Joint Engagement

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody. My name's Emma. I'm really looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. But, before we get started, just a quick reminder, we hear Oak are trying to support any approaches you might already be using and any work that you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So, if you're not sure or have questions, then please contact your usual speech and language therapy team or your child's school. In today's session I'll be talking to you and your adult about joint engagement. We're going to be thinking about what happens when you and your adult are together during your play. We'll have some opportunity for some play based activities. And then through these activities, I'll be setting your adults some tasks. These will really help you to get the most out of your play time together. So, before we begin, children, all you'll need is your adult and some toys. Adults, you'll need some writing equipment and the downloadable resource that's available with this lesson on the Oak website. Find yourself a quiet place where there aren't too many distractions. Make sure you won't be disturbed by turning off any notifications or conversations that you might have running on the device that you're using for this lesson. And then finally, make sure that you're both seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's get going. Okay. Let's start by doing some talking and thinking about joint engagement. Joint engagement is when a child learns to pay attention to an object and an adult at the same time. Without knowing this, this is something that we have been working on over the last three lessons. But, the key features of joint engagement are that both you and your adult are focusing on the same activity or object and that you're together and having fun. When exploring objects and experiences together in play, the adult really needs to use these three strategies to make sure that you're getting the most out of the activity. We've talked about this a lot, but it's really important that adults stop, look and listen through your play. It's great when adults use lots of enthusiasm and excitement in their voice and faces too. This really helps you to get excited and engaged in your play. It's also really helpful when adults use a few key words to label and comment on the experience or object that you're engaged with. One of the main ways that children learn to understand and say new words is by hearing adults talk about objects that they're playing with or looking at. Seeing or handling the object or doing an action with it while an adult talks to you about it really helps to be able to match the words to what they mean. So, now it's time for a bit of play. Adults, I'd like you to just refresh yourselves with the stop, look and listen strategy. Give yourself plenty of waiting time and really observe what it is your child is enjoying and signalling to you through their play. When you finished come back to the video and press play, and we'll continue with the lesson. When your child is playing we can offer a few key words to comment or label on what they're doing, playing with or looking at. These just need to be one or two key words. Anything more would be too overwhelming and too much information. A label is when we name the object or the action that perhaps the child is looking at or engaging with. Commenting is when we talk about their response or something about the activity. It's important that whatever one or two words we use, we repeat the same phrases during that exploration and during that play and that these phrases are consistent for that object across any other play opportunity. So, now it's time for some special time. Children, I'd like you to find something you really want to play with. Adults, we're going to use the information that we've just learned. You're going to follow the child's lead and then focus on labelling and commenting on what they're doing. Just using one or two key words. When you've had your five minute special time, come back to the video and press play when you're ready to continue. Adults, I'd like you to take a couple of minutes to reflect. How did the child respond when you labelled or commented on what they were doing? Learning to look is crucial in order for the child to take the next steps with really developing their attention. So, we're going to focus on that now. We want to promote three things through play to help our child learn to look. The first thing we want to do is to promote the child to be able to look at another person, us. We then want to gradually promote the child to look and follow another person's gaze to an object. Until eventually they're able to attract another's attention to an object by looking at it. Let's break down how we're going to do that into a couple of steps. When we thinking about promoting the first step, encouraging the child to look towards us, we can do this by introducing new and interesting objects in their eye line. When we have an interesting object that we'd like to use to try and promote looking, we need to be sitting on the floor with our child in a communicative way. Ideally in their eye line. When we're ready to start the interaction, we need to signal this by calling the child's name, waiting for them, hopefully to look towards us, but it could just be a raise at their head or a behavioural change that signifies that they are attending listening. Once you've got that signal hold their favourite toy or object in their line of gaze and then work that towards or near your face. When the child is looking at the object, hold it near to your face and then reward any look to you with smile, warmth, and praise. If this is particularly difficult for the child, then you could try using objects that increase fascination with your eyes and face to really try and hook them to look towards you that little bit more. Okay. Let's try putting that in practise. Children, we're going to have some playtime. You and your adults are going to have five minutes of special times down on the floor. Adults, let's try using the five steps that I just talked through to support your child to look towards you or towards objects that are near your face. When you've had to go at this a couple of times come back to the video and press play and we'll continue with the lesson. Welcome back. Before we get started again, I'd like you to just pause the video and take a few moments to reflect on the child's gaze and where they were looking through your play. When you're ready, let's begin. Following objects with their eyes will help children to eventually be able to look towards objects in order to direct adults. When working on following objects we need to be mindful that this can be very tiring for children who are at the early stages of development. And so if we're targeting visual tracking, we only want to repeat it two or three times because we don't want to exhaust the child. Object play that's focusing on visual tracking or following an object with the eyes could include looking at objects moving left to right, could be looking at objects as you move them further away from the child. It could be moving objects at a faster rate and whether the child is able to track them with their eyes and then it could include moving objects up and down. When we're working on learning to look at objects that are moving around, visual tracking, the end goal is that the child can look towards an object that is dropped. This is developing a concept called object permanence, and I've put more information on object permanence in the downloadable resource. If your child needs time to work on visual tracking, please use the downloadable resource. Because strategies and steps towards working on this with your child before moving on to working towards looking at objects or directing you with their eyesight because object permanence needs to happen first. Okay. A little bit more playtime now. Adults, we're going to use this time to observe where the child is gazing. Let's try and follow that gaze where can. Take the opportunity to stop and look at the child in their play. When they look at an object you need to respond by picking it up and giving it to them or creating an action with it. Try this a couple of times over a period of five minutes or so, when you finished come back and we'll continue with the lesson. Before we get going again, I'd really like it if you could take a moment to reflect. How did the child respond when you picked up and gave them objects that they looked towards? When you finished thinking this through, press play to continue. Adults, the downloadable resource has lots of ideas on types of play that can broaden and promote your child's early attention. There's also lots of ideas for how you can promote looking through this play. Don't forget to record reflect on how your child responds to you joining in and picking up objects that they look towards. That brings us to the end of today's session. A really big well done for all the fantastic attention and looking that you've achieved today. I've just got two things I'd like to ask. The first thing is for adults. Look back at your notes from today and identify three important things that you've learned. The second thing, if you're able to, please take a picture of your special time or some of the toys that you've been playing with and record this and your special time diary, which is in the downloadable resource attached. Ask your parent or carer to share this with your teacher at school, so that they can see the fantastic progress that you're making with your attention too. And if you'd like, you could also ask a parent or carer to send a picture of your record book, to @OakNational on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. That way I can see your fabulous progress too. Well, that's all that's left for me to say. So, thank you very much again, take care and enjoy the rest of your learning. Bye, bye.

Joint Engagement

Joint Engagement

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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