WHAT IS SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT?

COMMUNICATION

Communication is the act of using words, gestures, signs, babble to get a message across or ask for something.
In involves taking turns and engaging in social play.
We use non-verbal language to communicate – e.g. pointing and eye contact.
We using words to request.
Children develop joint attention as an early communicative tool.
Sometimes, children may find it difficult to communicate using words, so it may be appropriate to introduce alternative means of communication if necessary.

This is how we physically form words from combining different sounds together.
All children make errors in their speech when they are learning to talk. These errors resolve or 'fix themselves' at particular ages or milestones.
But sometimes, some children don't follow this pattern, and they are delayed in how their speech develops.

Receptive language describes our understanding of language.
Some children find it difficult to follow simple instructions, both at home and in school.
They might forget parts of an instruction, or it may seem like they haven't heard the full sentence.
Some children find it difficult to understand different parts of an instruction or sentence - perhaps a word, an action, a colour, a WH question word, the 'place', or the tense.

Expressive language is how we put words together to make sentences, have conversations. It's how we express language.
It is how we use and put together nouns, verbs, colours and ideas into sentences.
Some children may find it difficult to put words together into coherent sentences.
Sometimes, children find it hard to say the correct verb tense, may leave the endings off words, or may find it hard to think of a word altogether.