Practice dialogue: Play session with a child

This dialogue is 716 words long, so about the length of a Newcastle University public service interpreting dialogue or a warmup for a proper Diploma in Public Service Interpreting dialogue. The topic is a play session, which can be considered both medical and legal. You could argue it’s medical because the therapist is discussing child development with the mother. Or you could say that it’s legal, because this is related to social services and safeguarding.

Some useful words to know before you begin: building blocks (积木), imitation (模仿), redirection (重新定向), and naughty (调皮).

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Context: A therapist speaks to a mother about play sessions with her son. The therapist is English speaking and the mother is non-English speaking. The name of the son is Chris. You may change names and genders as desired.

Therapist: Hi. Today we are going to do a play session with your son. Then we’ll talk about how the play session worked and we’ll leave some time to answer any questions you may have.

Mother: Great!

Therapist: We’re going to work on building blocks today. Have you and Chris been playing with blocks recently?

Mother: Yes.

Therapist: Has he made any towers when playing with blocks?

Mother: No, he just picks them up and then puts them to one side.

Therapist: You do not have to be around for the entire play session, but please come back in about 30 minutes so we can discuss.

Mother: That’s fine. I’ll start making dinner.

(Therapist plays with child, trying to stack blocks in a tower, trying to share blocks, and putting blocks in and out of the box.)

Mother: So how did he do today?

Therapist: The good news is, he’s handing them to me. I asked him questions like, “Can you put it on?” “Can you put it in?” and “Can I help?”

Mother: Is he understanding all of those questions?

Therapist: He’s doing well with “in”, but he struggles with putting things on. I am not sure whether he understands “Can I help” yet.

Mother: OK.

Therapist: He is imitating my actions so he was tapping on things after I tapped on them. He made the sign for more and when he put his foot on my lap, I labelled it as shoes, and then he pointed to his foot.

Mother: Good! Did he build a tower today?

Therapist: He did not build a tower today.

Mother: Was he naughty today?

Therapist: He did not press the buttons on the phone today although he was interested in the phone because he heard the sounds coming out of it. He threw the blocks two times, but then I redirected him and he stopped throwing blocks.

Mother: Oh, OK.

Therapist: So he did not play like we wanted him to, but he was able to interact with me. I think he has made a lot of progress.

Mother: What kind of progress?

Therapist: Last time we had a play session, he would only look at the toys. This time he had eye contact, which is good.

Mother: Oh yes, he smiled at me every time we made eye contact. It was so nice to see him smiling at me.

Therapist: That’s very good. We played with some lids and he really liked that.

Mother: Yes, he is crazy about lids. Any lid, he will play with it for ages.

Therapist: Do you have any other questions?

Mother: Sometimes he hits me and then I show that I’m angry and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t see that I’m angry. Then after a while, he hits me again. What should I do?

Therapist: You need to grab his hand and stop him and then say “No hit.” You need to be firm with him.

Mother: Should I show that I’m mad that he’s hitting me?

Therapist: No, not necessarily. You need to say “No hit” and then you can think about standing up and not interacting with him. Remember that you need to redirect the behaviour. Once he sees that he gets no reaction to hitting, he might stop. Some children just want a reaction. Some children even want negative reaction. Basically they just want to explore the emotion.

Mother: Oh!

Therapist: So sometimes we think that it would be strange that the child would want a negative interaction, that they would do something that makes the parent angry, but sometimes they do.

Mother: When he hit me, I was angry but he didn’t care. Should I look angry?

Therapist: No, you should have a flat expression. Maybe raise your eyebrows but you don’t want to get angry.

Mother: I see, so I do not want to have too extreme of a response. I want to have a flat response.

Therapist: That’s right.

Mother: I’m worried that he does not play with any children his age.

Therapist: That is something that we can work on in the future. First we want to make sure that he does not hit people. Then we can look at how he can start making friends and learn how to play nicely.

Mother: OK.

Therapist: Well, that’s all we have time for today. I’ll see you again in about two weeks.

Mother: Thank you very much!

Michelle Deeter (NRPSI, DPSI Law) is a Chinese-English interpreter based in Manchester. She teaches translation and interpreting at Newcastle University. She has over 455 hours of experience interpreting for medical and legal assignments. If you have questions about translation, interpreting or taking the DPSI, you can contact her at www.michelledeeter.com