I found a blogger named Kristyn Crow who’s an author for
children’s books. She wrote a blog
called Promoting Communication in your
Nonverbal Child. The article gives
great tips and techniques you can do during floor time to use with children who
don’t speak. First off, Floor Time is a
20-30 minute period of uninterrupted play time with the child where you
literally get down on the ground and enter their world. It has been suggested that several sessions
per day, as many as you are reasonably able to have, is ideal. Once a day is not enough. When you begin floor time you want to build
on the child’s favorite behaviors, let them select the activity no matter how
strange it may be, have lots of activities for them to choose from, and follow
their lead. This is called parallel
participation.
After you’ve had time to parallel participate you want to promote
interaction. You can do that by: 1. Make
meaningful behaviors purposeful. “Interactions are the beginning of
communication”. 2. Use playful
obstruction. 3. Play “dumb” While using these floor play techniques you should.
1. Recognize your child’s sighs of nonverbal communication. 2. Use animated
facial expression. Put words with facial expressions. 3. Encourage eye contact. 4. Build a gestural
vocabulary. The blogger mentioned in her
opinion it was necessary to use American Sign Language if they weren’t hard of
hearing, but just natural gestures as long as you are consistent. When using the gestures and expressions it’s
important to communicate, model appropriate language using 2-3 word
phrases. She said when they have 30
communicative gestures they are ready to move toward speech. 5. Be sure you’re well aware of your child’s
sensitivity profile. 6. Reward effective gestures or speech.
The blogger said that it’s going to take patience and
determination, and the progress is going to be really slow. I thought this blog was very informative, and
I like the idea of floor time with the child and working on the communication
with them. The blog below if you would
like to read it more in depth.
This information is really interesting. Do you think it would be bad to use Sign Language? I think it does make sense to get inside their world with play to understand them more. If once a day isn't enough, there still might not be enough time during teaching, so maybe suggesting to parents on what to do would be appropriate.
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