Covering the Bases: Pairing Sign With Spoken Word in Early Childhood Settings

Communication is an innate behavior people engage in to convey one's thoughts, needs, and interests to others (Knapp, Hall, & Horgan, 2014). Recommended Practices from the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC, 2014) encourage teachers to partner with families to implement strategies that support communication skill development for young children (i.e., E1, F4, INS2, INT3, and TC2). The purpose of this article is to detail simultaneous communication, which is a communication strategy that involves pairing spoken and signed key words or phrases to convey essential concepts through both modalities. Teachers and families can implement this strategy to support multiple modes of communication and foster inclusion across early childhood settings (CAST, 2011; Cologon & Mevawalla, 2017). First, the advantages of simultaneous communication will be described. Then, practical application of this strategy will be detailed for implementation across settings.