The scale of the challenge faced by settings offering 'out of family' care for children aged under two years has been widely acknowledged (Goldschmied and Jackson 2004; Biddulph 2005; Barnes et al. 2006; Gerhardt 2004). However dedicated practitioners are, and even when infants have regular contact with the same key worker, there will always be a 'familiarity gap' in their relationship, making primary communication more of a challenge. Where the adults are inexperienced, overstretched and undervalued, this gap can widen to the point where children and adults seldom experience relaxed, playful interactions with a familiar partner (Rolfe et al. 2002). If adults working with young children do not recognise how much primary communication contributes to children's growing ability to make sense of other people's behaviour, this gap may feel normal; an inevitable consequence of children's inability to express themselves clearly in spoken language.
Early years professionals may need to begin by raising awareness of the importance of primary communication, and by encouraging practices that support the development of close familiar relationships. It may be impossible for practitioners to offer the level of familiarity which children have been busy co-constructing with their primary caregivers from before they were born, but group settings can offer opportunities for children to practise developing new, more symmetrical kinds of familiar relationships with other children. Sensitive practitioners can nurture supportive communities by offering and maintaining a social space in which children can practise and develop their skills in primary communication as they watch each other's interactions, show interest in each other's actions and feelings, and gradually get to know each other.
Professional expertise
Although no amount of experience will enable early years practitioners to close the familiarity gap completely, the process of developing relationships with many different babies and children can contribute to the refinement of a personal model, theory or set of expectations about how different kinds of children are likely to respond in the kinds of situations they are likely to encounter. Much as a knowledge of the traits and quirks of familiar caregivers allows an infant to detect any discrepancies from the expected, so a knowledge of different children can help practitioners to focus their attention on what is particularly interesting about each child. Professionals don't have to reinvent this familiarity for themselves; they can access models developed and published by others but, as Engel (2005) has observed, they must appreciate the difference between what children do in the context of laboratory studies and what they are capable of in the context of joyful play with familiar partners.
Research into the capabilities of babies has tended to strip away the context of familiar relationships to study responses to black and white gratings, still images and isolated sounds, smells and tastes, but critical practitioners can use this outline to make sense of their own experiences with real children, colouring it in and constantly adjusting it to accommodate unexpected responses. Being a professional requires an active engagement between other people's ideas and practices and one's own, with a view to challenging and improving both. When practitioners do not explore and question their personal theory, it can harden into a fixed set of stereotypes and prejudices. Instead of using their expertise to develop an individual relationship with each child, these practitioners may prefer to adjust children to fit their assumptions about what children should be like.
Child-menders or rule-benders?
If our 'theory' of communication is based primarily on spoken language, it is easy to focus on what 'pre-verbal' children cannot do, and this attitude can spread into other aspects of our work. Carr (2001) has shown how a 'folk model' of assessment can lead us to compare children against a checklist of expected developmental milestones in order to identify deficits or delays, which we then set about 'fixing'.
This 'child-mending' approach prioritises the generalised abstraction of 'normality' over the complex, messy and unpredictable individuality of each child and allows adults to engage with children en masse by talking not to each child but to an idea of what every child ought to be. There may be some advantages for some children in this sort of introduction to a more public form of communication. But adults who work with children who are just beginning to talk should be aware of how challenging it may be for these children to manage without the support of familiar relationships and primary communication. A child's induction into the public world beyond the family can be eased by early years practitioners who aim to develop 'bespoke' relationships with each child and caregiver. Rather than aiming to 'repair' children who do not fit a prescribed norm, sensitive and confident practitioners can find ways to accommodate the different needs of different children and families.
Primary communication and warm professionals
When adults acknowledge the importance of primary communication, it is not only children who benefit. Active engagement with the unique individualities of particular children and families can help to develop adults' confidence to challenge, interpret and adjust policy decisions, rather than simply apply them 'across the board'. The Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children's Workforce (DfES 2005) includes a section on 'Sharing Information' which stipulates that practitioners should 'be able to use clear language to communicate information unambiguously to others including children, young people, their families and carers'. But practitioners are also required to understand that 'inference or interpretation can result in a difference between what is said and what is understood'.
We cannot assume that 'what is understood' will be the same for everyone who hears 'what is said'. If we really want to communicate information unambiguously, we must make time to develop and maintain the warm relationships which allow us to make sense of the subtle cues provided by primary communication.
Extract from 'Primary Communication: What can adults learn from babies?' by Rod Parker-Rees, in Early Years Foundations: Meeting the challenge, ed Janet Moyles (Open University Press, £20.99).
Rod Parker-Rees was a nursery and reception teacher before joining the University of Plymouth where he is co-ordinator of the Early Childhood Studies programmes.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
- Biddulph, S (2005) Raising Babies: Should under-threes go to nursery?. London: Harper Thorsons
- Carr, M (2001) Assessment in Early Childhood Settings: Learning Stories. London: Paul Chapman
- DfES (2005) Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children's Workforce. Nottingham: DfES Publications
- Engel, SL (2005) Real Kids: Creating meaning in every day. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
- Gerhardt, S (2004) Why Love Matters: How affection shapes a baby's brain. London: Routledge
- Goldschmied, E and Jackson, S (2004) People Under Three: Young children in daycare, second edition. London:Routledge
- Rolfe, S, Nyland, B and Morda, R (2002) 'Quality in Infant Care: observations on joint attention'. Australian Research in Early Childhood Education, 9(1): 86-96
Points for discussion
- Try to observe a colleague communicating with a very young child in your setting - you might even video it to share later. Who takes the lead? How much does body language have a part in the interaction? What emanates from the child and what from the adults? Could this situation be enhanced?
- What do you understand as the differences between 'what is said' and 'what is understood'? Can you think of a situation you've been in where discrepancies have occurred?
- How do colleagues and you share time to communicate with each other about children? Is this time sufficient/well used/frustrating?