Different_Barriers_to_Communication

Different barriers to communication The following assignment will discuss the different barriers to communication and how to overcome them. * Disability and impairment. Practitioners need to be trained to recognize if a child has a hearing impairment, limited mobility, visual or verbal impairment and any other condition such as cleft palate, stammer or if a child has autism. Adapting the way you communicate according to the individual needs or the child or adult is important so they can understand you and you can understand them. Hearing difficulties may prevent a recipient from picking up the spoken word. They benefit from you speaking to them slow and with exaggerated lip movement, so they can lip read. It is also important for children and adults to see you face clearly. Children may also benefit from a visual approach such as makaton. A visual impaired child or adult could find communicate a barrier if they cannot pick up facial expressions, gestures or anything that has been written down for them. So a low noise environment with few distractions will help. Also to consider too, is if the font size will help a visual impaired person. * An additional language. If two people are trying to have a discussion and both speak different languages, it can be extremely difficult to communicate. A child or young person, who is very competent communicating at home, may need extra support to develop their additional vocabulary. When speaking with children or adults who have a different language, facial expressions, hand gestures and tone of voice can help with what you are trying to say. In my setting we have children that have English as additional language. When speaking to them I tend to slow my speech down, make gestures with my hands and smile. I also use a few simple words in their own language when speaking to them. * Distractions (Background noise). Distractions are one of the most annoying barriers. Sometimes they are inescapable or unpreventable. For example: mobile phone, someone arriving late or noise from outside. A young person, who may be communicating with you, can feel unimportant and angry, if you are distracted while they are talking with you. They may also not want to communicate with you anymore. Any interruption should be dealt with briefly and the practitioner should make it clear to the young person that they are current priority. * Blocking the other’s contribution. When having a one-to-one face-to-face interaction, one of the people may block the communication in many different ways either verbally or non-verbally. A yawn, a look of boredom, a smile at the wrong time, a expression of digest, avoiding eye contract and looking around the room and fidgeting in your chair can be all forms of blocking communication in a non-verbally way. A practitioner can block the communication with another people, verbally, if she/he changing the subject mid flow of a conversion, being critical of the people they are speaking to, misunderstanding and joking at the person’s expense. Practitioners need to allow sufficient time for communicating either face-to-face or on the phone. Every rushed conversation can mean that the recipient does not have enough time to process the information or even have enough time to respond. If you appear in a rush to get to your next task, the other person can feel their contribution is unimportant. Also not giving the recipient enough time may lead to them misunderstanding the meaning of the message you have given them. Time is always a key factor when dealing with a difficult situation this could be if a parent has a concern about their child, or if a child is upset. It is always important to understand when any misunderstandings have taken place, and find ways to clarify them. Misunderstandings can cause resentment and lack of trust, which will affect relationships. Most of the time a misunderstanding will come apparent during the conversation, then with careful and sensitive questioning the problem can be solved.