Your child looks down, eyes diverting from the bank teller and you impatiently think, “Come on, spit it out!”
You witness what seems to be paralysis. She starts sentences then stops them, hesitates, and as the teller’s eyes divert from her to you, she eventually utters words that are inaudible and incomprehensible.
Later, when you ask her what was going on, she says, “I don’t speak because I don’t know what to say.”
Having difficulty articulating thoughts, especially under pressure, is a common problem. A lot of kids simply haven’t perfected the art, and a summer spent … well, being a kid …. doesn’t tend to sharpen a child’s communication skills. Yet it’s a skill that can be learned — even in the summertime — through social skills practice.
Now is the time to practice those social skills — before school starts back up again for fall.
Kids often don’t speak because they don’t know what to say
In social situations, your kid may fall behind fast-talking friends, or they may come off sounding like they are clueless when they know the content well. She may hesitate to raise her hand in the classroom, or cringe when called upon, for fear of incorrectly putting her thoughts into words.
Your kid may have difficulty with his working (short-term) memory, and instead favor long-term memory. His peers may prefer working memory which is essentially putting information “on the tip of their tongue.”
Working memory retains information for seconds and is easy to access, but the information is not stored there for long, unless it is moved to long-term memory. For your child to access this long-term information, they need to “pull up” the information, which takes longer to formulate and can slow them down when speaking.
Read the full article on YourTango.
