When “listen to me” is not enough…

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:21:56 GMT

Guest post by Continuum authors, Jacqui Woodcock and Liz Spooner

Last weekend, we were lucky enough to be asked to speak about our work on developing listening at the International Chromosome 22Q.113 deletion syndrome conference. We met parents and practitioners from across Europe and America and it was interesting to hear that they face similar challenges when trying to teach children with poor listening skills. The question we were most often asked was “What has changed? Why do children now find it so hard to keep listening?”.

The answer is not straightforward but the rise in screen-based entertainment and its impact on children’s play seems to be a common factor in many countries. New findings from The Nielsen Company (October 2009) show children aged 2-5 now spend more than 32 hours a week on average in front of a TV screen. This is 32 hours a week when they are not playing and listening to other people.

Consequently, increasing numbers of children are starting school without these foundations in place. When this happens saying “Listen to me” is never going to be enough. However, the good news is that our own research has shown just a small amount of targeted teaching can make a big difference to this key skill in school.

Jacqui and Liz are authors of Teaching Children to Listen: A practical approach to developing children’s listening skills, published in January 2010. It recently scored 5/5 in bulletin: The Official Magazine of The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

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When “listen to me” is not enough…