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10 May 2018

Functional Communication Training For Parents

By Douglas Myers


Children communicate at a very basic level. They indicate in a raw format what they want and how they feel. Functional communication training for parents aims at helping them to understand what these children want or mean by the gestures, sounds and signals they give. This is extremely important considering that children cannot communicate articulately as adults would.

Development and good relationship between children and their parents at the earliest age depends on how well they can communicate. For parents whose children have delayed milestones caused by such conditions as autism or ADHD, functional communication becomes even more important.

Training of different ways to communicate goes both ways. It is not only the guardians or parents that should learn. Children also have the capability to learn when their potential is enhanced through special attention and a professional approach. The guardian or parent teaching a child how to communicate should exercise a lot of patience. These sessions are aimed at providing an alternative channel for the affected child to communicate. It eliminates the frustration that arises when communication is broken.

It is speech therapists that handle children facing challenges communicating. The role of the parent is to alert the pathologist who will evaluate your child and recommend the best solution. The evaluation is important because each child is unique and therefore requires personalized approach. Different children face very unique challenges communicating. Once the challenges have been identified, unique solutions can be provided.

The natural modes of communicating for human beings are gestures, words and body language. When there is a delay in development of communication, challenges are not spread on all avenues. With this in mind, the pathologist identifies the channel that has developed better than others. He will develop a hierarchy detailing the levels of development and areas where learning can lead to improvements.

The means available for children to communicate include gestures and body language. The child will indicate what he wants and his feelings about a particular subject. It is manifested as the child reaches out or points at objects. A child will also communicate displeasure when you want to pick something he or she does not want. Sign language is an option alongside the use of picture exchange and voice output devices.

The parent or guardian needs to identify new words that will be taught to the child. Learning happens through continuous repetition. You need to combine all learning avenues like sound and gestures to make it easier to learn your desired words. Tempt the child to says or gesture the words by providing the objects in his or her surrounding.

The learning pace is slow for children with special needs and therefore requires a lot of patience. Experiment with different words since some are easy and others challenging to understand. Since each child is unique, you must appreciate this element. Do not frustrate a kid by forcing him or her to understand what is visibly difficult. It takes time to achieve desired results.




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