Sharing vs Requesting Language

Hello everyone,

Welcome again to our new readers!

Today we’re going to delve further into something I touched on a couple of weeks ago. The importance of using language to ‘Share’ vs simply ‘Requesting’.

I’ve also created a special audio sample for you to listen to so please read on…

Often children with autism will use their language to ‘Request’ for needs and wants like:

• What they want to eat
• Wanting a push on the swing
• Wanting help to join the train pieces together

but they can find it very hard to ‘share’ their thoughts and ideas with us.

Such as sharing…

• That they can see an aeroplane in the sky
• What they did at school, preschool or day care
• How they feel when their baby brother draws on their picture
• Their favourite flavour of ice cream
• Why they don’t want to go and play with their friend today

If children are only using their language to ‘request’ things and not to ‘share’ thoughts and feelings then it often means they are not using their language very much at all because they don’t need to request for many things in their day.

This can become an even bigger issue as the child gets older and can satisfy their own needs and wants. They will have even less incentive to use their language and it will seem as though they are communicating less and less!

If your child is using their language to ‘Request’ but rarely uses their language to ‘Share’ and comment on things then you need to focus on improving your child’s social and relationship building skills.

It’s very important to know that Language Skills follow Social Skills.

In order for your child to learn how to share their thoughts and ideas with you and others, you need to start by increasing your child’s desire to share their life experiences with you. Your child needs to see the value that you add to their play and day to day life experiences to want to share their thoughts and socialise with you.

You just have to think about the people who you share your thoughts and feelings with to realise that they are the people who are closest to you.

Let’s look at how this skill would evolve in a typically developing child…

My daughter is now 14 months old and she shares a large proportion of her day with us. She is now starting to use a few words, but her desire to share her life with us started months and months ago well before she was talking. She would constantly point things out to us, then check back at our faces to make sure that we were sharing her same thought… like the beautiful light on the ceiling, the funny hat or the new piece of food that was put on her plate etc, etc. So now that she is starting to use her words and language we can now hear her thoughts and ideas. But her skills with ‘sharing’ her experiences with us began many months ago.

One of the most satisfying things as a parent is to have your child ‘share’ their thoughts and ideas with you and to know what is going on in their world.

If your child needs help in this area of language development then please take 5 minutes to listen to a sample of “The 7 Steps to Improving Your Child’s Relationship Building and Social Skills“.

This audio will help you develop the fundamental Social Skills in your relationship that will lead to them learning how to ‘share’ more of their world with you!

Click here now to listen to a 5 minute sample of this audio recording.

Best wishes
Monique