This master’s thesis presents the development of communication, speech, and language in the earliest years of life, with a particular focus on the role of parents. It describes various techniques that can stimulate a child’s speech and language development. It presents the signs of speech and language delay and the possibilities of early treatment, with a special focus on the It Takes Two to Talk programme.
The aim of the research presented in this work is the analysis of the changes in communication between a 25 months old child with speech and language delay and its mother, while both were included in the It Takes Two to Talk programme. They had ten meetings with Nataša Grbac, a speech therapist, certified by the Hanen Centre to perform the programme. In the meetings, the mother recorded her communication with the child. The mother’s use of strategies for the stimulation of the child’s communication was evaluated with the It Takes Two to Talk Child and Parent Observation Form. The changes in the child’s activity were monitored and its vocabulary was estimated with the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI): Words and Sentences.
The results show that the It Takes Two to Talk programme had a statistically significant effect on the mother’s use of communication strategies in her interaction with the child. The programme also significantly affected the child’s use of verbal communication. While the programme did not provide statistically significant effects on the development of different phonemes, the value was at the threshold of statistical significance. The programme had a statistically significant effect on vocabulary development. Despite the child’s progress, a delay in the child's speech and language remained, with a range of various phonemes and words significantly deviating from its peers. Due to a suspicion of Childhood Apraxia of Speech, the child continues with classical speech therapy after the completed programme.
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