This idea of how we talk with babies -- not just at or around them -- is something I would like to explore more with our teaching team and with all of you. That's why I was glad to stumble across an article online entitled Pretending to Understand What Babies Say Can Make Them Smarter.
The title intrigued me, because I knew it could not be that simple. Spending most of my days with babies, I know, as Dilcia discussed in her post, that there is no "fast track" to, or simple recipe for intelligence. Babies learn when given the chance to direct their own learning, with us caregivers as facilitators and one of the three teachers (parents, educators, and the environment) in a Reggio-inspired approach. I also wondered how genuine my interactions with babies would be if I just "pretended" to understand them. I do think though, we are pretending -- in an intentional way -- to understand our babies' indecipherable utterances. We draw inferences and make connections between their sounds and actions and show them we are listening, until the sounds become syllables, which will eventually become words...phrases...sentences...
I enjoyed the author's funny anecdote and that she admitted that "talking to small children is hard." That's why I think it feels refreshing when I have moments where I really feel as though I am conversing with our babies, just as with other adults.
The short article, which I have attached to this week's e-mail and pasted as a link below, references research published in the journal, Infancy, describing observed interactions between mothers and their infants, eight months or older, in which they coded their responses to the babies' babbling:
"'Redirective' responses involved turning the babies' attention elsewhere...while 'sensitive' responses were ones where the mothers verbally replied to or imitated their sounds." The results (summarized) showed that infants whose mothers used more "sensitive" responses had increased rates of consonant-vowel vocalizations, and also were more likely to direct their sounds toward their mothers, as if "speaking" to them. *
What does this mean for us, the members of our classroom community? I have to point out that I do not believe adults need to wait until babies are eight months -- or any specific age -- to converse with them. I hear parents and teachers doing this with babies of all ages every day. After reviewing all the videos we have taken since mid-January, I found one that really resonated with the connections I have been drawing between my balance-seeking, reading, and day-to-day experiences with teachers, parents, and babies.
This video of Dilcia and Oscar, although amazingly beautiful, is not meant to be instructional. However, I thought we could all use it to reflect on how we communicate with our babies, because we know, despite the absence of words, they have something to say. I am very interested to hear your thoughts about this video, the article, the questions below, and this topic in general!
How would you describe your experience talking with your child?
What impact do you think the ASL we use at school (and at home if you are using it) is having on your baby's language development?
What insight can you give us about communicating with your baby, so we may make connections between language development at school and at home?
With love and care,
Christina (with Amara, Dilcia, and Susie)
*Romm, Cari. Pretending to Understand What Babies Say Can Make Them Smarter. The Atlantic. 8.29.14 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/pretending-to-understand-what-babies-say-can-make-them-smarter/379324/
As a first-time parent I have learned a lot, or at least observed a lot, from the teachers and the environment in our class, not to mention the children (mine and the others). The fact that the children direct their attention to something and then feel the urge to vocalize is I suppose not something that should be taken for granted, but rather engaged with and nurtured. What's interesting in the video is that there are (at least) two phases of sound -- one where Oscar is still looking at and engaging with the object (Dilcia is quiet), and the other where he is looking at Dilcia (and she responds and interprets -- this appears to be one example of the balance discussed mentioned earlier in the blog post). Babies seem to just enjoy vocalizing, so it is tricky to know how often/when to engage, as I often find that when I do engage (asking a question, imitating or playing on the sound Oscar is making, etc) Oscar quiets down and listens to me, instead of increasing his own output.
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel like 'conversing' with Oscar (vocally, but also including his growing ability to anticipate things and follow motion and facial emotion, which allows more room for interactive 'play') is fun and exciting for him. Often simply the way I model the language (with a big smile, with a range of pitches, fast or slow) can engage him in new ways, so it's hard to tell how much he picks up on the 'content' of my utterances.
I haven't observed any affect ASL might have on his reactions; I'm not diligent whatsoever about using the signs, and don't see it much when I'm visiting him in the class (but I don't see snack/mealtimes, naps, etc). He definitely continues to enjoy discovering the fine motor skills of his hands, so perhaps that's related.
Thanks so much for sharing these thoughts and careful observations! I agree it can by tricky to distinguish between times when a baby might be vocalizing for pure enjoyment or when it is an attempt at communication. What I find so beautiful about working with babies, though, is that everything they do, or say, can be an invitation for us to build upon their knowledge and experiences. By narrating what they are doing or showing our excitement (or sadness) about something that is happening, by changing the volume and pitch of our voice, we are immersing them, not only in verbal language, but in the nuances of communication. It is very observant and thoughtful of you to notice and point out that Oscar sometimes gets quiet when you engage with him through speech. To me, his quiet pause in vocalizing may show that he is reacting to what you are saying and how you say it. The time he takes to quietly process your words seems to be valuable and necessary for receptive language development, not to mention building a continually-growing relationship with you. Your comment has prompted me to look at these moments of communication, with Oscar and his classmates, from a slightly different angle: How much is each "participant" in the conversation saying, and how much are we listening?
DeleteThe ASL we use in the classroom does center a lot around eating/drinking/mealtime ("diaper change" also), so it makes sense that you have not observed any possible reactions to our signing. Little by little, the babies have been showing us they understand what the signs mean - for example, a baby might look up at the kitchen counter when we sign "milk" - as well as beginning to use the signs themselves. For me, it has been exciting to see, with some of the older babies, that they have been taking in all the signing we have done since August, becoming able to use them to communicate despite the fact that they are preverbal. Our babies are all so amazing!
:) Christina