Children's Communication Skills: From Birth to Five Years Book

	Figures
	Examples and case studies
	Tables
	Key skills
	Warning signs
	Preface
	Acknowledgements
	Introduction: Human Communication	1
	Communication, language and speech	1
	The multi-factorial nature of human communication	9
	What do children need to develop communication, language and speech?	17
	Further environmental influences	18
	Summary of introduction	21
1	The First Year	23
	Hearing, attention and listening	23
	Towards early verbal understanding	25
	Communication and expressive skills in the first year: why do babies communicate?	28
	How babies communicate: looking, moving and gesturing	33
	Making sounds in the first year	38
	Summary of Chapter 1	45
2	The Second Year	50
	Attention and learning language	50
	Play and symbolic understanding	51
	Understanding meaning	54
	Early verbal understanding	60
	Communication and expressive skills in the second year: why do children communicate?	62
	Using early words	70
	Early speech	75
	Summary of Chapter 2	78
3	The Third Year	83
	Attention control	83
	Links between play and language	85
	Conceptual, semantic and vocabulary development	90
	Understanding words and sentences	92
	Communication and expressive skills in the third year	95
	Speech development	111
	Summary of Chapter 3	114
4	The Fourth and Fifth Years	119
	Attention control	119
	Links between play and language	120
	Semantic and vocabulary development	127
	Understanding words and sentences	128
	Further developments in communication and expressive skills	131
	Speech development	143
	Emergent literacy skills	145
	Summary of Chapter 4	147
5	Learning More than One Language in Early Childhood	153
	Bilingualism	153
	Features of bilingual speech and the patterns and stages of bilingual acquisition	157
	Bilingualism, cognition and literacy development	168
	Environmental factors impacting on bilingual acquisition	171
	Summary of Chapter 5	175
6	Problems Developing Speech, Language and Communication	178
	The nature of communication difficulties	178
	Environmental and internal factors contributing to communication difficulties	180
	Summary of Chapter 6	196
7	Working with Parents of Children with Communication Difficulties	198
	Which professionals?	198
	Understanding parents of children with communication difficulties	199
	Parent-professional relationships	207
	Considerations for working with parents at different stages of their child's care	211
	Summary of Chapter 7	220
	Useful addresses	222
	Glossary	224
	Bibliography	236
	Index	247