About communication

About communication

Communication through life

Over our lifetime, what we do and what we are interested in changes. Our relationships change.

In the same way, our communication and our communication needs change across the stages of infancy, childhood, youth, adulthood, and when we are elderly.

At any age, people can experience communication difficulties or barriers to communication.

Early childhood

Infants and young children are learning the basics of communication. The first five years is an amazing burst of development and learning.

The Communication Milestones Kit lists the talking and understanding milestones for children from birth to five years of age.

During this time, they learn to:

  • express their daily needs, like ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘I’m tired’
  • make choices (and the power of saying ‘no!’)
  • start and participate in interactions
  • use and understand non-word communication like crying, putting their hands up, pointing, waving
  • use and understand sounds and words and then more complex sentences.

Adults do a lot to help a young child to develop communication, including:

  • encourage and expect children to communicate - we pause, we wait, we repeat, we add words
  • try to work out what the child wants to say - we look for their meaning, their intent and we respond
  • communicate a lot ourselves, showing them lots of new words and ways to communicate throughout every day.

School aged children

As they grow, children use their communication to learn more and to interact with others.

Through communication, they learn to:

  • make friends
  • follow rules and instructions
  • tell stories
  • play games
  • learn new skills
  • name and discuss emotions.

At school, children learn more advanced speaking and listening skills, and they learn reading and writing.

Communication is essential for learning at school, enabling children to:

  • argue and persuade
  • explain, reason, problem solve
  • learn new ideas and words
  • learn complex words and ideas in the curriculum, for example in theatre, maths and science.

Adults

As adults, we communicate at work and in the community. We form longer term relationships and start families.

Even as adults, we continue to learn more about communication as we use it to:

  • participate at work
  • plan to achieve life goals
  • take out loans, contracts, etc.
  • connect with people of various ages
  • look after children
  • read newspapers and books, and see movies
  • develop personal interests and hobbies
  • teach others
  • argue, reason about complex ideas, settle disputes
  • become involved in politics and community.

Vikesh

Communication advocate, IT whiz, stand up comedian and stutterer 

‘Communication has allowed me to pursue my career. I work at a school with almost 700 students and a whole lot of staff, and I'm a one man team providing IT support. And so in terms of communication, I have to talk a lot every day. I have to communicate nonstop! I've been there almost six years. I just recently started doing stand-up comedy. So, that's my next level of, you know, getting over the fear, of building my confidence in communicating.’

Older age

Communication is vital during older age to ensure people can stay connected to the people and things they enjoy.

Some older people may prefer to talk about things that happened a long time ago, or about what they are doing now (e.g. grandchildren, medical appointments, etc.). Others want to connect to what is happening in the wider world, politics and entertainment.

Each person is unique, but the normal process of ageing can sometimes change communication.

Ageing can affect sight, hearing and muscle strength. Losing friends, loved ones or a long term-partner can impact the desire to interact with others. Lack of opportunities to communicate with others (social isolation) can be an issue for some older Australians.

Communication difficulties can happen at any stage of life. However, conditions such as dementia, stroke, Parkinson's disease, etc., are more common as people get older. These can lead to new barriers to communication.

 

Learn More

Speech, language and literacy development in early childhood. Our page on this topic which provides fact sheets produced by Speech Pathology Australia and links to relevant Communication Hub fact sheets as well.

Communication matters A video from Speech Pathology Australia (on YouTube) on the types of communication difficulties that elderly people can face, particularly in aged-care facilities.