Communication Begins With Children PDF Download

Learning communication is one of the major developmental tasks in early childhood. Few tasks in early childhood are as important for children as being able to communicate with the people in their world to have their needs met. This also includes gaining skills to understand and express thoughts, feelings and information. Understanding communication begins before birth, and continues throughout life, as a child hears, sees, and interprets information from other people. Expression of a child's language begins with head, eye, and body movements as well as through simple vocalizations, and hand movements. Language progression moves to words, sentences, and conversations through many methods including gestures, spoken words, sign language, pictorial language systems and communication boards. It is essential that a child have one of these functional means of expressive language before going to kindergarten. Kentucky (KY) has a progressive early childhood plan for gathering information on children's development as outlined in a guidance document called Kentucky's Early Childhood Continuous Assessment Guide (KDE, 2004). This guide explains recommended ways to assess children's development from birth until kindergarten. Most educational programs in KY follow this process by continuously assessing children's growth in the child care, First Steps, Head Start, and preschool programs in which they are enrolled. As a further result of this early childhood plan, assessment results are gathered for children in First Steps and state-funded preschools by a project at the Human Development Institute called the KY Early Childhood Data Systems or KEDS. of assessing and gathering data through the KEDS projet As a result of KY's progressive system, there are several important sources of information about children's language development. First and most importantly, teachers, child care providers, and families who follow the Assessment Guide process gather detailed information about individual children's communication skills on a daily basis. A second source of information about Kentucky children's communication is the state-wide progress reports that KEDS sends to First Steps and the KY Department of Education (KDE) preschool administrators. Information about children's progress, including their communication skills, is summarized in this report. Resources for teachers and families are also provided.