to understand the consequences of their decisions and actions, setting clear boundaries, with proportionate and consistent consequences for breaking rules and letting others down.
  9. Adjust when necessary: Some services/activities may need to be adjusted so that tasks are in line with your child’s skills. Keep materials age-appropriate. Remember, finding a way for your child to finish the task is more important than whether it is done ‘normally’ or with 100% accuracy.
  10. Expect more for others: Give your child lots of opportunities to help others at home and in the local community (e.g. in community gardens, charity drives and works). Set high expectations!
  11. Strengthen social and relationship skills: If needed, access intervention, e.g. speech pathology and occupational therapy, to help your child to understand others’ perspectives, to communicate their wants and needs, understand personal boundaries, and to reflect on emotions and interactions.

Key source:

National Disability Insurance Scheme (2014). Report of the Independent Advisory Council to the National Disability Insurance Scheme: Reasonable and Necessary Support across the Lifespan: An Ordinary Life for People with Disability. Examples our own.

Related infographics:

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

Parents of children aged 0-5 years: 10 practical ideas to increase your child’s participation and communication skills

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In this, our third infographic on functional communication, our speech pathologist Vivien Wong, outlines 10 practical ideas parents of children aged 0-5 years can use to increase their child’s participation and communication skills.

  1. Increase the number of people the child spends time with, including grandparents and other members of the extended family, friends, babysitters, carers and others.
  2. Connect with families of other children with similar communication challenges.
  3. Encourage children to make their own choices and requests about what they want.
  4. Increase opportunities for your child to play, including with other children, e.g. in playgroups, childcare, and preschool. (See here for why this helps.)
  5. Explore your community with your child, e.g. by going to local shops, parks, libraries, fetes, fairs, and festivals.
  6. Give your child opportunities to help you and others – set high expectations.  
  7. Involve your child in age-appropriate family, community, cultural and religious practices.
  8. Look after yourself! Learn self-advocacy and self-care skills, and seek professional/community help for any family issues.
  9. If needed, access early intervention, e.g. speech pathology and occupational therapy.
  10. Incorporate language stimulation techniques into everyday tasks, routines, and activities, while co-exploring the world. (You can read more about some of these here.)

Key source: National Disability Insurance Scheme. (2014). Report of the Independent Advisory Council to the National Disability Insurance Scheme: Reasonable and Necessary Support across the Lifespan: An Ordinary Life for People with Disability. 

Related infographics:

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

How to apply our SKIP trick to find and share useful information with your kids

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During these unusual school holidays, I’ve been reflecting on how there is so much nonsense out there about how to parent well. So much doom and gloom. So much evidence-free noise. So much information. So much stress!

When I’m reading books, feature articles, news, and blogs to improve my parenting, I use a simple framework to help me sift information and to make it useful for our family.

I call it my SKIP filter:

  • Skills to teach your kids.
  • Knowledge about the world to share with your kids.
  • Inclusion tips to raise good people and citizens.
  • Parent time – self-care and interesting things to discuss with my wife, e.g. on date nights.

I thought I’d share an example of how I used the SKIP method this week to find and share the good stuff with my family:

Skills I want my kids to learn

How to:

  • remember any 10 things in order – revision. The Ancient Greeks and Romans knew that memory is linked to language and creativity. But, in the age of Google, have we forgotten how to use our memories effectively? In this video, we show you how to remember any ten items in order. 

Knowledge I want my kids to know

We think all kids should know about:

Inclusion tips

Could COVID-19 – bizarrely – usher in an era of more inclusive workplaces (and by logic, learning places)?  Matthew Keegan makes the case: ‘Why coronavirus may make the world more accessible‘. 

Parents’ time

I’ve done this thing for years, but never had a name for it. Daphne K. Lee explains the wonderfully-named, yet painfully applicable concept of ‘Revenge bedtime procrastination‘. 

From time-to-time – no more than once a month – we plan to share some of our SKIP findings with interested readers and followers who have (or work with) school-aged kids.

If you would like to get on our SKIP list, subscribe below.

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

Staying human in a tech-soaked world: 7 modest tips to make your family life better

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Hands up if you’ve figured out how to balance your family’s screen time with real world activities? Not me! 

In our household, we have some good weeks – daily conversations at the dinner table, and real world adventures. Then, something will come up – usually work or school-related (or both) – and out come those screens. Before we know it, we’ve fallen prey to addictive social media, sensationalist (and negative) newsfeeds, and games and apps designed specifically to devour your time. And it takes a big effort to shake off what can quickly becomes a screen-guzzling habit. 

