Building Young Children's Development Through Play and Conversation
For my Fieldwork in Education course that I took in my last semester towards my Associate's degree in Early Childhood Education, I was assigned to watch a video from the Finding Cooper's Voice Facebook page and another video from Real Look Autism. Both of these videos were about an autistic child and another child who is the autism spectrum participating in play and conversation. After watching the videos, I was assigned to write an essay about what Cooper and his mother do to allow Cooper to communicate effectively, what I learned about play from the other video, and my opinions about both videos. As usual when it comes to my school assignments that are relevant to my blog, I have decided to upload this one as a blog post.
CONTENT WARNING: I would like to mention that this blog post is written for educational purposes only and not intended to provide any professional services.
Many developmental skills can be built in young children of all abilities through play and conversation. These activities especially build language development, verbal and nonverbal communication, and social skills. They can also build hands-on skills along with mathematical skills and engagement. In addition, they even give children the opportunity to express their emotions and perspectives. There are many educational activities and methods that can be used to make all of this happen.
Many actions were taken to help Cooper communicate effectively as exhibited in the video. Cooper's mother instructed him to show and name his favorite things with guidance to their social media audience on their "Finding Cooper's Voice" Facebook page. This opportunity helped with building Cooper's language development, communication, and social skills, which are three of the main areas that the autism community tend to struggle with. In addition, it also gave Cooper a social opportunity and encourages inclusion from others since it was interactive. She also showed Cooper flashcards as visuals to teach him new words and review words he has already learned; this is another commonly used beneficial way for building young children's language development. In the second video from Real Look Autism, the speech-pathologist recommended that Renee, Marcus' grandmother, play with him facing each other. This makes the play more interactive, helps with building the relationship, and increases eye contact and smiles. It also teaches sharing specifically through turn taking and that everybody gets one of each toy for the other person to imitate for the child as setting an example. Two other methods for building language development that the speech pathologist recommended were asking open-ended questions and using detailed descriptions. The naming of colors, shapes, counting, and using action words were the commonly used ways shown. The hands-on that the activities built were fine motor skills and logic skills through matching and fitting the puzzle pieces in their spots. In both videos, the adults assisting the child also used Cooper and Marcus' interests to motivate them and keep them engaged in participating in the activities to improve their skills.
There were a variety of things that I learned from both videos. I learned more skills about communicating through play than I already knew through experience working with children of all abilities. I learned that play is a way of communicating either by words, eye contact, or expression. In addition, I learned that playing facing one another encourages increasing children's eye contact.
I agree with the videos that play is a strong way to build young children's communication skills and learning. A variety of activities with their interests incorporated into them helps to keep them engaged in working on reaching their developmental milestones. As an educator, I will always do my best to help children succeed in their development through play and conversations.
To see the videos that I was assigned to write this essay about, click below:
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