Social Communication

1. Social Communication Three to Six Years Old

2. Goal: Use words, phrases and sentences to inform, direct, ask questions and express anticipation, imagination, affect and emotions. What to look for: Does the child use words, phrases or sentences to • Describe objects, actions or events, and tell about plans, intentions and experiences • Get information • Make commands and requests of others • Describe actions and events that occurred in the immediate and distant past • Label affect/emotions of others’ or themselves • Describe pretend objects, events or people • Express anticipated outcomes

3. Goal: Use conversational rules What to look for: When having a conversation, does the child • Respond to others’ topics with statements and questions • Initiate comments relevant to the situation • Respond to contingent questions by giving relevant information • Ask questions for clarification when they don’t understand or the message is not specific • Respond to topic changes initiated by others with a comment, answer or questions • Alternates between the speaker/listener role

4. Goal: Establishes and varies social-communicative roles What to look for: Does the child • use socially appropriate physical orientation by looking at speaker and using appropriate physical proximity • vary voice to impart meaning by changing their pitch (high/low) and how loud/soft they speak

5. Goal: Production of words, phrases, sentences What types of verbs does the child use • Auxiliary (helping) verbs (is running, were throwing) • Regular past-tense verb (kicked) • Irregular past-tense verb (flew) • Third-person singular verb form (She plays) • Uses copula verb “to be” (is happy, am big) • Verb + ing (jumping)

6. Goal: To use noun inflections What types of nouns does the child use • Uses regular plural nouns (dogs) • Uses irregular plural nouns (geese) • Uses possessive ‘s (dog’s food)

7. Goal: Asks questions What types of questions does the child use • Asks questions by raising their pitch at the end of a statement (cup?) • Asks What and Where questions (What is that? Where is she going?) • Asks Why, Who and How questions (Why did you do that? Who is it? How do you do that?) • Asks When questions (When can we go?) • Asks questions with inverted auxiliary (Is he hiding? Can I go?) • Asks Yes/No questions

8. Goal: Uses pronouns What types of pronouns does the child use • Uses demonstrative pronouns (I want this, that one) • Uses indefinite pronouns (I have some, Do you want any) • Uses possessive pronouns (his toy, mine) • Uses pronouns as the object in a phrase or sentence (I gave it to her) • Uses pronouns as the subject in a phrase or sentence (They went home)

9. Goal: Uses descriptive words What types of descriptive words does the child use • Uses articles before nouns (a, the, an) • Uses conjunctions to connect words, phrases or sentences (so, or, and) • Uses prepositions (in, on, under) • Uses adverbs (quickly, merrily) • Uses adjectives to make comparisons (bigger, best, most) • Uses adjectives to modify nouns and pronouns (cold, red, big, little)