Developing social skills in pre-schoolers

How do children develop social skills and how best can parents support this? Wellington speech and language therapist Christian Wright has some strategies and he'll take your questionsSocial skills such as turn-taking and eye contact are an important part of learning to communicate.How can parents best support their kids to develop them?Wellington speech and language therapist Christian Wright shares some strategies on Nine to Noon. Listen to the conversation Joint attention is a social skill that children usually develop "very, very early", Wright tells Kathryn Ryan."Joint attention is the gateway to learning. So, what do we mean by joint attention? Well, the absence of it would be a child who focuses on the object, but doesn't really pay much attention to the person or vice versa."Joint attention usually develops between 6 and 12 months old, he says."So, the baby's looking at the person, the person's making noises, and they wait, and then the baby's still looking, and then they have a turn."And then you might bring an object into it. But what you'll find in the early stages is they'll just focus on the object and they're not really paying attention to you."But naturally what happens is they begin to look back at you to see what you're doing in response to the object."Wright has a teaching process for children who haven't yet developed the capacity for joint attention."We would describe them as children who have a real own agenda. Their play is just about them and the object and they seem to ignore people."So, what I'll do often in that situation is begin by just getting down to their level and imitating what they're doing and making my imitation noisy and interesting."So that every now and then they might look up and reference me, just have a look at me to see what I'm doing with the toy."Mirroring is a rapport-building technique enjoyed by all ages."When we mirror other people; the words they use, the body language that they adopt, they seem to find a sense of empathy or rapport building with that person."Sometimes, a child's "developmental schedule" can go awry, Wright says."For example, one of my own children has ADHD, and we've had to work quite hard with him on impulse control."So impulse control is part of what they call your executive function. There are a host of skills in your frontal lobe that enable you to organise yourself, plan, control impulses, and develop your attentional system…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details