Webster's defines communication as "the act or action of imparting or transmitting." Wew, isn't that a fun explanation! Personally I'm not looking to get all "textbook" here. We all have our basic concepts of what communication is and how we go about doing it in our daily lives. You'll encounter plenty of communication work in your studies. As a quick primer or simply a catch-up, we will look over three of the communication concepts presented by Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson in their classic work Pragmatics of Human Communication.

Concept 1: All nonverbal communication is meaningful

How someone reacts physically is sometimes as important or more important than what they are actually saying. Context and situation are also factors in nonverbal communication.

This concept leads into one of my recommendations, which is doing some outside course work. Most courses touch upon body language but odds are that you will be able to find books at your local library devoted solely to the subject. Obviously body language books will lose value when dealing with individuals with disabilities but they can be of great value when dealing with most non-disabled seniors.

Concept 2: All communication has two major channels: digital and analogic.

This kinda sounds like a stereo system. Anyways, digital communication is a fancy way of saying verbal communication. This includes the context of the message. Analogic communication is made up of typical non-verbal communications, such as facial expressions and body positioning.

Concept 3: Two levels make up communication: Content and Relationship

The content is what is being said. The relationship is defined as the nature of those interacting. An example of this would be a boss "please come here" vs "NAME get over here". The second example more clearly illustrates the bosses perceived view of the relationship between the two parties taking part in the communication. As a personal support worker you will encounter clients that will view their relationship to you in different forms, some respectful and others not.

Hopefully that wasn't too painful. I've attempted to make some of the dense text as accessible as possible. This is one skill that will reward input with increased output. As personal support worker know, communication is one of the main keys to maintaining success and sometimes sanity within the profession.