EDUC9533 Supporting Communication, Language and Literacy Development: Birth to 8 Years

This topic will critically analyse communication, language and literacy development (Birth to 8-years) for children with additional needs within inclusive and collaborative early intervention settings. Using research-based evidence, students will examine the components of communication (i.e., non-verbal and verbal modalities), language (i.e., semantics, syntax, morphology, phonology and pragmatics across expressive and receptive modalities and in spoken and written forms), and early literacy (i.e., phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, print knowledge) development and how developmental differences in each of these domains can be observed, measured, programmed for, and instructed within, for children with additional needs within the context of early intervention. A focus of this topic is the rigorous development of students’ own linguistic knowledge and subsequent application and synthesis to action-based inquiry learning for children with additional needs. The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and the Australian Curriculum (AC) will be used as platforms for the integration of evidence-based research underpinning successful early intervention planning and support for children with communication, language and early literacy difficulties.

This topic aims to:

• Critically analyse and explain how communication, language and early literacy skills develop from birth to 8-years, including early identification of language difficulties and characteristics of language difficulties or disorders
• Investigate and apply evidence-based strategies to assess communication, language and emergent literacy development for children with diverse needs within the context of an action-based inquiry project
• Investigate and apply evidence-based strategies to support communication, language and emergent literacy development for children with diverse needs within the context of an action-based inquiry project
• Support students to enhance their own linguistic knowledge that can be applied to supporting children with communication, language or emergent literacy difficulties including in the areas of phonological awareness, phoneme awareness, orthography, morphology and print knowledge
• Critically evaluate how evidence-based knowledge regarding how to assess and support children with communication, language or emergent literacy difficulties articulates with the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and the Australian Curriculum

1. Explain the components of communication, language and early literacy development and critically analyse and articulate what constitutes typical and atypical development for children from birth to 8-years
2. Apply evidence-based research to the evaluation of communication, language and early literacy profiles for children with additional needs and demonstrate the ability to program and support communication, language and early literacy difficulties for children with diverse needs within inclusive early intervention contexts
3. Critically reflect on and describe their own level of linguistic knowledge as it relates to communication, language and early literacy development and examine how this knowledge can be continuously developed to support children with early intervention needs
4. Scrutinise and integrate evidence-based knowledge regarding best practice in identifying, assessing and supporting communication, language and early literacy development with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and the Australian Curriculum