Cómo las interacciones sociales desarrollan el cerebro para el aprendizaje de idiomas

(En inglés)

How Social Interaction Builds Brains for Language Learning

Beth Zack: Hello, everyone. Happy New Year, and welcome to our first Baby Talks of 2024. Today, we're talking about the brain-building power of social interactions for language learning. We're so happy to have you here with us today.

Baby Talks is a series of webinars for teachers, family child care providers, and home visitors working with infants and toddlers in Early Head Start, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, and American Indian and Alaska Native programs. These webinars are designed to introduce you to research about infant and toddler development.

My name is Beth Zack, and I'll be your host today. I'm from the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning, the NCECDTL. I'm based at I-LABS, the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. I-LABS, an NCECDTL-partnered organization, is an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to understanding human learning with a focus on early learning and the brain.

Today, we're lucky to have a guest speaker, Becky Sughrim, with us from Cultivate Learning, also an NCECDTL partner and based at the University of Washington. Becky will join us a little later in the webinar when we talk about putting research into practice. To get us started today, I thought it would be fun to show you a series of videos of education staff with infants and toddlers. As you watch, I invite you to think about what these videos all have in common. And I'd love for you to share, using the chat widget if you feel comfortable.

[Video begins]

Man: Four big toes, five big toes.

Look at that I think I see five toes here too.

One, two, three, four, five.

And he has ten toes.

Can I change your diaper now? 

I'm going to take that as a yes.

Woman: Scooping and turning. 

Yes, that's ready for you. 

That seems like a good size. 

Oh, my goodness. Did it fall off? 

Oh, it fell off the spoon. That happens. 

Scoop and turn. You have to turn your spoon to put it in. 

More? More applesauce. 

Thank you for signing. 

Here you are, sir. 

More applesauce. 

How about you? More? 

Yes.

Woman 2: Oh, no. 

Oh, I'm getting a shot. 

Oh. 

[Speaking Spanish] 

[Video ends]

Beth: Each of these videos showed engaging, back-and-forth interactions that support language development. There is so much richness in these short interactions. It's amazing even the briefest of moments can have across the day through just the routines that we do and the play. 

But I want to focus on a particular feature of these interactions today. The baby or adult, they made a sound or a word and then the other responded with a word or a sound. They were in conversation with each other. It turns out these back-and-forth exchanges, these conversations are key for development. 

And that brings us to our learning objectives for today. The first is to describe how back-and-forth conversations promote early learning, language, and brain development. The second is to identify strategies to support infant and toddler language learning across learning environments. 

Before we jump into the research; I'd love to share this video that our team at I-LABS created as a little introduction into the benefits of conversations with infants and toddlers. Now this video was created for parents, but this information is relevant for all education staff and parents too. Teachers, family child care providers and home visitors. As you watch, I invite you to think about how you can share this information with the families of children that you serve. We've also included a link to this video in your viewer's guide and it's also available on I-LABS YouTube channel. Let's take a peek. 

[Video begins]

Woman 1: You might have heard that babies need to hear a lot of words to learn language, but in reality, this isn't the full picture. New research shows that back-and-forth exchanges are key. What does this mean? Well, as a parent, you don't need to just talk endlessly at your child. Instead, think about allowing your baby to be an active part of the conversation. Encourage them to respond and notice and add to what they say or communicate. Research has uncovered that this interactivity builds powerful language pathways in your child's brain. 

Sometimes conversations with a toddler might feel a little repetitive or simple and silly noises and faces, they're pretty much guaranteed. But talking with your child doesn't have to be serious to be beneficial. Silly or not, these bouts of back-and-forth communication are physically changing and strengthening the language regions in your child's brain. Go on and get a little silly with your toddler as they ask, what's that about every item on your shelf for the third time that morning.

Child: What's that? What's that? Oh, what's this?

Woman 1: You are building their brain through these playful interactions every day.

Child: A dinosaur.

Woman 2: Yeah. What's the dinosaur say?

Child: Rawr.

Woman 2: Rawr.

Child: Dinosaur says rawr. Rawr. 

[Video ends]

Beth: I want to highlight a few messages from this video. The first is to make conversations playful. I think this is an important reminder for any of us who are parents or who work with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers too. Conversations, they don't have to be boring. We have the power to make them playful and fun. The second is that learning language is about more than simply hearing a lot of words all day long. It's really about having these conversations with infants and toddlers. And we know that conversations, they're social. They require at least one other person, and that person can be an adult or even another child. Of course, this isn't a new idea. 

More than 20 years ago, Dr. Pat Kuhl, a co-director of I-LABS, found that infants growing up in English speaking homes, well, they could learn Mandarin from a live social interaction. But they weren't able to do so from watching a video or listening to an audio recording of the same person. That live speaker was able to do something the video and the audio recording couldn't respond to children's cues. The adult could use nonverbal cues like their eye gaze or, you know, pointing to keep children's attention in the interaction. This means that it's important to have face-to-face interactions with young children, even if children aren't talking back yet. Listening and participating in quality interactions is really giving them these early positive language experiences. 

