Surveillance Of Language Development In Pre School Children

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.

In this book Gordon Wells presents a detailed account of the language development of children aged one to five years.

This publication is concerned with the early stages of language acquisition and is designed for use by early childhood teachers, nursery nurses, special education teachers and others working with children experiencing difficulties in learning to talk. Procedures are described that can be used to assess a child' s current skills and plan activities to increase communicative competence. The programme described is based on a developmental sequence that moves the early skills of joint attention, turn-taking and appropriate play to the more complex skills of asking and answering questions. Other issues discussed include sound development and intelligibility, the use of augmentative and alternative communication as stepping stones to speech, working with children and with families. The second edition has an expanded focus on the place of communicative intentions in early language development.

Speech and language development is considered a useful indicator of a child's overall development and cognitive ability by experts and is related to school success. Identification of children at risk for developmental delay or related problems may lead to intervention services and family assistance at a young age when chances for improvement are best. This rationale supports preschool screening for speech and language delay, or primary language impairment/disorder, as a part of routine well child care. This evidence synthesis focuses on the strengths and limits of evidence about the effectiveness of screening and interventions for speech and language delay in preschool age children. Its objective is to determine the balance of benefits and adverse effects of routine screening in primary care for the development of guidelines by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). The target population includes all children up to age 5 years without previously known conditions associated with speech and language delay, such as hearing and neurological impairments. The evidence synthesis emphasizes the patient's perspective in the choice of tests, interventions, outcome measures, and potential adverse effects, and focuses on those that are available and easily interpreted in the context of primary care. It also considers the generalizability of efficacy studies performed in controlled or academic settings and interprets the use of the tests and interventions in community-based populations seeking primary health care. Key questions addressed include: Key Question 1. Does Screening for Speech and Language Delay Result in Improved Speech and Language as well as Improved Other Non-speech and Language Outcomes? Key Question 2. Do Screening Evaluations in the Primary Care Setting Accurately Identify Children for Diagnostic Evaluation and Interventions? 2a. Does Identification of Risk Factors Improve Screening? Key Questions 2b and 2c. What Are Screening Techniques and How Do They Differ by Age? What Is the Accuracy of Screening Techniques and How Does It Differ by Age? 2d. What Are the Optimal Ages and Frequency for Screening? Key Question 3. What Are the Adverse Effects of Screening? Key Question 4. What Is the Role of Enhanced Surveillance by Primary Care Clinicians? Key Question 5. Do Interventions for Speech and Language Delay Improve Speech and Language Outcomes? Key Question 6. Do Interventions for Speech and Language Delay Improve Other Non-Speech and Language Outcomes? Key Question 7. Does Improvement in Speech and Language Outcomes Lead to Improved Additional Outcomes? Key Question 8. What Are the Adverse Effects of Interventions? Key Question 9. What Are Cost-Effectiveness Issues?

In recent years the field has seen an increasing realisation that the full complexity of language acquisition demands theories that (a) explain how children integrate information from multiple sources in the environment, (b) build linguistic representations at a number of different levels, and (c) learn how to combine these representations in order to communicate effectively. These new findings have stimulated new theoretical perspectives that are more centered on explaining learning as a complex dynamic interaction between the child and her environment. This book is the first attempt to bring some of these new perspectives together in one place. It is a collection of essays written by a group of researchers who all take an approach centered on child-environment interaction, and all of whom have been influenced by the work of Elena Lieven, to whom this collection is dedicated.

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