A collection of reproducible handouts designed to provide parents and caregivers with simple, practical suggestions to stimulate the development of language comprehension, verbal expression, and intelligible speech.

Research shows that poor language and communication skills have a profound effect on the life chances of children and young people. This highly practical book will enable you to give children in your care the help they need to build their language skills at the earliest point in their development. Based on the author's highly regarded SPIRALS language development programme, the book provides 30 tried and tested sessions to help develop children's early speech, language and communication. Each language concept is introduced one at a time and builds on the most frequently used words by infants and uses music, repetition and simple meaningful gestures and signing to reinforce children's understanding.

Language is of central importance in children's education and development, so providing help for the child suspected of having language difficulties is clearly of vital concern. Providing such help, or advising a teacher or parent on how best to proceed is, however, far from straightforward. Early Language Development draws together in a single volume the results of the very latest findings on language development and shows practitioners how best they can make use of them. In particular, special emphasis is given to the two most important practical questions for the practitioner: How can I find out exactly what the problem is? and What can I do about it?

This concise, accessible book explores the connection between language acquisition and emergent literacy skills, and how this sets the stage for later literacy development. Chapters address formative early experiences such as speaking and listening, being read to, and talking about print concepts and the alphabet. Written for early childhood professionals, reading specialists, and speech–language pathologists, the book describes effective assessment and instructional approaches for fostering language learning and emergent literacy in typically developing children and those at risk for language delays. Vivid case examples illustrate specific ways to collaborate with parents to give all children a strong foundation for school readiness and success.

Addresses one debate in language development, namely the relationship between children's language development and their language experience.

Talking from infancy teaches interactive methods the adult can use to stimulate and encourage a child's language and speech. The companion video, Talking from infancy, shows scenes of adults interacting with infants and young children illustrating specific techniques that have proven useful in the author's research. The video, Little Neva learns to talk, takes the viewer through the language acquisition of Neva, age 3-23 months, demonstrating the gradual expansion of her vocabulary, sentence-making and talking skills.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Designed to provide practical information to those who are concerned with the development of young children, this book has three goals. First, the authors offer details about patterns of language development over the first three years of life. Although intensive studies have been carried out by examining from one to 20 children in the age range of zero to three years, there has been no longitudinal study of a sample as large as this--53 children--nor have as many measures of language development been obtained from the same children. Examining language development from a broad perspective in this size population allows us to see what generalizations can be made about patterns of language development. This volume's second goal is to examine the impact of such factors as biology, cognition, and communication input--and the interaction of these factors--which traditionally have been held to play an important role in the course of language development. The comparative influence of each--and the interaction of all three--were examined statistically using children's scores on standard language tests at age three. The volume's third goal is to provide information to beginning investigators, early childhood educators, and clinicians that can help them in their practice. This includes information about what appear to be good early predictors of language development at three years; language assessment procedures that can be used with children below age three, how these procedures can be used, what they tell us about the language development of young children; and what warning signs should probably be attended to, and which can most likely be ignored. In addition, suggestions are made about what patterns of communicative interaction during the different periods of development seem to be most successful in terms of language development outcomes at three years, and what overall indications the study offers regarding appropriate intervention.

'Communication, Language and Literacy From Birth to Five' helps the reader develop their knowledge, skills and practice in encouraging and promoting communication, language and literacy for babies and young children.