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Abstract
This paper reports findings from fieldwork in situations that brought young children and child welfare practitioners together with the aim of diagnosing and treating children's communication difficulties. The findings suggest that communication difficulties tend to be treated as a property of the individual child rather than as an emergent, contextual property of interaction. The attention will be steered from clinical definitions of “impairment” and “disability” to dynamics of social interaction, where understandings of “good” and “normal” communication play a central role. The findings have implications for current recommendations for good practice, which derive from needs-led, rights-led and skills-led approaches.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Nick Lee for commenting on an earlier draft of this paper, my PhD supervisor Jo Moran-Ellis and my collaborative supervisor (whose name is withheld for confidentiality reasons), as well as the sponsers for the research project
Notes
1. This recommendation was applied to practice in both research settings in this research.
2. See, for example, Alderson (Citation1995).
3. Dyspraxia is generally recognised to be an impairment or immaturity of the organisation of movement. Associated with this may be problems of language, perception and thought (Dyspraxia Foundation, Citation2001/2002).
4. Alternative and augmentative communication means any method of communicating that supplements the ordinary methods of speech and handwriting, where these are impaired (Millar & Scott, Citation2001). Most alternative and augmentative communication users use a mixture of unaided (such as signing) and aided communication (physical objects such as symbol charts or books), and a mixture of low-tech and high-tech aids, depending on the situation.
5. This was a video-recorded session. Permission for recording was sought from both the SLT and the parents of the children.
6. Children like Adrian had their own, especially designed chairs, which sometimes had straps on them to prevent them from falling.
7. These suggestions were later discussed with the nursery workers, when we watched the videotape together.