Information carrying words (ICWs) provide a structure which helps us to control the number of words in a sentence that a child has to understand in order to carry out the instruction. Your speech and language therapist will have assessed the level of ICWs that your child is currently able to understand at, so that then their understanding can be improved in small, achievable steps.

An ICW is a word in a sentence that carries meaning. Many words in a sentence are not needed in order for the child to understand what they need to do.

Considering the above: Select items of different sizes/colours from around the house/classroom e.g.

big and little spoons in red and greenbig and little plates in red and green big and little bricks in red and green big and little dolls/teddies

Initially ask the child to ‘Find the big spoon’, ‘Find the little teddy’ etc. In this way, the child is listening and responding to 2 key words.

Once this is consistent, move on to tell the child who to give the items to, e.g. ‘give the big plate to teddy, ‘put the green brick on the chair’

1 2 3 1 2 3

Remember that for each item which is a key word you will need an alternative item in front of the child, for example if you put a big spoon, little spoon, big plate, little plate and dolly in front of your child and say ‘Give the big spoon to dolly’, the child only needs to understand the size and the object word, as there is no choice for who to give it to – this is a two key word instruction.

However, if you put a big spoon, little spoon, big plate, little plate, teddy and dolly in front of your child and say ‘Give the big spoon to dolly’, the child needs to understand the size, object and who to give the item to, as there is a choice for all three parts of the instruction – this is a three key word instruction.

Activities to develop a child’s ability to follow instructions containing 3 information carrying words

Play similar games asking the child to listen to 3 word instructions using ‘in/on and under’ and verbs e.g.‘put the spoon under the table’ 1 2 3‘put the ball on the chair’

1 2 3‘make dolly wash teddy’

1 2 3‘make dolly eat the apple’

1 2 3 Initially you may have to use gesture to help the child understand in/on/under.