"The basic building block of good communications is the feeling that every human being is unique and of value." - Unknown

Know

As an infant and toddler caregiver, you play an important role in each infant’s and toddler’s communication and language development. The environment makes a difference in how they develop and learn new skills and depends in large part on the caregiver creating responsive, engaging learning opportunities within the environment.

Reflecting on Communication and Language Learning

Knowing that your environment contributes greatly to infant and toddler learning, one of your starting points can be to reflect on the language and communication development of the infants and toddlers in your care. You can start with your observations, communication with families, the developmental screening and assessment information you collect, and questions about each infant’s and toddler’s development and the interests and discoveries they are making. For example:

• What sounds is each infant using?
• What languages is the infant or toddler learning at home? To which language is the infant or toddler most responsive?
• Are there words or phrases that the infant or toddler is learning at home that are different from communications with the caregiver?
• How does each infant or toddler communicate that he or she is hungry, tired, bored or ready for play?
• How is each infant’s or toddler’s language and communication growing?
• How does each infant or toddler communicate with peers? Adults?
• How does each infant or toddler respond to books? Being read to? Being shown pictures?
• What types of books is each family reading to their infant or toddler?
• How are other areas of development being supported through books and reading?

By asking these questions, in collaboration with families, you have an opportunity to document and learn how each infant or toddler in your care develops language and communication skills while considering other areas of development, culture, and temperament. This process can help you and families gather information and work together to support the development of language skills for infants and toddlers. It will also assist with your planning of responsive environments to foster communication growth.

Supporting Communication for Infants and Toddlers

As an infant and toddler caregiver, you also become an infant’s and toddler’s language and communication partner. Infants grow from turning their heads and responding to familiar faces and voices to being able to express their thoughts, feelings and experiences in words as toddlers. This amazing development occurs primarily through the interactions and experiences created by adult caregivers who use communication and language with infants and toddlers in responsive and meaningful ways throughout the day. Take a moment to think about the responsive care you provide and the ways it affects infants’ and toddlers’ language and communication development.

The table below highlights ten practices that support the language and communication skills of infants and toddlers (Gardner-Neblett & Gallagher, 2013). You can learn more about the research evidence that supports the use of each practice along with strategies and ideas for using the practice with infants and toddlers in the Learn activity.

After reading the handout, it’s likely you continued to think about the developmental possibilities in communication and language for infants and toddlers. Each infant and toddler develops at his or her own rate, and within a language-rich, responsive environment, the possibilities are endless!

Some infants and toddlers in your care may have conditions that affect their language and communication development, including developmental delays, autism, neurological and perceptual disorders, or vision, hearing, speech, or language impairments. Children with Individualized Family Service Plans have a specific plan to help them meet their personal goals, and very often these infants and toddlers will need changes or adaptations to daily routines, their care environment, and curriculum. The Kids Included Together (KIT) program can be a valuable resource for ideas.

Below is additional information to consider as you continue to plan for responsive and engaging interactions, environments and experiences that support the infants and toddlers in your care.

In addition, consider the following approaches to supporting and fostering communication and language development in infants and toddlers:

• Provide a sensory-rich environment filled with verbal interactions, singing, books and simple pictures on the wall
• Create opportunities within the environment for infants and toddlers to observe one another and interact
• Explore with infants and toddlers and talk about what you’re seeing and doing together – for example, look out a window and highlight what you see, play with water together in tubs or the sand/water table, look in a mirror together
• Take infants and toddlers outdoors for nature walks – talk about where you are going, what you are seeing and hearing, name objects along the way
• Take time to learn about and respect families’ understanding of and beliefs around communication and language
• Demonstrate an interest in and curiosity about the environment

Developing Language Through Media Literacy

The use of digital technology and non-screen media is quickly becoming an important tool with which we form our personal identities, build relationships, and express our values. Media literacy encompasses all media, including print and digital media technologies and is focused on helping young children understand the role of media and preparing them to use and create media in healthy ways. Like traditional forms of literacy, media literacy helps children develop new skills and attitudes, expand their creative thinking, and become effective communicators in today’s world. Infants and toddlers encounter print and digital media daily including music players, television, smart phones, tablets, and more. The Erikson Institue: Technology in Early Childhood Center offers these tips for adults to support infant’s and toddler's media literacy skills:

• Co-access, co-engagement, and co-viewing of media is essential in supporting basic media literacy
• Discuss and model how picture books work
• Narrate what you are doing when you engage with infants and toddlers, notice the children’s non-verbal communication
• Recognize that facial expressions, signs, gestures are the first stage of evaluating media
• Acknowledge and encourage children’s efforts and creations
• Enhance social interactions using face-to-face interactions and digital interactions
• Narrate what you are doing and how you are using digital media like a phone or tablet

Consider the following actions to promote media literacy skills, knowledge, and habits in young children (Rogow, 2022):

Communication and language development at all stages is a complex process and involves other areas of development, such as cognitive skills, and is enhanced by input from the environment (family, caregivers, peers, experiences, activities, etc.). Communication and language help us think, learn, problem-solve, remember and understand what we experience. Next, watch the following video about experiencing communication through book reading.

See

Do

Responsive and engaging environments are characterized by intentional and frequent use of developmentally appropriate interactions and experiences, including opportunities for spoken and written language. In your daily interactions with infants and toddlers, consider the following:

• Be responsive to communication attempts and build and extend on what infants and toddlers are saying.
• Follow infants’ and toddlers’ cues and preferences.
• Include new words during your conversations with infants and toddlers.
• Add songs and fingerplays into daily routines.
• Read to infants and toddlers daily. Select and display books and other printed materials that represent different types of people and a variety of topics.
• Create opportunities for small groups of infants and toddlers to be near each other or to play together. Encourage them to notice one another during activities by saying, for example, “Carol has the horses and they’re eating food. I think these horses feel very hungry!”
• Create a visual schedule that highlights your specific daily routines. The routines can be shown through pictures and simple words and displayed at their eye level. You can refer to the picture schedule frequently throughout the day and point to the various routine pictures.