Even though we're focusing on that language used during back-and-forth conversations today, those nonverbal cues like shared focus are truly an important part of these conversations too. Why is there this new emphasis on engaging children in conversations? I'd like to take a look at some of the research on the brain-building power of conversational turns. A conversational turn happens when an adult says something or makes a sound, and a child responds by saying something or making a sound or vice versa. This counts as one conversational turn. But you know, you really want to strive for multiple turns. It's more like a back-and-forth conversation like you saw in the videos we've watched so far. 

The more turns, the better. We want you to think of this as talking with a child rather than to or at a child. Now I'd like to introduce you to LENA, which stands for Language Environment Analysis. LENA is a nonprofit organization that developed recording technology to capture these conversational turns in children's language environments, whether that's at home or in other learning spaces. I want to share a bit about it because a lot of the research I'll be sharing today uses this technology.

Infants or toddlers, they wear a little vest that has a pocket in it that holds a LENA recording device, like you can see in this photo here. Then children simply just go about their day. The device captures adults and children's words and any noises, babbles, or coos that are speech-like. It's like a pedometer for talking instead of walking. Then special software takes those recordings and analyzes the number of words that children hear and say, as well as those conversational turns throughout the day. 

Researchers using the LENA device, well they found that conversational turns between adults and children are super powerful, six times as powerful, in fact, in supporting language development. And that's compared to children who are only hearing words in their environment. That's not in the context of these back-and-forth conversations. What we've learned about the importance of conversational turns with hearing children can also be applied to children who are deaf or hard of hearing, too. 

We know that conversational turns are a significant predictor of language development in children who are hard of hearing. Research shows that the quality of American Sign Language, or ASL, interactions between adults and their deaf or hard-of-hearing children, well, it's still related to positive language outcomes, even when those adults are just learning ASL, too. That's all I'm going to say about ASL for now, because my colleague, Marie Beata, she'll be sharing how to support children's learning with American Sign Language in our next Front Porch webinar, which is focused on preschool-age children. And that happens on March 21st. 

Marie will cover the same topic with infants and toddlers for our next Baby Talks webinar on April 18th. We really hope you'll join Marie then to learn more. I want to bring us back to those conversational turns and why they are so beneficial for language development. When we engage infants and toddlers in conversation, they get to feel the rhythm, right, of what a back-and-forth conversation is like. We just kind of do that. It just comes naturally to us as adults. 

During conversations, children, they learn to hear, to recognize, and eventually speak the sounds of their home language or languages. Conversations are also beneficial because they build and extend children's vocabulary. They assist children in learning how to communicate more clearly and accurately. This includes their feelings and ideas, which we also know is important for their social and emotional development. Conversations also provide children opportunities to learn about new concepts and skills. 

LENA researchers have found that Head Start and Early Head Start centers are already on the right track. The LENA team called a recent article, Head Start is Doing It Right, which I just love to see. In this study, LENA researchers compared the number of conversational turns per hour in the Head Start and Early Head Start centers, and they compare those to non-Head Start centers and children's homes. In all, they analyzed over 24,000 audio recordings from two- to 36-month-old children. Let's look at the data from what they found. On this graph, you can see that the average number of conversational turns per hour is on that vertical axis, and then the different age groups that they looked at are on the horizontal axis across the bottom. 

I want you to focus in on the red circles, which represent the Head Start and Early Head Start centers. Education staff in the Head Start settings, well, they engage infants and toddlers in more back-and-forth conversations compared to education staff in non-Head Start child care settings, and those are the blue circles there. In fact, children in Head Start and Early Head Start were nearly three times more likely to be engaged in at least 40 conversational turns per hour. LENA researchers have found that children who experience about 40 conversational turns per hour are more likely to show better language and cognitive skills 10 years later. 

Also, it's not on the graph, but I wanted to mention that they also looked at Head Start family childcares, and they showed a similar number of conversational turns compared to the Head Start classrooms. The other thing to note here is that you might have noticed the children at home, so those are the green circles. They experience a much greater number of conversational turns throughout the day compared to either type of center-based care. 

I think this makes sense. Because unlike group care, families, they typically have fewer children at home with them than you would have in your group care setting, and so they don't need to spread their time and conversations among as many children. For the home visitors with us, I just want to remind you this is wonderful information you can share with families to encourage them to engage in conversations with their children at home throughout the day. We'll provide more tips for increasing conversational turns later in the webinar. 

But just quick high-fives to all of you for the work that you've already done to create and support these rich language learning environments. I know it's not easy, so kudos to you. 

I thought it'd be a good time to do just a quick pulse check. I've been highlighting that conversations are key to language development. I'm curious, did you know about the importance or how important these conversational turns are before joining today? 

You're going to have select thumbs up if you already have known a lot or heard a lot about conversational turns, and thumbs down if this is all pretty new to you. I'm going to send that out to you right now. Remember, thumbs up if you've heard a lot about conversational turns before, or thumbs down if you haven't heard much about them. I'm just going to keep that open for a short amount of time here. 

