Speech, language and communication are all important to a child's overall development. They are used to interact with others, explore the environment, make sense of everyday experiences, access information and understand concepts, organise thoughts and formulate ideas and to express your feeling and understand the feelings of others.
Speech is basically vocalised language. Usually this is learnt before leaning to write. We use speech to articulate and express ideas, thoughts and feelings through vocalised sound. With speech, symbols are not written or signed they are spoken as sounds. Gestures and signing are forms of speech for individuals who may have a disability or an impairment.
Language can be very specific. It is a set of symbols that are written, spoken or signed that enable us to communicate and convey meanings to others and enable us to understand what others are saying to us.
Communication is the process of conveying a message or meaning to establish a shared understanding to others. There are several ways in which we communicate all of which involve all our senses. For example, spoken, written, pictures, sounds, symbols. We also use non-verbal communication such as facial expressions, gestures and body language.
1.2. Explain how speech, language and communication skills support each of the following areas in children’s development: learning , emotional, behaviour and social.
learning there are many debates as to what is 'learning', but for our pupose we will limit this to children overall cognition. the term cognition covers multitude of different tasks, but is mainly about our ability to process and use information that we have gained.
For example a child might see that leaves are falling off tress and get told that this is because of autumn. the child might them see more leaves falling off a tree. she may remembers and make a connection between what she saw earlier on and what she is seeing now. the word autumn may also be remembered and so she might point anf say proudly to the adult with her ' those leaves are falling because it is autumn' and might tell her mother later on. at this point we begin to understand the limitations of body langauge , facial expressions and gesture. although they allow for instant communication, they can not help a child understand what is being seen or provide a way in which the child can communicate what she has seen.