RLA.11 CHANGES FACIAL EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO FRIENDLY OR ANGRY VOICES

Here we look at a different aspect of the child’s response to her environment. We look at whether the child attaches significance to the tone of voice of familiar adults.

At about this time you may also be working on RL.B.12, in which we note the child’s response to different facial expressions. Clearly the 2 items are related, but whereas in RL.B.12 the child may respond to a facial expression by imitating it as part of a game, here we are concerned with the child’s immediate emotional response.

How to Assess

Method: Observe your child’s reaction when a parent or other familiar person speaks in an angry voice (most likely to another adult or an older child) and in a friendly voice.

Score plus if your child changes her facial expression in response to the tone of voice. For example, when she hears an angry voice, she may become still, watch the face of the speaker and look fearful. When she hears a friendly voice, she may smile.

 How to Teach

Of course, you don’t want to teach your child to be fearful, or arrange for angry voices to be heard in order to alarm her! But there are other ways in which you can increase your child’s sensitivity to different tones of voice. Make the most of nursery rhymes and simple stories that involve changes in expression. Nursery rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty and Little Miss Muffet and Three Little Kittens are so familiar that we tend to rush through them in a uniform, singsong tone, but when you think about what actually happens in them, the potential for drama is clear! Use your face as well as your voice to convey the emotional tone, and look for signs that your child is imitating you. Your child will not understand the words of the stories or nursery rhymes for some time, but the changing emotional tones conveyed in your voice in themselves tell a story – one of immense interest to your child.