What is play? - Carson Street School

The Let’s Chat system has several benefits for your child’s communication and
social development.
• Firstly, it acknowledges your child’s experiences and background knowledge.
• Secondly, it can be used as a reference where your child has a good chance
of knowing what the play partner is referring to.
• Thirdly, by reviewing such information it develops their observational skills,
which helps their understanding of their play.
• Fourthly, it provides them with a means of expressing themselves and
conversing about their past, present, future needs and aspirations.
• Finally, it provides the play partner with the opportunity to show your child
how they can share information about their experiences with others. They can
use their method of communication which may be speech, sign or gesture
along with the visual and written information to get their message across.
By using the “Let’s Chat” process on a frequent basis your child:
will have meaningful practice that
helps to improve and develop
confidence in their communication
and social skills.
will learn how to begin a topic of
conversation that is meaningful
and interesting to them, maintain
and end the conversation
can experience more control of the
conversation, have more opportunities to
participate actively in a conversation with a
greater number of people and have
successful interactions.
For more information on the ‘The Chat System’ to develop your child’s communication and literacy
skills please refer to: Bloom, Y. & Bhargava, D. (2003) Let’s Read Together. Part 2 Creating
personalized material to promote literacy in children and adults using AAC Strategies.
Beecroft: Innovative Communication Programming