Keyword: Social Communication
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Communication and Oral Language Development in Infants and Toddlers
This resource list provides a collection of resources on how infants and toddlers develop communication and oral language.
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Communication and Oral Language in the Preschool Years
This resource list provides a collection of resources on how preschool-aged children develop communication and oral language.
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Supporting Children with Limited Verbal Skills
These strategies are helpful to all children but are particularly helpful for those with limited verbal skills.
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Helping Children with Big Feelings in the Classroom
Big feelings can be overwhelming, and when young children get upset, it can be equally overwhelming for their teachers. Teachers can teach children several calm-down techniques such as breathing strategies, asking for a hug, doing wall or chair push-ups, or taking a break.
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Helping Young Children With Disabilities During a Trying Time: Adding Structure and Routine
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, you may be a parent or caregiver of a young child with special needs who was previously attending a child care center, preschool program, or receiving other services. You may now be caring for your child at home with few outside supports—and this can feel overwhelming. We know young children thrive…
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Supporting Children with the Characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Preschool Classrooms
On this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Emily Dorsey, project director of the Illinois Early Learning Project.
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The Power of Open-Ended Questions
Open-ended questions and phrases allow children to provide a full and meaningful answer that conveys their thoughts and feelings.
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Are You Being a Monkey?
In this video, we see the beginning stages of a friendship connection as we watch 3-year-old Aaron try to engage his peer, John, age 5. Children begin by observing each other and playing side by side. In time, friendships become more complex. Younger children are often very interested in the activities of older children.
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Drumming in the Kitchen
Infants depend on caregivers’ responses that encourage them to explore the world. In this video, we see 9-month-old Amy explore the sounds that she can make when she is banging pots with a large spoon.
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Peekaboo!
Peekaboo is a game that many caregivers, infants, and toddlers play together. In this video, we see 10-month-old Mario and his mother, Norma, as she encourages him to explore toys in the playroom of a community center.
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Who Is in the Mirror?
As infants grow, they notice more and more about the world around them. Here, we see 3-month-old Yana looking at her reflection in the mirror while exploring the infant area at a children’s museum.
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What Can You Tell Me Baby?
Language development begins very early as children listen to the voices of their caregivers and the sounds and rhythms of the language being spoken around them. Very young infants even try to participate in communication by looking at their caregivers and making sounds.
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Strategies for Developmentally Appropriate “Show and Tell” in Early Childhood Classrooms
The key to Show and Tell is to make it developmentally appropriate for the children who are participating to encourage optimal engagement and learning.
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Language and Literacy in Inclusive Early Childhood Programs
In this interview, we speak with Elise Prosser, a speech language pathologist from the Urbana Early Childhood School in Urbana, IL. Ms. Prosser received her bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing science and master’s degree in speech language pathology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has been working in the schools as a…
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I Don’t Like That
This video takes place in a toddler room of a university laboratory child care and preschool. Jordan (29 months) has put on sunglasses, and Sadie (25 months) walks up and stands very close to him. He tells her “I don’t like that,” but she stays close to him. The nearby teacher steps in and tells…
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Toddlers and Boxes: “Hi! Hi!”
In this video, we see toddlers Hannah (20 months) and Evie (23 months) playing outdoors with a variety of cardboard boxes that are large enough for the children to fit inside.
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Papa and Wayne: A Simple Game With Baby
In this video we see a spontaneous playful interaction between 6-month-old Wayne and his grandfather (Papa). Many families play games like this, which are important both to children’s sense of belonging and their ability to communicate with others.
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One Morning at the Construction Table
When children build something, they often address physics problems related to keeping the structure together.
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Explaining Cradle Construction
Children in Judy Cagle’s mixed-age prekindergarten class decided to make a crib as part of a project on babies.
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Constructing a Cradle
Several families of children in Judy Cagle’s mixed-age prekindergarten class were expecting babies. In response to this new interest, Mrs. Cagle took them to visit the maternity ward at a nearby hospital.
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Creating a Language-Rich Classroom for Young Dual Language Learners (DLLs)
As children learn English as a second language, they may not feel competent to respond to conversations with native English speakers. Attentive teachers and caregivers understand this and accept nonverbal responses during conversations.
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The Gift of Words: Reading and Games
Knowing many words and understanding them are important in developing thinking skills and in getting ready to read.
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The Gift of Words: Conversation and Routines
Here are some ways for busy parents to add to a child’s school readiness with the gift of new words.
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Answering Questions About Your Child’s Special Needs
During the summer, families tend to spend more time out in their communities and traveling to interesting places with their children.
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A Mother’s Story: 3 to 5 years old
I shared my experiences with my son Joshua’s early years in the last blog. I will continue talking about his experiences in school as a dual language learner (DLL) in this blog
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A Mother’s Story: Birth to 2
What I would like to share with you now is about the hat I love the most, being the mother of a dual language learner (DLL), Joshua, who started kindergarten this year. I will talk about his birth to very early years here and share my experiences with his later years in the next blog.
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Talking Straight to Children
It worries me that so few teacher-child contacts are continuous interactions. Recent evidence suggests that such meaningful continuous contingent interactions from very early in life throughout the first five or six years stimulate very important neurological development that must be accomplished by roughly about the age of 6.
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Changing Seasons and New Concepts: Same and Different and Before and After
Fall is a great time to talk with young children about concepts that are important for them to learn.