Preschool Speech & Language Development & Down Syndrome

Speech and language therapy goals are to develop speech skills, expressive language skills and understanding skills.  By five years of age most children with DS are putting words together or putting signs together or doing both to get their message across. Most 5 year olds will have 50 spoken words or more. Use of grammatical markers (for example, ‘ed') becomes a focus when your child has a vocabulary size of over 200 words and is combining words. Developing vocabulary is a target in the preschool years.

We know that children with DS are visual learners.  Learning from listening is hard and this impacts on their speech and language development.  We need to use visual aids and prompts to help their learning to talk. This means that we use visual aids such as sign language, reading, pictures, and gestures.

Developing attention skills (see attention section) will help develop your child's ability to process language and memory skills.

Speech and language therapy in the preschool years aims:

• to help parents and carers develop their child's pre-linguistic skills such as attention, listening, gesture and eye contact
• to help you use everyday routines as learning opportunities (‘It Takes Two to Talk' Hanen programme. Information is available on http://www.hanen.org/)
• to devise structured teaching tasks with you to address your child's individual communication needs, with a focus on vocabulary development, speech development and communication development.

What can I do to help my child?

Developing language should be fun for your child with the majority of learning through natural play activities along with some short structured practice.

A good place to start is using objects and toys and then progressing to pictures of these objects and toys. Children need to learn that a picture represents an object, that is, that the picture is a symbol. Also, children need to learn that the sign represents the object, that is, the sign is a symbol. Another symbol for an object is the written word.

Name objects and actions you do.

Give choices between objects. Children can start by pointing and selecting without using sounds and/or words and progress to using sounds and/or words and/or signs. Give your child time to show what they know and what they want and look for all their ways of communicating, that is, body movements, facial expressions, sounds, words. Respond to all their word attempts. Encourage repetition of the words.

Downsed have a language and reading programme called See and Learn used to promote language skills and reading skills. It promotes the use of visual information to support speech and language development.

Stage 1 is pictures of first words that are free to download or you can purchase the pictures.  You can make your own books and pictures. The idea is that your child will:

• look and listen to the names of the pictures
• then match pictures to pictures
• then select a picture when you name it
• then the child says the name and you find the corresponding picture.

There are instructions for you which make this programme very user friendly and practical.

http://www.seeandlearn.org/en/gb/language-reading/first-word-pictures/resources/

Note: Moving from objects to pictures and matching picture to picture may be challenging.  If so, your child may need more time matching objects to objects, for example, putting all the balls together and all the books together.  Then matching a ball to a picture of a ball and then progressing to the picture of the ball with the picture of the ball.

• Use Lamh signs with the spoken word to give your child a visual symbol.  It is understood that as a child's spoken language increases signing decreases.  You are using signs as a bridge to talking. Signs can be used to teach new vocabulary. Using the LAMH Sign System to Support Your Child's Communication
• Make your own books and personal books of your child doing activities and include familiar people.

  Books with your child's own world depicted will be interesting and motivating for your child.

You can also write words and sentences in the book and/or under pictures adding visual prompts. You can make books of categories of items, for example, foods your child likes, games your child likes, family, animals etc. You can make sound books, for example, a book of ‘b' words etc.

• First a child develops an understanding of object labels, that is, the name of things; then they learn the function of the objects, for example, which one do you eat?; then they learn that items can go together, for example, key goes with a door; then they learn to categorise objects into categories, for example, putting all the colours together and putting all the body parts together. When learning vocabulary we can work through these stages.
• Downsed recommend whole word reading to support spoken practice of words and sentences and to teach new vocabulary and new grammar. They recommend starting Stage 2 of the See and Learn language and reading programme when a child understands between 50 and 100 words and is able to match and select pictures (Stage 1 is completed). This can be at approximately 3 years of age, although some children may be able before 3 years of age or it may take longer for other children.

It is important to remember that each child is an individual and you are following their pace.

Stage 2 ‘first written words' can be accessed through http://www.seeandlearn.org/en/gb/language-reading/first-written-words/

Stage 3 ‘more word pictures' can be accessed through http://www.seeandlearn.org/en/gb/language-reading/more-word-pictures/

Stage 4 is ‘first sentences' can be accessed through http://www.seeandlearn.org/en/gb/language-reading/first-sentences/

• Your child may be in preschool and there is an excellent resource from Down Syndrome Ireland titled Including Children with Down Syndrome in Early Childhood Care and Education Settings. The professionals working with your child will also help the preschool staff to help your child access the curriculum and to learn by making adaptations to match your child's profile. It is important that this is done well for inclusion to be successful.

Link to Publications section for:

Including Children with Down Syndrome in Early Childhood Care and Education Settings

Using the LAMH Sign System to Support Your Child's Communication

Detailed information on all aspects of development by age group 0-5yrs, 5-11 years and 11 to 16yrs are available from www.dowsed.org .  There are DVDs available also to purchase on infant development and preschool speech and language development and inclusion in education.

Written by Clare Carroll, BSc, MSc, MIASLT, Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy, Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, School of Health Sciences, NUI Galway. http://www.nuigalway.ie/faculties_departments/speech_language_therapy/staff/clare_oshaughnessy.html