RL.A.9 SITS STILL IN A CHAIR AND ATTENDS TO A PERSON OR OBJECT
Once your child has this skill, you will be able to show her, and teach her, all kinds of things. Not only will she look at you, but she will look with you at objects that you show her. This forms the basis for playing together and for talking together.
How to Assess
Materials: Have ready some toys, objects and pictures to show your child.
Method: Place your child in a sitting position, and sit facing her. If your child cannot sit without support, place her so that she can see both your face and the objects you will show her.
Say ‘(Name) look at me’. When she is looking, say ‘Look, here’s a … look at the …’. If she is interested, let her play with the object, then repeat with other objects.
Score plus is your child makes eye contact with you, and then looks at the object or picture you show her, and maintains her attention for a minute or more at least once.
How to Teach
Lack of attention may show itself in failure to make eye contact with you and/or with the object, or in fleeting eye contact, perhaps interspersed with wriggling around.
Aim first to establish eye contact with you, leaving objects till later. First, say your child’s name, then wait for her to respond. If she doesn’t, say her name again and then gently turn her head until you make eye contact. Then speak again and stroke her cheek to reward her response.
You could also ask someone to measure how much time, in a two-minute session, your child spends looking at you. It is best to take an average of several sessions. Then choose a time which is slightly longer to work towards as your objective. When this objective is reached, choose a slightly longer time. Build up gradually until your child looks at you for about 30 seconds out of the 2 minutes. (This need not be continuous – she may look away from you and back again several times during the session.)
Now introduce a toy to your sessions, and build up gradually until your child is looking either at you or at the toy for about half of the two-minute session.
How do you get your child to look? A sense of drama is often the answer – you must make yourself and, through play, the toy more interesting than anything else in the room, and more interesting than wriggling about. Reserve your most enthusiastic responses for the times when your child does look at you.
Your child needs to learn that paying attention to you is a rewarding experience, that all sorts of exciting things happen in that space between her and you.
Sometimes lively encouragement is not enough. If you do not make progress in this way, there are other approaches you can try.
- Use a quiet room. Take your child into the quietest place in the house for these sessions. Quiet, calm talking can also be more effective with some children. If this works, introduce other distractions gradually.
- Follow your child’s lead. If your child is already playing actively, get down and play alongside her, taking your turn with the toys she favours. Then begin to talk to her about what she is doing. Help her with her game, without taking over. When she is enjoying your presence in a ‘following’ role, begin gradually to introduce ideas and objects of your own. Finally, ask her to look at you before you show her something new.
- Giving a tangible reward for attention. If the approaches above get you nowhere, you may need to tie attention in with something else you know your child likes. Food is often the answer with very young children. You can either give a tiny piece of food when your child looks at you during a teaching session, or time your teaching sessions for mealtime, requiring that your child looks at you before you give each mouth-full. This is a short-term measure. As soon as your child is looking at you readily, start giving the food less frequently, or require more looking for the same amount of food. If, right from the start, you give praise as well as food, your child will in time be happy with praise alone. You will find more information about reinforcing with food in Book 2, Chapter 3.
Playtime and Round-the-house Activities
Of course, teaching attending skills need not be limited to special teaching sessions. You may find you need no special teaching sessions at all. Attending can be practised at nappy-changing, mealtimes, bath-times and cuddling times. Brothers and sisters can take part too – most children enjoy showing things to the baby, and getting her to look at them.
Remembering and Extending
As you move on through this sequence, and to Sequence RL.B., continue to spend time simply talking to your child and encouraging her to look at the things you show her. If her eye contact with you seems to decrease over time, don’t worry – this is quite normal as the child’s interest in objects increases. She will continue to glance at you occasionally as you play with toys together, and will reserve her most intense eye contact for talking times.
have reached this point, you are well on your way to teaching your child to communicate, and the turn-taking and imitation activities described in Book 3, Chapter 2, become vitally important. You will have more areas of learning to think about from now on, but you can proceed with confidence that your child has a sound basis for gaining new skills in understanding and in expressing herself.