By Dr. Michelle Handley, School Director, Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf
Expressive Communication
What It Is
Expressive communication is any way we tell another person something. This can be through formal words or signs, but it also includes gestures, sounds, facial expressions, eye gaze, and physical movement. Expressive communication skills usually develop after receptive skills.
- Non-linguistic communication
- Eye gaze
- Drooling
- Touching body
- Going to a specific place in the room or to a specific object
Risk Factors
There are individual differences in children that can present a higher level of challenge for the child. These include:
- Congenital or early onset of vision or hearing loss- any exposure to visual or auditory input will serve to support the linguistic and communicative development of the child.
- Level of vision and/or hearing loss- any level of visual or auditory input can be used to support linguistic and communicative development. When these modalities are not available, other means must be used to make the information accessible to the child.
- Presence of other disabilities or health conditions
- Delayed identification of disabilities
Challenges
Challenges to the development of expressive communication are:
- Establishing shared attention
- Ensuring that the child is attending to what you are attending to
- Restricted access to the environment, especially things that are far away
- Reduced environmental awareness and incidental learning opportunities
- Recognizing behavior as communication (e.g., turned head toward sound but the adult didn’t see it)
- Consistent responses from the adult to the same behavior
- Ability to bring the objects close to the child
- Regular stimulation through interactions both facilitated and unfacilitated
- Establishing a consistent system for communication across all environments
- Active participation on the part of the child
Receptive Communication
What It Is
Receptive communication is any way we understand what another person is communicating. This is the ability to observe a behavior (including speech) and recognize it as having shared meaning. Receptive communication skills usually develop before expressive skills.
Risk Factors
There are individual differences in children that can present a higher level of challenge for the child. These include:
- Level of sensory loss
- Age of identification of hearing and vision loss
- Presence of additional disabilities
- Tactile sensitivities
- Level of interest in others
Challenges
- Establishing a shared meaning
- Observing the communicative behavior
- Recognizing a behavior as communication
- Accurately representing to the receiver the intended message
- Establishing a consistent system for communication across all environments
- Active participation on the part of the child
Sender
What It Is
The “sender” is the person who is engaging in expressive communication. This is the ability to engage in a behavior (including speech) to send a message. Shared meaning is required for communication.
Risk Factors
- Level of sensory loss
- Presence of additional disabilities
- Tactile sensitivities
- Knowledge of the communication system of the child
Challenges
Communication depends on the shared understanding between the participants.
- Behavior may have different meanings to different communication partners
- Behavior may be misinterpreted
- Behavior may be subtle or not recognized as a communication attempt
- Children do not always actively initiate communication
- May have to prompt communication
- Communication must be fed
- Systematic development of a gesture to formal language
- Establishing joint attention
- Fatigue, both mental and physical
Receiver
What It Is
The “receiver” is the person who is engaging in receptive communication. Communication depends on the share understanding between the participants. This can be difficult to establish due to unconventional expressions and due to the need for multiple experiences with the behavior to establish a shared meaning.
Risk Factors
- Level of sensory loss
- Presence of additional disabilities
- Tactile sensitivities
- Knowledge of the communication system of the child
Challenges
- Recognizing a behavior as a communication attempt
- Responding to the communication in the same way each time
- Being in close proximity to observe the communication attempt and respond quickly
- Fatigue, both mental and physical
- Multiple reinforcements of the same behavior to establish shared meaning
- Understanding the difference between communication frustration and misbehavior
Form and Function
What It Is
The form of communication is how it is conveyed, and the function is the purpose of the communication. We regularly use a variety of ways to communicate, not all linguistic, for a variety of reasons. This also refers to the use of American Sign Language, tactile sign language, Protractile American Sign Language, haptics, pictures and symbols.
Risk Factors
- Level of sensory loss
- Presence of additional disabilities
- Knowledge of the form of communication of the child
- Creating opportunities for different functions of communication
Challenges
Children may engage in communication attempts that are very subtle. Additionally, changes in their behavior that are not intentional can be understood as communication. For example, if they begin to shift in their chair or their rate of breathing changes, this may signal discomfort, excitement, or hunger.
- Understanding the difference between communication frustration and misbehavior
- Recognizing a behavior as a communication attempt
- Understanding an unintentional behavior (e.g., drooling means hunger or medical complication, stillness means attending or withdrawing, etc.)
- Ability to connect behavior to meaning to develop it into conventional language