EDU-EDU8600 - Enhancing Language Development in Childhood

Course Description

Follow your child's lead and have fun while enhancing language development. In this fun and user-friendly course for parents, teachers, and caregivers, you will discover how children learn to process language and how they become proficient speakers and thinkers. This course will help you enrich your child's life by stimulating their continued speech, brain, and language development in an enjoyable, age-appropriate, and natural way.

Course Outline

Lesson 01 - Introduction

• How do children learn language? Play! And not with flash cards, or anything else that you can buy. Children are born with a complete package of language-learning tools. The only accessory they need is you, helping them unlock their natural instincts for language. After reading this first section, you'll be using play and instinct to communicate soundlessly with a newborn, to help him fill his language-building toolbox, and to create a stimulating environment for language development.

Lesson 02 - First Play: Sounds and Signs

• Imagine a database of sounds in your child's brain. Where do these sounds come from? How do they file, sort, and choose to use these sounds to communicate? In this lesson, you'll look at why their mind is made for these remarkable tasks and learn straightforward ways you can lend a hand (even in the form of sign language!). This lesson also includes a fascinating overview of brain and mouth anatomy.

Lesson 03 - "Mama" and Other First Real Words

• You say, "Shelly just said, 'ball'!" But your friend says, "Nah, that was just babbling." Who's right? Does something count as a real word if it isn't pronounced perfectly? In this lesson, you'll explore what makes a word real and learn how to interpret your child's patterns of simplifying early language. You'll also start using a journal to uncover the rich potential in your child's one- and two-word phrases.

Lesson 04 - Understanding Before Speaking

• Once you understand the mechanics of hearing and understanding, your role in encouraging language can be powerful, simple, and fun! Many caregivers ask at this stage when they should start to worry about language delays. This lesson will soothe your concerns by discussing what to watch for, when to seek assistance (and from which type of specialist), and when to stop worrying and keep playing! You'll look through a list of typical first words that you can use to trace your child's communication explosion.

Lesson 05 - Watching and Playing

• Can you guess when a baby's brain grows the most? How do you facilitate this growth? Again, the answer is play! In this lesson, you'll match favorite infant-caregiver games to the neurological functions they stimulate. You'll also learn how language affects the development of thinking skills, just as the function of thinking affects language development. You'll then explore how to keep this circle of growth cycling.

Lesson 06 - Adding Pieces to Phrases

• Your kiddo is talking, but you're not done yet! Although two-word phrases, such as "get ball" certainly communicate an idea, your child will keep refining their sentences as they grow. In this lesson, you'll find out how to help them progress to past tense, contractions, pronouns, and conjunctions. You'll also learn about the fascinating thought processes behind their questions. Don't forget your journal!

Lesson 07 - Be a Natural Model

• Now that you have listening, speaking, sounds, words, and sentences, what more is there? Lots! Is it still fun? Do they still need you? Of course! In this lesson, you'll continue with a few more do's and don'ts for caregivers, emphasizing a popular learning tool: games!

Lesson 08 - Making the Tongue Take Off

• Expanding on the anatomy lesson, this lesson will show you how sounds depend on strong, agile mouth muscles. Before you start thinking about tongue push-ups, remember that it's best to maximize the opportunities within natural interactions. A discussion of feeding—including your choices of bottles, cups, and straws—is key. The lesson will answer complex and controversial questions about pacifiers, sippy cups, and thumb sucking, and provide some great tips for easing necessary transitions.

Lesson 09 - Playing With Sounds

• Some sounds sound fun (like boing!), and some sounds feel fun (like zzzzzz). What does this kind of fun teach if it doesn't use precise words? In this lesson, you'll find out what you're teaching when you encourage your little one to play with sounds. You'll also learn which speech games will help you make the connection from speech to reading.

Lesson 10 - Talking More

• Speech, language, and communication are different but related topics. In this lesson, you'll learn how to help your talker become a conversationalist! Using your knowledge of how sounds make language, you'll learn how language is used to communicate and connect with others, which is called the social use of language.

Lesson 11 - Appreciating Differences

• While children follow similar development processes, no two walk the same path. As more is discovered about learning, the lines between different, delayed, and disability grow foggier. Demystifying these terms is easier when you learn about different learning styles, and when you understand the styles used by you and your child. Although you can't eavesdrop on your child's thoughts, what you learn in this lesson will help you help them connect their learning style and their use of language.

Lesson 12 - A Word About Literature

• Teaching a child the alphabet tends to be a common first step toward reading, but is it where literacy begins? While this skill can be gratifying for adults to see, literacy begins in the brain and is nurtured with fun and games. As you've learned about language skills, literacy doesn't come in a box from the store. When you understand instincts and use them in fun and play, they come from you.

Learner Outcomes

• Understand brain and mouth anatomy
• Interpret children's patterns of simplifying early language
• Identify how language affects the development of thinking skills, just as the function of thinking affects language development
• Help children progress to past tense, contractions, pronouns, and conjunctions
• Learn how language is used to communicate and connect with others

 

Notes

This is an asynchronous online course offered through the third party vendor ed2go. This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook. The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online. There are twelve lessons in the course, and two lessons are released each week on Wednesdays and Fridays. You do not have to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such, we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your coursework, including the final exam.