Infants & Toddlers: Building Language With Babies

Communicating with babies through language-rich interactions not only builds language skills, but lays the foundation for later school success

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The two most precious gifts a teacher can give a baby are loving kindness and command of communication skills. Indeed, these two gifts are intertwined! A baby who is cuddled tenderly and whose expressions of need are responded to promptly is learning "I am lovable! They pay attention to what "I'm communicating!" At a deep, somatic level, babies learn that they are cherished and that their attempts to interact, first with body language and then with oral language, are respected. These early communications are enormously important!

Teachers need to build on their early attentiveness to body signals and sounds by furthering the development of language skills as infants grow. Recent research reveals how powerful a force rich teacher language can be for children. Families were followed for several years, with their verbal interactions with infants carefully observed. Startling differences emerged. In some families, people talked far more with the tiniest babies. They responded to more communication attempts by toddlers. Young children in those families heard more words addressed directly to them and benefited from more attempts to respond to early babbles and words. Later, these children turned out to be far more successful in mastering skills in preschool.

Teachers who provide rich language in response to what the baby is doing are engaging in "parallel talk." As a baby coos up at you while you diaper her, exclaim cheerfully, "I love to hear you talking to me! Good talking. Can you coo some more to me?" Give the baby a chance to respond. See how many "talking turns" you can sustain with the baby as you communicate back and forth. Express your delight in slow back-and-forth talking as you smile and nod your head. This encourages early conversation.

Yet another technique is "self-talk." As you interact with a baby, tell him what you are doing, and how you are interacting. Comment on how you are getting food ready for snack time and how you are putting on his bib. Comment on how you are diapering him.

Your language-rich environment is a gift for little ones. You are providing the sturdy base for later success in school as you give the children the most powerful tool they need for early learning-language power! 

Click here to view and download A Letter to Families (PDF)

Alice Sterling Honig, PhD, a professor emerita of child development at Syracuse University, is the author of many books on infants and toddlers, including Behavior Guidance for Infants and Toddlers and, with H. Brophy, Talking With Your Baby: Family as the First School

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