Conversations make the world go around. Friendships and family relationships thrive on them. Businesses depend on them. We use conversations to sort out problems, make plans and get things done. A huge amount of our lives are conducted through conversations.
Children have conversations about everything under the sun. Many of their spontaneous role-play games are completely dependent on conversation. Even a playground football game involves lots of chatting.
While some conversations are social, many are functional – that is, they happen for reason. It might be to find out about someone’s needs, to clarify something or to ask for help.
Without conversational skills, a child might struggle to make friends or have their needs met.
Being able to have conversations depends on other skills – paying attention and listening, having the right words to use, being able to construct sentence and tell stories.
On this site there are some great activities that support conversational skills - find activities here.