In the third of a series of articles on Birth to Three Matters, Professor Lesley Abbott and Ann Langston consider how to respond to the needs of the 'skilful communicator'
Birth to Three Matters assumes that young children are skilful communicators and social beings from birth. However, communication is about more than simply making contact with others through words, it is about relating to others through gestures, listening, conveying meaning and understanding other people's messages.
All children, regardless of special needs or individual differences, are skilful at communicating in some way, and adults need to tune into children's messages.
Even in the womb, babies learn to attune to the sound of their mother's heartbeat and voice. Soon after birth, they are able to imitate facial and manual gestures, and before long, provided others encourage them, they are able to hold 'conversations' that in time approximate adults'.
It is important, therefore, for children to hear language, become involved with those around them and be accepted as people who understand and can respond right from birth. When this happens, children very soon become effective communicators, who enjoy social contacts, 'chatting' with social partners in loving relationships.
The framework sets out the development of babies and young children as communicators in four components:
- Being together
- Finding a voice
- Listening and responding
- Making meaning.
Being together
The key development points for 'Being together' are:
- Young babies are sociable from birth, using a variety of ways to gain attention.
- Babies make social contact according to their physical possibilities.
- Young children form friendships and can be caring towards one another.
- Children learn social skills and enjoy being and talking with adults and other children.
Being together is about seeking and gaining attention, making contact and being encouraged to join in 'conversations' so that babies and young children become sociable and effective communicators.
Soon after birth, babies have general 'rules' about 'communicating'. They seek out and prefer familiar faces, wave their arms and smile back when their signals receive a positive response. So, even the youngest baby is primed as a communicator and all that is needed is someone who will listen, watch and interpret their body language and who treats even the smallest look or sound as if the baby intended to say something.
In daycare this role is likely to fall to the keyworker, but all those involved with babies and young children recognise that to become skilful at communicating everybody needs someone to 'talk' to, even if what one has to say needs interpretation.
The way that we plan for babies and young children in daycare to be together, both with other children, and with adults, supports the development of a range of communication skills.
The key messages for practice to meet this component are that babies need or seem to enjoy:
- Responsive and encouraging interactions
- Turn-taking patterns of interaction
- The sounds of 'motherese' (a way parents/carers communicate with young children, involving using a high-pitched voice, repetition and speaking slowly), rhyming, singing and word play
- Not too much background noise or too many distractions.
Finding a voice
The key development points for 'Finding a voice' are:
- Young babies communicate in various ways including crying, gurgling and babbling.
- Babies enjoy experimenting, exploring and using sounds and words to represent objects around them.
- Young children use single word and two-word utterances to convey simple and more complex messages.
- Children use language as a powerful means of widening contacts, sharing feelings, experiences and thoughts.
'Finding a voice' is about how babies and young children develop skills that allow them to become competent language users. When the impulse to communicate is responded to, babies and young children begin to explore and experiment with sound and language. Indeed, by three months of age, a baby who has begun vocalising and gets a response, will vocalise even more.
The way that adults respond communicates to the baby that they have 'said' something important. So, if the baby sneezes, an adult might say, 'Bless you', or if the baby burps, an adult might apologise, almost as if they were talking for the child.
This eventually becomes a kind of dance of communication between carer and baby; the carer interpreting and adding words that treat the baby's sounds as if they intended to convey a message. This engagement is essential if the baby is to feel valued.
The 'conversation' then extends to objects in the environment, which become the focus of communication, and in time, most babies will babble, the babbling echoing the pattern of language sounds they hear around them.
This accompanies a period in which the baby understands what they hear before they begin to produce their own special sounds, called 'proto-words' - invented words that are context specific. So, for example, a comforter may be a 'mrr, mrr' for one child or a 'blankie' for another, and these words often occur before the use of regular first words.
As they get older, children begin to increase their range of vocabulary, to extend to five-word sentences while gaining a working understanding of the way language operates. By the time most children reach three years of age they are beginning to share their thoughts and feelings with others and to question, describe and predict.
Listening and responding
'Listening and responding' goes hand in hand with 'Being together' and 'Finding a voice' and focuses on how children learn to respond, through listening to and joining in with language.
Rhymes, songs, poems and stories are valuable from an early age in providing opportunities for babies and children to enjoy, listen to and learn about words and meanings.
Children delight in the sound of unusual words and quickly take pleasure in nonsense words, using and creating new sounds to suit their own purposes. By repeating and joining in with songs young children begin to master complex patterns of sounds and, from an early age, are able to insert the missing word in a familiar rhyme, even if their articulation is not accurate. However, sensitive adults need to support all these activities.
The way babies and young children learn best is through play which provides endless opportunities for using sounds and words, learning new vocabulary and repeating and building on what others have said.
Role play is a wonderful source of fun and learning for very young children as it provides infinite ways of understanding everyday experiences and language.
When young children are surrounded by language and enjoy listening and being listened to, they begin to store up words and phrases, together with knowledge about when and how to use them. In their own time they draw on this store of information, and begin to use language.
Success in communicating meaning and being able to influence others has a marked effect on a child's developing self-esteem and confidence.
Parents and carers act as 'scaffolders' of language for young children, and when this is an enjoyable experience, children very quickly become 'directors' of their own play and of conversation.
Making meaning
'Making meaning' is all about understanding and being understood. It is what parents and carers do when they interpret a baby's message: 'Are you tired now? Do you want to play with this teddy?'
In the same way, babies and young children try to make meaning from every encounter - they begin to understand that they can influence other people by the way they interact, banging the table enthusiastically to convey that they want something, later saying 'please' and negotiating, through words and gestures, that they will do something if the adult will do something else in return.
The key messages for practice to meet these components are:
- Communication is two-way and even babies need someone to 'talk' to.
- When babies experiment with language they need others to help them to enjoy exploring sounds and words.
- Young children need opportunities to observe others, and be with someone who can interpret what they have to say. When they use their first one- and two-word utterances, they need others to be there to respond to their questions and help them find the words so that they are able to describe, label and predict.
- Language development helps children to share their thoughts and feelings, and they need to have many experiences, including access to books, so that they have things to talk about. They also need to be with people who are good listeners who will encourage them to express their ideas.
The Birth to Three Matters pack provides opportunities for practitioners to put these messages into practice.