Banter Speech & Language

Sydney speech pathologists helping adults and children speak for themselves.

functional communication

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.

Not about ‘fixing’: using the ‘F-Word Framework’ to support children with communication disorders and their families

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The ‘medical model’ of communication disorders focuses on ‘fixing’ children through assessment, diagnosis, and ‘treatment’. But children with communication disorders aren’t ‘sick’ or ‘broken’. 

A modern approach to health is the World Health Organization’s 2001 International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), which shows that health is determined by complex interactions between body functions and structures, activities and participation, and environmental and personal factors.

But the ICF can be hard to apply in practice. An adaptation is to consider six ‘F‐words’:

  • Function: Thinking hard about what children do; their activities and participation; capacity and performance. Focusing on achievement of the activity – not whether it is done ‘normally’. Encouraging practice of the function without regard to how ‘nicely’ it is achieved.
  • Family: The essential environment for most children. Knowing parents and siblings bring talents and strengths and are dealing with their own physical and mental challenges and concerns. Involving the wider family, e.g. grandparents. Helping families to feel competent. Providing respect and continuity of care; enabling informed decision-making and partnership. 
  • Fitness: Promoting children’s physical fitness and recreation, whether in ‘therapy’ or not. 
  • Fun: Asking children what they enjoy doing, what do they want to do, and how they can be more involved in meaningful life situations. Thinking about formal (structured) and informal (free‐range) activities; done alone, or with others. Helping children to do the things they want to, and not worrying about what’s ‘normal’. Using purposeful activities to build children’s confidence, competence, sense of achievement, and capacity. 
  • Friends: Encouraging social development and inclusion. Focusing on quality relationships (not the quantity of acquaintances). Supporting peer connections and involvement in meaningful group activities. 
  • Future: What child ‘development’ is all about! Thinking positively, right from the start; and encouraging families to do so as well. Not deciding what is impossible. 

The F-words are connected: e.g. increasing a child’s (self‐identified, meaningful) participation might affect the scope and intensity of activities, and lead to changes in body functions and communication skills. Participating in a desired sport program, for example, might increase physical/social capacities and performance, including in the social use of language.

The F-Word framework is an appealing way for speech pathologists to think beyond ‘fixing’ kids, and to incorporate ICF concepts into their practices and relationships with clients and their families.

Key sources:

(1) Rosenbaum, P.  and Gorter, J.W. (2011). The ‘F‐words’ in childhood disability: I swear this is how we should think! Child: Care, Health and Development, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2214.2011.01338.x 

(2) Cunningham, B.J., Thomas-Stonell, N., and Rosenbaum, P. (2020). Assessing communicative participation in preschool children with the Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six: a scoping review, Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, DOI: 10.1111/dmcn.14665

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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.

Focusing speech therapy on functional outcomes: a refresher

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Traditionally, many speech pathologists were trained to break their clients’ communication difficulties into parts in order to identify and treat communication ‘disorders’, e.g. speech sound disorders, voice disorders, fluency disorders like stuttering, developmental language disorders, and dyslexia.

But most clients don’t see their challenges as disorder ‘types’. They might say:

  • ‘No one understands me’;
  • ‘I have trouble talking’; or
  • ‘I can’t follow conversations or understand what I’ve read’. 

Health is a human right. Health includes physical, mental and social well-being – not just the absence of disorders.

People have a right to live capable, functioning lives. Communication problems often affect people’s mental and social well-being.

The diagnosis of a disorder does not predict function: A diagnosis doesn’t alone say much about its effects on a person’s overall health and quality of life.

Communication disorders can affect:

  • mental health;
  • basic activities, like communicating; and
  • participation in routine activities, like school and play for children; and work and maintaining a household for adults. 

The line between activities and participation is often hard to draw with communication because it usually involves interaction with others. 

Often, differences emerge between how people perform communication tasks in a clinic, and how they do them ‘out in the real world’. 

Clients have legal rights to make informed decisions about their health care and to choose goals that matter most to them. 

Key source: Threats, T. (2008). Use of the ICF for clinical practice in speech-language pathology. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 10; 1-2: 50-60.

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.