Do you think it's important to have good communication skills to help improve your gift of teaching? Well, communication is one of the first and most important skills of being a special educator, teacher, therapist, or counselor, or when you are dealing with children. It's a skill that helps ease new situations for children by creating a comfortable environment to increase understanding and build rapport.

Communication can be both receptive as well as expressive.

Listening plays a huge part in developing healthy communication skills. The skill of effective listening helps you make sense of how, why, and where certain behaviors occur, their feelings, needs and wants, and other such important information that can be applied in solving certain issues or problems. It also allows a way to develop positive interpersonal relationships as it installs a feeling of security, and compassion and makes them feel heard. It builds confidence and a trustworthy relationship with the child, which helps them open up and allows a road to let you help them.

Body language and Tone can be one of the most effective ways of truly understanding the child’s mood, feelings, and state of mind they may be in. Likewise, it becomes important for the therapist or special educator to be mindful of their own body language and tone. Children can be quick to judge, hence having positive body language and tone can aid in developing a positive and healthy relationship making it easier to work with them.

Words can be one of the expressive ways of communicating. Using your words, the correct vocabulary, and tone can benefit in building a two-way relationship allowing you to express your emotions, feelings, thoughts, and wants. It helps show happiness, sadness, anger, shock, excitement, and your true state of mind. This can benefit you and the child as an understanding can be built adding to better the process of therapy and learning.

Positive feedback is something that educators and therapists often may miss out on. However, it becomes a very significant impact on the child when they are praised for their good work and progress as motivation and reinforcement can be one of the most effective methods for changing behaviors, building compliance, and learning. Praise and positive feedback can build confidence in completing tasks and being successful. Not only are you helping them in achieving their goals but also becoming models by teaching them to be compassionate, recognize others’ wins, and show gratitude.

if you're looking for a digital platform to help you improve your therapy delivery experience for your clients, consider giving Kidaura a try. Kidaura is a therapy delivery platform that offers a range of tools to help you better make your therapy process efficient. Give it a try today and see how it can benefit you and the children you work with.