It takes 2 to Talk – Audio Description and Transcript
Parents and Whanau Hui – Growing and Learning Together with your Deaf Child,
brought to you by Ministry of Education, New Zealand Federation for Deaf
Children and Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand.
A presentation by Sue Rhind and Marion Kazakos on ‘It takes 2 to talk’, held in a
large seminar room in Living Springs, Christchurch.
Marion: We were asked to talk briefly about this programme, which comes out of the
Hannan centre which is a Canadian organisation. The Hannan centre have developed
lots of programmes for parents and for teachers and for professionals that they use to
support children’s early language development.
Interview with Marion, Speech language Therapist, Ministry of Education on her
presentation. She is standing next to Sue.
Marion: So the presentation that Sue and I gave today was called It takes 2 to Talk,
based on a programme that comes out of the Hannan Centre in Canada and we were
talking about some language tips and strategies that parents can use all day everyday,
throughout their days, to encourage language development and language facilitation
with their children and to really help them have really effective interactions with their
children as they’re just going through their daily routines.
Interview with Sue, Advisor on Deaf Children, Ministry of Education, on her
presentation. She is standing next to Marion.
Sue: Some of the tips that we were sharing with them today was following their child’s
lead, rather than being the one who makes all the decisions, you know how to tune into
their child’s activities and see what they’re interested in and following that adding to
what their child’s saying or signing so that we can get interactions going, taking turns. A
big thing with waiting so that their child has a chance to respond, doing those sorts of
things.
A presentation by Sue and Marion on the discussion topics in their presentation.
Marion: So we’re going to look at the what, the why, the who, the where, the when and
the how.
PowerPoint presentation on the ‘What’. The text on the slide reads: Follow your
child’s lead. The is a photograph of a man and a child, both drinking out of red
cups, looking at each other.
Marion: So starting off with the what, we talked a little bit about interaction before. So
when two people communicate back and forth through whatever means, what they’re
actually doing, with or without words is taking part in an interaction. That’s what we’re
really wanting to facilitate more of with our children. To be successful in this
interaction, children need to be able to start an interaction and they need to be able to
respond when an interaction in initiated by someone else as well. So the big kind of
message of the ‘what’ part is that what we’re wanting to be doing is following your
child’s lead. Really important for us to follow whatever the child is interested in and
they can show us this in a myriad of different ways from the signs and words they use
to a look, to a gesture, to a smile, whatever.
PowerPoint presentation on the ‘Who’. The text on the slide reads: You!!; The
“tuned in” you.
Marion: Who’s going to be following the lead in the interaction? It’s going to be the
‘tuned in’ you so it’s the you that’s watching your child to see what sign they’re giving
you about what they’re interested in and then you’re straight in there. You’re tuned in
and then straight in following their lead.
PowerPoint presentation on the ‘When’. The text on the slide reads: Any time –
during all your daily routines and activites; bath time, dinner time, play, walks,
cooking, driving in the car, getting dressed, playing in the park etc; create
opportunities e.g. hiding objects, give 2 choices, offer a little bit then wait
Marion: And when? Any time, during all your daily routines and activities so it’s bath
time, it’s dinner time, it’s when you go for a walk, it’s play time it’s whatever time. When
you’re driving in the car it’s a great time to get those interactions going. Sometimes you
might want to create opportunities though. So you might want to do things like hiding
objects, so you know they’re going to want the Thomas the Tank Engine train so you
just put it behind a cushion so they have to have some interaction to try and find that
Thomas the Tank Engine Train and then you look out for those little signs. It might be
that they’re just standing there looking around and you tune in straight away and
you’re onto that. Giving two choices, do you want the marmite or the honey? Great way
to get an interaction started. Offering a little bit and then waiting. Something like
bubbles is great for that. So you’re blowing some bubbles, they’re loving that, they’re
saying pop its all great then you stop and you wait for them to somehow indicate that
they want more it might just be a look and then you blow some more it might be some
words, it might be a sign, it might be a gesture, it might be a cry but its some kind of
interaction that indicates they some want more.
PowerPoint presentation on the ‘How’. The text on the slide reads: Get face to
face; OWL; join in and play; imitate, interpret, comment; take turns; add
language.
Marion: So we’re going to talk through some of these strategies some in a bit more
detail than others. Most of these are things that come from the parent program that we
talked about but their actually just really good general language strategies so the first
one and the easiest one is what we call get face to face. So I don’t want to be up here
while my child’s down here playing on the floor. I want to be down low face to face with
them so I can connect and share. It’s easier for them to hear and see me and it’s easier
to encourage the child to take the lead.
PowerPoint presentation on ‘Get face to face’. The text on the slide reads: Connect
and shre; easier to hear & see; easier to encourage child to take the lead. There
are two photographs. One photograph is of a man and a child colouring in. They
are sitting close together and the man has his arm around the child. Their faces
are close together. The other photograph is of a woman holding a baby at her
level. They are both looking at each other.
Marion: They know I’m right with them, I’m right down at their level, I’m in with them.
PowerPoint presentation on ‘O.W.L.’. The text on the slide reads: Observe – body
language, actions, facial expressions; Wait – stop talking, lean in, look
expectantly; Listen.
Marion: The next one, O.W.L stands for Observe, Wait and Listen or Look. So we want
to observe what the child’s doing so we can follow their interests so that means
observing their body language, their actions, their facial expressions anything that gives
us an indication of where their interest is. It’s very hard.
