My degree paper with title Frequency of Use of Sign Communication and Other Types of Communication in Pre-Verbal Children and Foreign Language Speaking Children in Kindergarten is divided in two parts. In theoretical part I defined concepts communication, speech, language and sign communication, as well as described stages of speech and language development, their characteristics and briefly defined the concept of mono- and bilingualism. In the following, I focused on sign communication with infants and toddlers, and especially highlighted its benefits and effect on the child’s speech and language development. I also mentioned communication with foreign-speaking children in kindergarten, touched on the use of sign communication in kindergarten and the competences of graduated kindergarten teachers, which they acquire during their studies in the field of communication with pre-verbal children and with foreign language speaking children.
Due to the lack of concrete guidelines for communication with pre-verbal children and with foreign language speaking children, I conducted a research in the empirical part with the help of a questionnaire, Among graduated kindergarten teachers employed in Slovenian kindergartens, I researched the knowledge of sign communication, the most common ways of communication, how often they use sign communication at work, and their opinion about competences in communicating with groups of children I mentioned before. The results showed that only a small number of kindergarten teachers are familiar with sign communication, which in turn leads to not using it and not being aware of its benefits. They often confused sign language with sign language. When communicating with these groups of children prevails the spoken Slovene language. Kindergarten teacher argue that this method is the easiest and that children learn Slovenian and thus contribute significantly to children’s speech development. Sign communication is practiced by most kindergarten teachers, but it is rarely used, especially in situations where they notice that the child does not understand them. Most kindergarten teachers feel that they lack competence in the field of communication with these groups of children. They offer additional training on sign communication, other ways of communication or concrete guidelines that could help them in their work.
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