ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at what the child should be able to do conversationally at the different stages of primary education and how the transition to junior level requires well-developed conversational skills. Primary schools try to make it easy for children to make the transition to school, but it is not easy to do if the children have poor communication skills. The most important factor in helping children in the primary school system is the use of the timetable to tell the child what is going to happen – not only for the next hour or so but until he leaves school at the end of the day. A child with really poor non-verbal understanding needs a timetable visible on his desk. Children with poor non-verbal communication are a bit like non-directional microphones on video cameras. The child with inadequate non-verbal communication development will struggle to recognise or achieve those expectations.
