Pediatric Communication Course

Lesson 1 • Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Basics

Introduces tone, pacing, body language, and proxemics as tools for pediatric encounters. Connects foundational communication science to child-specific clinical contexts.

Lesson 2 • Child Development and Communication Milestones

Maps language, cognitive, and social milestones from infancy through adolescence. Provides the developmental baseline needed for all subsequent communication strategies.

Lesson 3 • Ethical Principles in Pediatric Communication

Covers assent, consent, confidentiality, and truth-telling as applied to minors. Grounds clinical communication in ethical obligations unique to pediatric practice.

Lesson 1 • Adolescent-Centered Communication

Addresses confidentiality, identity, and motivational interviewing adapted for teenagers. Extends school-age strategies to meet the autonomy and privacy needs of adolescents.

Lesson 2 • Engaging Infants and Toddlers

Focuses on caregiver-mediated communication and sensory engagement for the youngest patients. Builds skills for reading infant cues and supporting caregiver interaction.

Lesson 3 • Communicating with Preschool-Age Children

Applies concrete language, storytelling, and play to engage children aged three to five. Connects developmental theory from Chapter 1 to practical preschool encounter techniques.

Lesson 4 • School-Age Communication Strategies

Teaches logical explanation, honest information-sharing, and autonomy promotion for ages six to twelve. Builds on preschool techniques by introducing cause-and-effect reasoning.

Lesson 1 • Managing Fear and Resistance

Provides strategies for de-escalating fearful or oppositional children during clinical encounters. Extends rapport skills to high-stress situations requiring immediate behavioral support.

Lesson 2 • Sustaining Long-Term Therapeutic Relationships

Addresses continuity of care, relationship repair after conflict, and tracking relational progress over time. Moves beyond single-encounter skills to longitudinal patient relationships.

Lesson 3 • Child-Directed Interaction Techniques

Teaches following the child's lead, descriptive commenting, and reflective listening in clinical play. Builds the relational skills that underpin therapeutic trust with pediatric patients.

Lesson 1 • Navigating Caregiver Disagreement and Conflict

Teaches de-escalation, validation, and negotiation when caregivers disagree with providers or each other. Builds on family systems knowledge to manage high-tension encounters.

Lesson 2 • Delivering Clear Health Information to Caregivers

Covers plain language, teach-back, and visual aids for communicating diagnoses and care plans. Ensures caregivers leave encounters with accurate, actionable understanding.

Lesson 3 • Engaging Non-Traditional and Complex Family Structures

Covers foster care, kinship care, and multi-household families in clinical communication. Extends standard family engagement skills to legally and relationally complex situations.

Lesson 4 • Understanding Family Systems and Dynamics

Introduces family systems theory and its application to pediatric clinical encounters. Equips providers to recognize how family roles and dynamics shape communication.

Lesson 1 • Numeracy and Risk Communication with Families

Addresses how to present statistics, dosing, and risk in ways families can understand and use. Builds on plain language skills to tackle the specific challenge of numerical health data.

Lesson 2 • Plain Language Writing and Speaking

Teaches active voice, short sentences, common words, and logical structure for clinical communication. Directly applies health literacy principles to spoken and written provider output.

Lesson 3 • Designing Pediatric Patient Education Materials

Covers layout, visuals, font size, and cultural relevance in printed and digital health materials. Extends plain language skills to the creation of take-home resources for families.

Lesson 1 • Breaking Bad News to Families

Applies structured protocols for delivering serious diagnoses to caregivers in pediatric settings. Builds on caregiver communication skills to address the highest-stakes clinical conversations.

Lesson 2 • End-of-Life Communication in Pediatrics

Provides frameworks for palliative conversations, goals-of-care discussions, and supporting bereaved families. Represents the most advanced application of difficult-conversation skills in pediatric practice.

Lesson 3 • Addressing Abuse, Neglect, and Safety Concerns

Covers trauma-informed questioning, mandatory reporting communication, and safety planning with families. Equips providers to handle disclosures and safety concerns without re-traumatizing children.

Lesson 4 • Talking with Children About Serious Illness

Teaches age-appropriate honesty, hope-balancing, and child-led disclosure for serious diagnoses. Extends developmental communication skills to life-altering health conversations.

Lesson 1 • Risks of Ad Hoc and Child Interpreters

Examines the harms of using untrained family members, especially children, as interpreters. Builds on professional interpreter skills by contrasting them with unsafe alternatives.

Lesson 2 • Cultural Competence and Humility in Pediatrics

Distinguishes cultural competence from cultural humility and applies both to pediatric family encounters. Establishes the mindset required for all cross-cultural communication skills that follow.

Lesson 3 • Equity-Centered Communication Practices

Applies a health equity lens to identify and correct systemic communication disparities in pediatric care. Synthesizes cultural and interpreter skills into an equity-focused clinical practice model.

Lesson 4 • Working Effectively with Professional Interpreters

Covers briefing, positioning, and debriefing interpreters for pediatric clinical encounters. Ensures providers maximize interpreter partnerships to achieve accurate, family-centered communication.

Lesson 1 • Reflective Practice and Communication Self-Assessment

Teaches structured reflection, peer feedback, and video review as tools for ongoing communication improvement. Develops the metacognitive habits that sustain lifelong clinical communication growth.

Lesson 2 • Interprofessional Communication in Pediatric Teams

Covers structured handoffs, team huddles, and conflict resolution within pediatric interprofessional teams. Applies communication mastery to the multi-provider systems surrounding pediatric patients.

Lesson 3 • Telehealth Communication with Children and Families

Adapts core pediatric communication skills to video and phone-based clinical encounters. Addresses the unique rapport, engagement, and technical challenges of remote pediatric care.

Lesson 4 • Integrating Skills Across Complex Case Scenarios

Applies all course competencies to multi-layered simulated cases involving diverse families and high-stakes situations. Serves as the capstone synthesis of the entire core curriculum.