New director for Communication Trust

The Communication Trust, a coalition of nearly 50 voluntary organisations with expertise in speech, language and communication, has welcomed its new Director, Anne Fox. Fox, who previously worked at NCT as Head of Corporate Communications, will lead the organisation through its next strategic period. 

Anne Fox, Director of The Communication Trust, says: "I am delighted to join The Communication Trust at this exciting and challenging time. Moving forwards, the Trust will work to ensure children’s communication is a burning issue. We will do this by sharing what works for all children and those  with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) to the widest possible audience.  

“Good communication skills are key in the 21st  century and every child should have the opportunity to be understood. In five years, the Trust has achieved so much and we have trail blazed the way for collaborative working with our consortium members. Our challenge now is to build on the success of the  Hello campaign and to leave no stone unturned as we make the clear link between communication skills and life chances.” 

Adrian Hosford, Chair of The Communication Trust, said: "We are delighted to welcome Anne to The Communication Trust. Anne brings with her a wealth of experience around collaborative working and uniting different groups under a common cause.  Her valuable expertise and leadership will drive the Trust forwards and help us achieve the best outcomes for children, young people and their families.”

Are nursery rhymes out dated?

A recent Small Talk survey showed that many people today are not really aware of nursery rhymes. People over 40 were more likely to recall one or two, whereas, an entire class of 17 year olds studying child care, could not think of even one.  May be nursery rhymes have had their day, are old fashioned, out dated, even boring? 

Does this matter if they are dying out and parents are not singing to their children?

YESSSSSSS!

Nursery rhymes are important for many reasons:

1. Most importantly (to me as a speech and language therapist) is that they help develop spoken language skills. They are a  powerful tool in the repertoire of language developers. They show the child the rhythm and flow of language, help connect words to actions and help a child to understand and remember words. They also help attention and listening. A room full of noisy babies will still and quieten when I start singing (No, that's not my awful voice!!) and to add action keeps their attention for longer.

2. Bonding: Singing together helps language development but also interaction between parent and child or carer and child.

3. A recent Swedish study published in the journal Integrative Physiological and Behavioural Science suggested that singing, not only increases oxygen levels in the blood but triggers the release of “happy” hormones such as oxytocin, which is thought to help lower stress levels and blood pressure. As other studies show the increased levels of  both parental and child stress levels in the 21st century, this must surely help.

4. They can be used in conjunction with other communication enhancers e.g. choice making. The ability to be able to make choices is fundamental to human communication. Choosing which song to sing from a variety of props or choosing the next behaviour for action rhymes such as  'if you are happy and you know it'. These are non-verbal behaviours so do not require a verbal response. 

5. Increases confidence. Even if they haven't got the necessary expressive skills to join in verbally, they can take part with the actions.

6. There is overwhelming evidence that early learning of nursery rhymes and rhythmic poems, songs, and chants significantly enhances early reading skills and phonemic awareness.  In fact research highlights phonemic awareness as a strong predictor of a child's reading success. It helps them:

• to hear rhymes or alliteration
• to blend sounds to make a word (e.g., /a/-/t/ = at)
• to count phonemes in words ( how many sounds do you hear in "is"?)
• to identify the beginning, middle, and final sounds in words
• to substitute one phoneme for another (e.g., change the /h/ in "hot" to /p/
• to delete phonemes from words (e.g., omit the /c/ from "cat")"

Does it matter if they are not the traditional nursery rhymes? I would say that singing anything with your baby and toddler  is better than not singing at all but the latest Adele or Beyonce track is not designed to assist phonological awareness skills which will give all the benefits above.

Does it matter if you can't sing? Definitely not. A parent's voice is the best in the world to a baby or a toddler. They are no X factor judge, likely to shoot you down in flames. They will just enjoy the interaction and see it as great fun.... and whats more it's free!

The next blog post will look at which nursery rhymes we use in the Smart Talkers Pre-School Communication groups www.smarttalkers.org.uk