Sue: So waiting can be a good skill to have, just wait.
Marion: And sometimes that means just counting for ten in your head, that’s my little
strategy I just count to ten. So we have to stop talking, lean in, get close get face to face,
get close, lean in then have a kind of expectant look on your face, not a big kind of
(Marion does exaggerated facial expression) but just so that they know you’re
waiting for them, that you’re right there with them to see what’s going to happen next
and as soon as they do something we can respond. How you respond will be different
depending on your child’s stage and level of language development but you respond
straight away then you listen or you look if your child’s a signer if they’re not using
words we can substitute look for listen.
PowerPoint presentation on ‘Imitate, interpret, comment’. The text on the slide
reads: Copy their sounds, words, signs, actions; Interpret – put into signs, words
what you think they’re trying to tell you; Make a short comment that matches
what they’re doing. Can build on what they say.
Marion: Imitate copy their sounds, their words, their signs, their actions, their gestures,
their smiles, their nods, their bangs, whatever. That banging’s a great example so its
just imitate because then they, that’s confidence building for them if you do it they do it
they know that they’ve done something pretty good and you can keep that interaction
going. ‘Interpret’. So putting into signs or words what you think they’re trying to tell
you, you might not get it right, doesn’t matter, you’re trying. So it might be that sound
that you’re not quite sure what it means but you can interpret it as perhaps a, maybe
not for a seven month old. a growly monster kind of sound or something so you hear a
sound or word, you’re pretty sure you know what it means, interpret as such and carry
on they’ll soon tell you if you haven’t done it right.
PowerPoint presentation on ‘Take turns’. The text on the slide reads: Helps them
stay in interaction longer; turns can look different (from a look, to pointing, to a
sentence); match your turns to your child’s length, pace, interest; cue and wait.
Marion: We talked about interactions we want our child to initiate the interactions,
respond to the interactions we want them also to stay in those interactions for as long
as we can, not to loose interest. So the way to get them to stay in interactions is to take
turns. Turns can look different a turn might be a look, might be a point, might be a
gesture it might be a word, it might be a phrase.
Sue: Might be a knock
Marion: Could be a knock. So it could be all range of different things we need to be
tuned into those turns, recognize them as such and then respond.
A question is another good cue, where going to talk about questions next, we don’t want
to overuse questions so it would be one question at a time and then we’re going to?
Audience member: Wait.
Marion: That’s right.
PowerPoint presentation on ‘Questions’. The text on the slide is in two columns.
The text on the left reads: choice questions; yes or no questions; wh questions.
The text on the right reads: questions that test; questions that are too hard;
questions that don’t follow their interest; too many questions; questions that
don’t give time. Turn questions into comments!
Marion: So choice questions are fantastic, do you want this? Do you want this ? Really
good because you can use those visuals as well often because you’ve got those two
things with you, the marmite and the nutella its right there. Yes or no questions
particularly good for children who aren’t taking many terms or haven’t got much
language they can either nod or shake their head to indicate the yes or no. So do you
want the milk? You know they don’t want the milk or they might push it away. And then
a little bit further down in their development will be the development of ‘wh’ questions
so particularly what, who and where so we can ask those type of questions to help keep
that interaction going.
What we want to try and avoid with questions are these ones, so we don’t want to ask
many questions that tests because we’re not testing our children were interacting with
them, we don’t want to ask them questions that are too hard you’re not going to go
anywhere with that, don’t want ask questions that aren’t following their interest, we
don’t want to ask too many questions and we don’t want to ask questions that don’t
give time. A really good thing to do then is to a use those three types of questions on the
left but also turn your questions into comments that way you want be falling into the
trap of asking to many questions.
Repeat, repeat, repeat. which was the thing I was talking to Melissa about earlier. Can’t
stress that enough either, repeat repeat repeat. We don’t have to expect them to
respond or copy it back but we need to repeat these words often and in different
contexts. So it might be that you’re trying to get the concept of a word like ‘on’ so you
can talk about putting your sock on, put your hat on, put your gloves on and then in a
different context you can turn the light on, turn the tap on, turn the switch on, put
something on the table so they’re hearing that word on over and over and over again or
seeing the sign for the word ‘on’ over and over and over again. Repeat repeat repeat,
but don’t necessarily expect them to copy that back right now but you’ll be feeding it in
over and over.
Interview with Sue, on what she hopes parents have taken away from the
presentation. She is standing next to Marion.
I hope that the families, that the parents took away with them just the ideas about how
to do interactions with their children during the day. That they feel its not something
that’s an added thing that they have to worry about its just ‘I’ve got the skills and
strategies to be able to develop my Childs language through natural interactions
through the routines of everyday.’
PowerPoint on Top Tips for ‘It takes two to talk’.
Top Tips:
 Follow your child’s lead.
 Talk about things your child is interested in and extend this language.
 It’s all about using the routines in your day for great interactions with your
child – the opportunities are endless and so are the ways of doing it.
 Some to try:
- Get face to face
- Join and play
- Comment and share
- O.W.L. – observe, wait (e.g. count to 10) and look / listen
- Imitate, interpret, comment
- Take turns
- Add language
- Questions – choice, yes/no, ‘wh’
- Be patient
Ministry of Education logo, Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand logo, NZ Federation for
Deaf Children logo.