Hi, think about what holistic development means, what you've learnt about children's stages of development and what the EYFS (if you work in england) says about the different areas of learning.
Quote: p.49 Heineman level 3
It makes sense to separate areas of development but it is essential to understand that they do not work 'separately'. They are co-dependant so a child who does not have the physical skills to sit up, turn pages or the language to decode text, will not be able to sit up and read a book. This co-dependency means that while you may find it helpful to focus on one area of a child's development, you must always remember that children are 'whole' people.
In other words
you wouldn't expect children to only use & learn about speech, language and non-verbal communication when taking part in speech, language and communication focussed activities.
You would expect them them to learn how to talk, discover how to speak in sentences, develop their listening skills all the time regardless of the learning objective or aim, should it be their physical development, PSED, art & design, understanding the world, literacy or maths (these are the EYFS learning areas for england)
So in relation to SLC, holistic development is important as its an aspect of development that's connected, interlinked or interdependent on other areas of learning.
Holistic approach in relation to children's development of their body and physical skills such as balance, co-ordination, gross motor skills - climbing, skipping and kicking a ball, and fine motor skills such as threading, fastening buttons and using a pencil means that a setting wouldn't expect a child to only exercise their muscles when on a football field, swimming in a pool or taking part in obstacle courses in the gym. They will provide opportunities for physical development to happen holistically indoors and outdoors eg. when dancing and singing-(speech, language and communication) stacking blocks, stirring a bucket of mud and water, fitting jigsaw pieces together or posting shapes into a sorter.
https://www.silkysteps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20989
Hth xx