Sometimes it’s obvious spotting a child who doesn’t understand instructions − if English is their second language, for example. But what about those children who have English as their first language and still struggle to understand what you say to them?

These children can be more difficult to spot. They are often the quiet ones. They’ll sit well and smile when you talk to them. They’ve got good social communication skills; they get that it feels good to connect and they might mask their difficulties well.

But look more closely, and you’ll see that they are always a couple of seconds behind their peers. They are strong visually, so will see that the others are getting their snack out of a bag and follow suit. But they’ll be doing this because they watched the others do it, not because they understood the words: “OK everyone, it’s time for break, make sure you get your snack out of your bags.”

These tips will help support a child with poor understanding:

1. Use single-part instructions
   Recognise that instructions with multiple parts are too lengthy for some children to follow, so break them down. For example: “get your snack from your bag.” Or, simpler still: “go to your bag… get your snack”.
    
2. Be aware of surrounding noise
   Avoid giving instructions that will get lost in a high level of background noise. So, wait until that plane has flown overhead, or year 3 have finished walking through the hall. It’s a good idea to sit the child closest to you in the class, too.
    
3. Check you’ve been understood
   You can generally tell by their facial expression if they have understood. You can also check they’ve understood by using sentence completion rather than directly questioning them: “what did I say?” For example, you could instead say “so now it’s time to…” and let them finish the sentence.
    
4. Remember that these children are likely to have a high level of anxiety
   Repeating the long instruction they didn’t understand in an increasingly louder voice, humiliating the child by saying “you never listen to me” and getting cross with the child is only going to increase their anxiety. Supporting their understanding will help them avoid the fight, flight or freeze response that we can all relate to when we’re feeling stressed.  

Catherine Jackson is a speech and language therapist and the founder of Wise Old Owl Speech Assessment Apps.

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