New Year’s Resolution: More small talk please

New Year’s Day is a popular time of the year for setting New Year’s resolutions. Supporting people with communication difficulties to engage in more small talk is one of my New Year’s resolutions. Why? Because we are social beings. Experiencing social closeness, that is, a sense of belonging and connection to other people is equally important as being able to express needs and wants (Beukelman and Mirenda, 2013). Small talk helps build social closeness. 

Here are some pointers when working on small talk:

1)       Provide conversational starters… but not the usual what do you do, what’s your name etc

2)       Open with a statement. Talk about what you see or experience. Curiosity is golden.

3)       Giving someone a compliment is great too.

4)       For communication device users, include conversational starters in easy to access places on the device (e.g., within the Quick Fires page within some devices).

5)       Have fun and have a go!

Psst! Try not to use/say “I want….”, “more” or “finish” during the chat.  

Happy New Year!

The RT Speech and Hearing team

Reference

Beukelman, D. R., & Mirenda, P. (2013). Augmentative and alternative communication: Supporting children & adults with complex communication needs (4th ed.). Paul H. Brookes.

Photo from nbcnews.com

The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author’s (RT Speech and Hearing Team).