Conversation TreatmentBefore beginning to teach conversation, you should be sure that the child is able to...read on...Community > Articles
Understanding Conversation Skills
There is so much more to conversation than just the back and forth question and answer that many people think of. Conversation involves more than just words. For many children with developmental delays, it is the small subtleties that are often missed in conversation. Just being able to maintain eye contact during a conversation is a skill that may need to be taught in detail before beginning to teach conversation. Without eye contact, a person involved in a conversation may not think the other person is listening or participating. Being able to maintain eye contact can help to enhance conversation as well as extend it.
In addition to eye contact, body language is also an important component in conversation. Many children with social disorders have a large amount of difficulty both reading body language as well as demonstrating it. Small glances and subtle looks are often missed. For individuals who have weak conversation skills, they may miss the other person looking away, demonstrating that they are no longer interested in the conversation. We have all been involved in a conversation with someone that we wished was over, but if the other person is not able to read the subtle looking away or even something as obvious as an eye roll, the conversation can push on for what feels like an eternity.
Another component of conversation that often needs to be taught is requesting information from others. Conversation is more than one person asking questions while the other person only answers. Many children can answer a long list of questions, but do not request any information back. True conversation is a two way street. Teaching a child to request information can be very tricky and at times is taught in a rote and robotic manner where the child is not interested at all in requesting information. For example, children are often taught when someone says “How are you?” they should answer with “Good, how are you?” The child does not actually care about the answer, but is taught to ask anyway. Creating games in which the child is actually interested in requesting information or finding items the child is really interested in, but may not know all aspects of, can help to teach a child to seek information from others. Without the ability to request information, it is very difficult to work on complex conversation.
More advanced conversation also includes skills involved with active listening. This is often taught in high school, college and there on currently seminars going on all over for adults to improve active listening. Conversation skills continue to grow and improve through the years. For many individuals, it takes both time and effort to be able to engage in effective conversation.
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