Early years workers have a vital role in helping children to develop their communication skills. Learning to communicate is the most important aspect of pre-school development. It underlies all other learning, is essential for children's emotional health and encompasses the ability to understand as well as to talk, to use and respond to non-verbal communication, and to adjust to different people and situations according to social conventions.
Fortunately many nurseries are prioritising oral communication skills and policymakers now acknowledge the link between early speech and language difficulties and later educational failure. Yet we appear to be on the verge of a crisis, for not all children acquire language without apparent effort. Communication difficulties are the most common problem among pre-school children - probably affecting 14 to 20 per cent - and appear to be getting worse. There is a widespread perception among teachers, Ofsted inspectors and speech and language therapists that children's oral skills have declined over the past decade.
So what is going wrong? Should we blame television, videos and computer games? Or have lifestyle changes made it difficult for parents to spend time with their babies and toddlers? Is learning being confused with literacy so that children who can't yet string two words together are expected to 'learn their letters'? These are pressing questions, but we still lack clear answers.
Children with developmental communication difficulties will only achieve their potential if they are identified and referred for help as early as possible. This represents a tremendous challenge for everyone working with pre-school children.
