engleski

Communication Disorders in Children - An Analysis of Communicative Forms

Children acquire language through communication and for the purposes of communication. During the first three years of life the process of transition to language communication is slow and gradual. In children with severe disabilities the process is not only longer but also different than the process of normally developing children. By the means of communication little children signal their moods, needs and interests. Forms they use depend on their stage of development. At the same time their environment waits for them to start using language which improves the communication and facilitates the interpretation of the message. However, in cases of severe disabilities the child will not develop verbal communication and the parents will continuously recognise and respond to idiosyncratic intentional signals the child produces. In order to be able to do that it is necessary for parents to do fine tuning to their child"s communication skills. In this paper we will give a short overview of the communication styles of children with disabilities but with normal hearing. Clinical observations and analysis of the video recordings made at the Clinical Unit for Early Communication are presented. The modes of different forms of communication (for example: cry, eye gaze, reaching, natural gesture, physical manipulation, pointing, words, etc.) in child production and caregiver responses have been analysed. The modes of communicative form are analysed and categorised in two dimensions: the dimension of arbitrariness (from signals and physical manipulation in situation to words) and the dimension of the type of communication channel (audio-vocal, visuo-motor). The analysis shows that the social environment responds to the communicative intent of the child very unsystematically unless the intent is expressed verbally, i.e. in conventional communicative modes.

communication disorders; communicative forms; language communication

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