Good Communication – The Power of Nonverbal and Verbal, Combined.

 Have you ever wondered what defines “good communication”? Since the beginning of my professional career in working with kids with developmental challenges I have found myself asking this question in various forms on a consistent basis – is it being able to make eye contact with an individual you are conversing with; is it being able to express your opinion using words (or to simply put it – talking?). Perhaps, it is being able to distinguish an appropriate time to talk versus moments of silence. We all know that in order to be a successful communicator we must possess a robust set of verbal skills, but is that all?I had the opportunity to observe a therapy session here at Cawn/Krantz the other day, and I was fortunate enough to be observing the cutest most adorable child (who am I kidding, their all cuties!). Prior to observing this child, I was informed that they had a very limited language and speech repertoire. So taking this information into consideration, the goal of the therapy session was to work on some speech sounds and build upon the engagement piece in order to create opportunities for circles of communication. For the next 50 minutes I sat, observed, and took note of one of the most beautiful interactions that involved: the child, the caregiver, the therapist coaching the caregiver, and a bean bag ball. Now here is the real shocker – this beautiful interaction was all NONVERBAL! Wait, nonverbal – what does that mean?  Throughout my professional career, thus far, I have come to learn the power of nonverbal communication. I have read countless articles and research papers stating that the majority of human communication is nonverbal. Wow – crazy, right? So, what exactly is nonverbal communication? Nonverbal communication or also known as body language consists of eye contact, facial expressions, bodily/facial gestures, posture, where our bodies are relative to a verbal communicative interaction (are we too close to our peer or too far), and even the tone of our voice plays an essential role. On a daily basis we are consistently interacting with others in our surrounding environments where we are continuously giving and receiving countless wordless cues. All of our nonverbal cues send strong messages. Therefore, nonverbal communication is vital to not only our developmental progress, but it is a vital piece of communication that we as humans must acquire in order to be “good communicators”.