So what to do?

At a law seminar (of all places), I stumbled on a terrific resource for parents and kids, with several tips for staying in control of technology. It was created by the Center for Humane Technology – a not-for-profit co-founded by a former Google employee and ethicist, Tristan Harris.

Here are some of the tips that resonated most with us – both as parents and speech pathologists:

  1. Lead by example: Especially in the early years, kids learn by watching and imitating their parents and other loved ones. Most kids watch what their parents do – sometimes much more carefully than listening to what we say. If we parents are looking at our phones and other devices frequently, and if we’re distracted by screens rather than engaging with people and physical environment around us, our kids will learn to do exactly the same thing. (To learn more about the positive effects of parent modelling, check out our article here.)
  2. Device-free zones: In our house, for example, devices are not allowed at the dinner table (including when out at restaurants and cafes with the family) or in bedrooms. That forces us to talk to each other – even on days where one or more of us would rather scroll through social media or tap at sparkly objects on a screen.
  3. One for the parents: get a standalone alarm clock: Too many of us use our phones as our alarm clock. This tricks us into using our phones, e.g. to look at social media notifications and news, first thing after we wake up, and last thing before we go to bed. One way of eliminating this risk is moving your phones to another room and using a low tech (boring) clock radio to signal when to get up.
  4. Turn devices off at least an hour before bedtime: Most people are aware of the fact that the blue light emitted by phones and iPads hampers sleep. If you can’t do it (e.g. for work reasons), at least turn your devices into “Night Mode” with less blue light. I’m trying to switch my bad habit of checking my Twitter feed to reading a short story a day. But it’s a battle!
  5. No devices in the room during homework: This is a tricky one in this age of “bring your own device” to school. But there’s some evidence showing that even the presence of a device can distract students, reducing their cognitive capacity, including their working memory and fluid intelligence on tasks requiring sustained attention (e.g. Ward et al., 2017). Bottom line: put the phone in another room when you are studying.
  6. Schedule regular screen-free days: Some families manage to to do this once a week. I’m in awe of them! We struggle, in part, because of work commitments, in part, because of bad habits. To do this successfully, it helps to pre-plan activities, including activities with other families and children attempting the same thing!
  7. Find substitute activities that are relaxing, creative, social and give you a sense of achievement. In our family, we’re scheduling activities like running, reading, learning another language, martial arts and of course our beloved father-son Dungeons & Dragons time.

We hope you find these tips helpful. Check out the links below for several other ideas.

Start with modest changes. And remember: as a society, we’re all in this together!

More resources:

Center for Humane Technology: Education in the Age of Distraction – Tools & Reminders for Parents

Related articles:

Image: https://tinyurl.com/yxep5htb

[su_service title=”Banter Speech & Language” icon=”http://www.banterspeech.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/lyrebird_rgb1-e1393567318720.jpg”]Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Concord West, North Strathfield, Rhodes, and Strathfield, and all other suburbs of Sydney.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee.[/su_service]

When “steel meets steel”: grammar doesn’t need to be dull

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My younger son tells me that talking about language – especially grammar – is boring. But it doesn’t need to be. Especially if you are sneaky!

To illustrate, I decided to review Brown’s 14 grammatical morphemes while attending Ironfest, the annual festival of steel and stuff you can make with it, including swords, armour, steam engines, and tanks.

What?

To recap, back in the 1960s and 1970s, clinical psychologist Roger Brown studied the grammatical development of three typically developing children of approximately 2 to 4 1/2 years of age. From these studies, he identified 14 grammatical morphemes, which he found could be measured reliably over time:

  1. Present progressive -ing
  2. Preposition in
  3. Preposition on
  4. Regular plural -s
  5. Irregular past tense verbs (e.g. came, ran, sat, broke)
  6. Regular possessive –s
  7. Uncontractible copula (It is [X]. Yes, it is/was. There I am.)
  8. Articles (a, the, an)
  9. Past tense regular –ed
  10. Regular third person –s (e.g. Dad eats.)
  11. Irregular third person (does, has)
  12. Uncontractible auxiliary (e.g. She was dancing.)
  13. Contractible copula (He’s handsome.)
  14. Contractible auxiliary (Dad’s yelling.)

So let’s get to it. Here’s how my review went down!

1. Present progressive -ing

The soldiers are marching.

