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The importance of non-verbal interactions for under-threes

1 Oct 2004

Communicating with others is fundamental to being a social being. As developing language relies on social interactions, the most important resource for very young children learning to communicate is the consistent, continuous care of responsive, familiar adults.

Children who are enabled to build trusting relationships develop self-confidence in expressing themselves and sharing their ideas. In such relationships of mutual respect there is powerful motivation to interact, communicate and use language.

A lot of learning about communication takes place around familiar routines such as nappy changing, sleeping and mealtimes. Consequently, carers must be responsive and attentive both physically and verbally.

Rocking or gently massaging a baby, for example, are ways of communicating that underpin early language development. Holding out your arms and asking a baby if they would like to have their nappy changed instigates a conversation as well as showing a child respect.

Karmiloff-Smith (1994) says that the sensitivity of the parents/carers to their baby in the first few months of life has a direct correlation to the linguistic ability of the baby at 12 months. Babies in daycare need carers with that same sensitivity. In this way we can see how the relationship between the baby and caring adult is central to their communication and learning.

Ways of communicating

Babies are communicators from birth. They recognise human voices that they have heard in the womb, and after birth they pay more attention to human voices than other auditory stimuli (Karmiloff-Smith 1995).

Babies communicate their needs in different ways but crying is the primary means by which they communicate fear, pain, hunger, boredom or loneliness. The better a practitioner knows a baby, the more they are able to differentiate the type of crying that the baby uses to convey a particular need. It is useful for practitioners to remember that although a baby's crying makes us tense, this discomfort makes us act, which is what the baby needs. This in itself is a conversation and an early experience of cause and effect for the baby.

But babies also express their interest in communicating with us by gazing at adults' faces, searching with their eyes, smiling, babbling, reaching, laughing and shouting. These interactions usually take place with people they know. With strangers, or if they want to stop an interaction, babies show their displeasure by looking away, titling their heads away, grimacing, whining and pushing away with their arms and legs (Manning-Morton and Thorp 2001). Use of facial expression, body language, gesture and vocalisations are then all important ways in which babies and young children make themselves understood, long before language emerges.

Acredolo and Goodwyn (2000) suggest that almost all babies use signs and gestures such as pointing, waving and shaking their heads. Their research identified that where babies were supported in using signs to communicate their needs, they had more spoken language at two years old than non-signing peers. Toddlers in their study also experienced less frustration, as signing enabled them to communicate more effectively with their parents/carers, so enhancing relationships and consequently the children's self-esteem. Similarly, key persons who are tuned in to each of their babies' and toddlers' ways of communicating also lessen the times of intense frustration for the children and the consequent emotional collapse that they may experience.

Developing understanding

Before babies and toddlers develop language they develop an understanding of how language and communication works. They engage in turn-taking of conversation. For example, babies suck vigorously at the breast or bottle when feeding, then pause, gazing at their carer, who talks to and maybe jiggles the baby in the pauses, then the baby starts sucking again. Colwyn Trevarthan calls such exchanges 'proto-conversations' (Trevarthn 1979), which also take place in many games we play with babies. He describes babies as young as two months engaging in these communications and says they provide children with a good understanding of their cultural vocabulary of communication.

Babies also show that they know what the adult intends to do when environments and routines are predictable. For example, babies look towards the fridge as you prepare their lunch. This ability to follow the adult's attention means the practitioner can show the baby interesting things and also follow the baby's attention and talk about what they are looking at or pointing to.

In this way babies make links between objects and events and language. This is further assisted by the attention that babies pay to the human voice, especially the exaggerated intonation, higher pitch and restricted vocabulary typical of 'motherese' or Infant Directed Speech.

Babies are also developing an awareness of the links between actions and language. Motherese, for example, also uses exaggerated facial expressions and actions that gain the babies' attention, such as tickling. As noted earlier, this develops into babies using their own gestures to communicate. Toddlers understand and use many expressions, gestures and imitate many language-related actions, such as shrugging their shoulders of putting their fingers to their lips for 'shh'.

As in the adult world, words for babies and toddlers mean far less if their meaning is not also communicated by facial expression, tone, pitch and gesture.

Implications for practice

The practitioner's role

Practitioners who support babies' and toddlers' communications effectively:

• spend time in conversation with their key children, echoing their vocalisations and pausing for replies
• respond to the meaning in young children's communications
• are knowledgeable about each child's interests, the words or events that trigger memories and the repeated conversations that are related to these
• are tuned in to each child's language, gestures and expressions and use them consistently in response.

Working with parents

To understand effectively the communications of babies and toddlers, practitioners and parents need to communicate well themselves. Daily exchanges are necessary, through conversation or a diary, for all adults to be able to interpret a child's actions or words. This means telling each other:

• the meaning of particular words or gestures that a child uses
• about a child's idiosyncratic words or rituals and what they mean
• about the child's experiences at home and in the setting so each understands what the child is referring to and can talk more about it.

Prime care times

Physical care times are prime times for conversation. To support communications at these times, key persons should be primarily responsible for changing, feeding and settling their key children to sleep.

Environment

Practitioners who know how hard it is to communicate, say, in a noisy club or quiet library, will understand how environment impacts on young children's efforts to communicate. Babies and toddlers can become fractious when the noise level in a group rises. This is just one reason why groups should not be too large or noisy or have too wide an age range for good communication to take place. Childminders' homes do not usually have large echoing spaces, but group settings should consider having sound-absorbing surfaces and quiet areas to reduce background noise and ensure that babies and toddlers can hear and be heard.

Play experiences/resources

There are many social communication games that birth to three-year-olds enjoy. For babies these mostly involve play with the adult. Older babies enjoy lively games with songs and comical teasing games such as 'round and round the garden.' Babies will show pleasure and excitement in this play with someone that they know well but not with a stranger. However, even a trusted adult must know to stop the game as soon as excitement turns to anxiety, or the developing trust will be damaged.

Frameworks

All aspects of communication and language can be found in Birth to Three Matters (Sure Start 2002): "A Skilful Communicator', but the areas covered in this article are in the components 'Making meaning - understanding and being understood' and 'Being Together – being a sociable and effective communicator.' In the Key Times Framework (Manning-Morton and Thorp 2001) these aspects are in the characteristic section 'Children under three have a strong drive to communicate with others.'

References

• Acredolo, L and Goodwyn, S (2000) Baby Signs. How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk. London: Vermilion, Ebury Press.
• Karmiloff-Smith, A (1994) Baby it's you. London: Ebury Press
• Karmiloff-Smith, A (1995) 'The extraordinary journey from foetus through infancy.' Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 36, pp 1,293-1,315
• Manning-Morton, J and Thorp, M (2001) Key times: A framework for developing high quality provision for children under three years. London: Camden EYDCP/University of North London
• Sure Start (2002) Birth to Three Matters: A framework to support children in their earliest years. DfES. HMSO
• Trevarthan, C (1979) 'Communication and co-operation in early infancy: A description of inter-subjectivity'. Bullowa, M (ed) Before speech: The beginning of interpersonal communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

This article, written by Julia Manning-Morton for Nursery World covers the components 'Making meaning - understanding and being understood' and 'Being together' - being a sociable and effective communicator' in Birth to Three Matters.

 

 

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