The Components of Social Communication

Michael Audas, Speech Pathologist, Change for Life

For many of us, our ability to interact with other people is something that we take for granted. This is because it is easy to overlook just how many language, cognitive, and social skills are involved in even the most simple–seeming social acts. For example, here are just a few of the considerations that apply to being able to greet someone appropriately:

1. Familiarity: Am I able to judge how well I know the person I am greeting, and what my relation is to them?
2. Formality: Am I able to select an appropriately formal or informal greeting, depending on my relation to that person? Do I have a ‘bank’ of both informal and formal greetings I can select from?
3. Temporality: Do I understand that greetings often change depending on the time of day?
4. Context and history: If I greeted this same person when I saw them two hours ago, is it appropriate to greet them again? If not, should I just ignore them, or should I acknowledge them in some way? Do I understand the difference between a greeting and an acknowledgement?
5. Nonverbal communication: What, if any, gestures should accompany the greeting I have chosen to make? What should I do with my face as I greet this person? Should I look them in the eyes as I greet them; for how long?
6. Asking and answering questions: What if the person asks me “what have you been up to?” in response to my greeting? Do I know not to take this literally? How lengthy and detailed should my response be?

As you can see, there is a lot to think about when it comes to something that we rarely have to think about! In typical development, we learn all of these things so well from observing and interacting in our social environment that we don’t have to consciously think about all the different steps involved.

For some children, however, the various pieces of the puzzle that make up social communication don’t simply fall into place as if by magic. For these children, skills that seem intuitive need to be explicitly taught. Furthermore, identifying what skills need to be taught, and how, requires identifying which of the proverbial pieces are yet to be put into place.

Speech Pathologists are experts in communication, and are equipped to determine what might be contributing to breakdowns in social communication. Returning to the domain of greetings, difficulties could arise because a child does not know what sort of expression conveys a friendly attitude towards the person they are greeting, or because they lack the vocabulary to be able to appropriately vary the greetings they can produce in response to different contexts. So if your child seems to be finding it difficult to interact with others, consider seeking a referral to a Speech Pathologist from your paediatrician or general practitioner.