2. Preposition in

Rapunzel is in the tower.

Brown's morphemes 2 Preposition in

3. Preposition on

The warships are floating on the water.

4. Regular plural -s

The queens are smiling.

Ironfest 2019

5. Irregular past tense verbs (e.g. came, ran, sat, broke)

The soldiers held their shields.

Brown's morphemes 5 Irregular past tense verbs

6. Regular possessive –s

The falconer‘s peregrine falcon.

Brown's morphemes Regular possessive –s

7. Uncontractible copula (It is [X]. Yes, it is/was. There I am.)

Was the sun going down? Yes, it was.

Brown's Morphemes 7 Uncontractible copula

8. Articles (a, the, an)

A carriage is parked on the grass.

Brown's morphemes 8 Articles (a, the, an)

9. Past tense regular –ed

The band played.

Brown's morphemes 9 Past tense regular –ed

10. Regular third person –s (e.g. Dad eats.)

The performer balances.

Brown's morphemes 10 Regular third person -s (e.g. Dad eats.)

11. Irregular third person (does, has)

The man has a steam engine and does a lap of the showground.

Brown's morphemes 11 Irregular third person (does, has)

12. Uncontractible auxiliary (e.g. She was dancing.)

He was cycling.

Brown's morphemes 12 Uncontractible auxiliary (e.g. She was dancing.)

13. Contractible copula (He’s handsome.)

He’s scary.

Brown's morphemes 13 Contractible copula (He’s handsome.)

14. Contractible auxiliary (Dad’s yelling.)

The wrestler’s jumping.

Brown's morphemes 14 Contractible auxiliary (Dad’s yelling.)

Related articles:

Principal source: R. Brown, A First Language: Early Stages, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1973).

Get out there! Being social and kind to others makes kids happier, better-liked, and less likely to be bullied

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We all want our kids to be happy, well-behaved and well-liked by peers. But, sometimes – despite our best hopes – they struggle. And few things in life are as stressful as seeing your child suffer as they withdraw from their friends and avoid activities they used to enjoy.

So what can we do as parents to help our kids to be happy?

Kristin Loyous and colleagues studied this question back in 2012. After reviewing peer-reviewed research, they observed that:

  • happiness, being social and popular were compatible goals: they often occur together; and
  • students who are well-liked also tend to be helpful, cooperative and emotionally well-adjusted.

Based on these observations, the researchers conducted an experiment involving 19 classes of 9-11 year-olds in Canada:

  • one group were asked to perform three small acts of kindness a week for four weeks; and
  • a second group were asked to visit three places per week for four weeks.

At the end of the study, students in both groups were happier. But the students who performed acts of kindness experienced greater increases in their acceptance by their peers than the students who simply visited places.

Why being kind and social matters

Being well-liked by classmates makes kids more likely to participate actively in academic and social activities at school, and less likely to be bullied. Encouraging pro-social activities may therefore have ripple effects for the community beyond increasing happiness and popularity of the kids involved.

Clinical bottom line and practical example

To help kids to be happy and well-adjusted, consider increasing the number of times per week they are expected to engage in pro-social activities. It doesn’t take much time or effort to apply the research outlined above.

For example, in my household, we (the parents!) have decided to set minimum targets for each of our boys, namely to:

  1. do small acts of good for others three times a week (e.g. giving mum a hug, sharing a toy with a sibling without squabbling, or completing chores without being asked); and
  2. get out of the house, and do more social activities three times a week (e.g. visiting grandparents, playing team sports, or going for a long walk or bike ride as a family or with others).

To track progress, the boys will keep a simple diary summarising how they’ve met the targets.

(As an aside, there’s nothing to stop many of us parents from applying these tips to our own social lives! It might be time for us to put down our smart phones, turn off the Netflix, and sign up to our local trivia competition with fellow time-poor parents!)

We hope these tips help your kids and your families become happier! Let us know how you get on!

Principal source: Layous, K., Nelson, S.K., Oberle, E., Schonert-Rechl, K.A. & , Lyubomirsky, S. (2012). Kindness Counts: Prompting Social Behaviour in Preadolescents Boosts Peer Acceptance and Well-Being. PLOS One, 7(2), e51380

Image: https://tinyurl.com/male9lu

[su_service title=”Banter Speech & Language” icon=”http://www.banterspeech.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/lyrebird_rgb1-e1393567318720.jpg”]Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Concord West, North Strathfield, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).[/su_service]