This resource allows you to record your own reflections after watching the video below.
Video transcript
Lisa Kennedy
Teacher/Director Lowood Kindergarten
One of our children has been with us for quite a while. And at the start of the journey, we were very unsure on how to support him being non-verbal and so we went on a big journey as a team, and we did a lot of professional development around key word sign and how we can incorporate communication and language into our every day and we learned very quickly that it supports all children. So it was something that we could easily implement within all aspects of our kindy. In terms of how we support a specific child, is that we can use his assessment profile to really identify that the communication element there is something that we definitely need to work towards and build goals on. And so we're able to really use all the experiences that he does at kindy to put in that assessment profile, to see his journey. And his journey looks very different to many other children. But you can still see that progression of learning just in a very different way.
18 months ago, he would have had a goal of, being part of our good morning song and being able to say welcome and welcome to our land. And at the start, he would just sit there and he wouldn't have any way of communicating that to us. So we very quickly recognised that this is something that we could really help him with. And it was a great starting point because it was the first element of the day. So as a team, we learned our good morning song using key word sign. And then we also taught his parents how to do it in key word sign. So they were able to reinforce that at home as well. And that became the first part of introducing a way of communication with him. And it really opened up the rest of his communication journey, because the moment he realised that he can communicate with us by just saying, good morning, you should have seen his face. He was so lit up and he was excited to learn different ways to communicate. So if we look at that journey, a simple thing of saying good morning to now we're having full sentences and discussions with him about concepts that he wants to communicate with us.
So we need to document his conversations differently. That can be through drawing, through key word sign, through toys and play.
So a child who is not always verbally telling us their knowledge and understanding, we have to be a little bit more creative on how we can communicate with that child.
So we do use a lot of key words sign.
It's embedded within our whole program so it works for all children and so we do key word sign through all our songs, a lot of our stories, with our transitions we do key word sign. Even our presentations, like our songs to our grandparents and our parents at Christmas time and things, we all use key word sign as well, so that all children feel inclusive in that environment. They're not using key words sign just on their own.
- Last updated:
- 23 February 2026
