Abstract The aim of this study was to research how pedagogues work with communication and technique within language development for children with special needs. It covers children with language disorder and language delay as well as children having a different language than Swedish as their native language. The main questions used are: What means of communication methods are the pedagogues using on their daily work with children with special needs and what methods are used in the preschool to support the children with the language development? What obstacles and possibilities do the pedagogues identify when it comes to use of technical tools and what holdbacks are identified in the preschools when it comes to use of technical tools? The identified conclusions were that the sociocultural perspective became the focus of argument throughout the study as it can be used to connect communication and language development. The method to get answers to the questions was to perform four interviews in different preschools. The preschools were located within different counties close to a major city. The aim was initially to see how preschools work with technical tools and language development with children. This purpose was revisited as several preschools do not use technical tools as portable reading devices as we initially thought. The performed interviews were influenced by the model of Bornholm and knowledge of how this model can be used in the preschool support to support the language development for the children. Keywords: communication in preschool, language development, children with special needs, first language, learning tablet and social context.

This research was designed to assess 7-week-old infants' preference for infant directed and adult directed talk. (IDT and ADT) using the infant controlled habituation/dishabituation looking procedure. Infants were presented with short audio recordings of either a female or a male speaking in IDT during habituation and ADT during dishabituation or the reverse. In the control conditions, the stimulus did not change. Infants demonstrated preference for IDT over ADT in both male and female speaker conditions. They also demonstrated preference for the female speaker used in this study over the male speaker. Interactions among the dependent variables (first three looks), and the independent variables (infant gender, and style of speaking as well as infant gender, and speaker gender), suggest that the preference might not be as robust as the preference found in infants over 4 months. Evidence for discrimination between IDT and ADT was inferred from the between group demonstration of preference, but no evidence of within infant discrimination was found. Because the evidence suggests that 7-week-old infants demonstrate weaker preference for IDT over ADT than do infants of 4 months, it is assumed that infant preferences follow a developmental sequence. Thus, it is possible that developing preferences are influenced by experiential factors. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Key words: communication, communication skills, ontogenesis of speech, influencing factors, communication skills, general educational program for preschool education, preschool age, family, teacher, nursery school, a stimulus program ANNOTATION The thesis of the possibility of development of communication skills in children of preschool age. He is interested in aspects of communication skills, and characterizes the speech ontogenesis stages of language development. It looks disordered, the possibility of development and factors that may affect it. It builds on language education in pre- school education from historical and contemporary perspective. Practical use of monitors of speech to describe situational picture among children aged 3-6 (7) years. The stimulus program to help identify the state of the continuous expression of children aged 5-6 (7) years, and considering the possibility of his influence. Finally, we discussed proposals for changes that could help develop communication skills in preschool children.