I see people are starting to respond, thanks for that. So far, a lot of people have been familiar with conversational turns. That's wonderful, like it's actually great news because we hope that you're having these conversations with infants and toddlers. For those of you that haven't, also so glad you're here to learn even more. I think this is the type of information that it's important to hear over and over too, just to even remind yourself, right, of those conversations, because we might know about it, but it's harder to put it in action throughout the day. 

I'm going to go ahead and end that pulse check. Thanks so much for all of you who responded. Let's see, I want to move on now a little bit to talking about the brain. Even though researchers have been using the LENA device to measure conversational turns for years, we now have a better picture of how conversational turns change children's brains. This might be, hopefully, this is new information for some of you too that are familiar with conversational turns because there's a lot of new research coming out that's pretty amazing. 

Researchers at I-LABS looked at how the structure of infants' brains change in response to early language input. To do that, they used the LENA device to record parent-child interactions in their home when children were six, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months old. They followed them over time. When children were 24 months old, researchers also used MRI brain imaging to see how language regions were developing in children's brains. 

This image here shows a researcher preparing a child for the MRI. The researchers were looking at white matter myelination, which is really just a fancy word for growth, in each child's brain. You can think of white matter like a superhighway between the regions in our brain. The denser that myelin, the more efficient and efficient information is transferred between those different brain regions. 

Researchers were particularly interested in two areas of the brain related to expressive language development and long-term language ability. What they found was that more frequent conversational turns during infancy was related to greater white matter density in those two areas of the brain at age two. But they did not find the same relationship with the amount of parental language input alone, so just hearing words and the absence of those back-and-forth conversations. 

Conversational turns had an impact beginning as early as six months. This is a time when infants are just babbling, right, and they're not yet producing their first words. Those back-and-forth conversations you have with infants throughout the day, when all you might get back are some babbles or coos as a response, well, these results suggest that they're already shaping areas of the brain that help children learn language and build vocabulary from early in that first year of life. 

The big takeaway so far has been that conversation is key. But, you know, there's a lot of variation in the amount of language and conversations adults have with children throughout their day. And some adults, they don't realize how important conversations are for children's language development. 

Researchers wondered, what if we can do something to change or increase that? These researchers designed a coaching program to see if they could help increase conversational turns between parents and children. They randomly group parents and their six-month-olds into either a parent coaching group or a control group that didn't receive any coaching. For both groups, they used that LENA device to record audio at home when children were six, ten, fourteen, and eighteen months of age. 

After the home audio recordings, only parents in the coaching group came in for an individual coaching session. And during that session, coaches, they gave them feedback on how often they engaged in conversational turns with their child. Parents listened to examples of their own recordings of having conversational turns. They had a chance to talk about why they were important. Coaches also discussed each child's upcoming language milestones and activities they could do to promote their child's language development.

Let's take a look here at what they found. Again, on the graph, on the vertical axis, we have the number of conversational turns recorded during a 12-hour day. The child's age is on that horizontal axis across the bottom. At six months, parents in the parent coaching group, so that's the red line, and the control group, that's the blue line, they were actually pretty similar before parents started those coaching sessions. 

If we look across time  — age groups at the bottom again, attending those coaching sessions actually increased parents' engagement and conversational turns with their infants and toddlers compared to those parents in the control group who did not receive the coaching. Children of parents in the coaching group, they also showed better language skills compared to children of parents in the control group. 

In the graph on the left, you can see that the red bar, those are children in the coaching group. They were producing more words when they had their day-long leaner recording at 18 months compared to children in the control group. In this graph on the right, parents in the coaching group, they also reported their children said more words at 18 months compared to children in the control group. Just recently, these researchers followed up with the same parents and children at 30 months of age. 

They found that children in the parent coaching group, they continue to show more advanced expressive language skills a whole year after their parents completed the final coaching session. In other words, these coaching sessions are still showing impacts on children's language skills a year later. I think that's pretty cool. And even though the study is with parents you might imagine similar results with coaches working with education staff and home visitors supporting parents. If you're part of a teaching team, think of how this relates to your work in a group care setting. 

For those of you involved in a coaching process, take a moment to reflect on how you might use conversational turns in your own coaching work. We've talked about the impact conversational turns have on the brain and children's language skills. But did you know that more conversational turns during early childhood also predict children's reading skills, their cognitive skills, social-emotional skills like emotional regulation, and their executive functioning and reasoning ability? 

That connects conversational turns to positive outcomes in four out of five early learnings outcomes framework, or ELOF, domains. Now that's powerful. Now I'd like to transition to thinking about strategies for supporting children's language development and ways to add more conversations with infants and toddlers to your or to the families you work with today. 

To do that, I'd like to give a warm welcome to our special guest Becky Sughrim. Becky's a content specialist with NCECDTL. She is one of the hosts of the Infant Toddler Teacher Time episodes and a host of the Parallel Play podcast. Becky previously was an infant/toddler coach, but before that she worked with infants and toddlers in group care settings. Welcome, Becky. Thank you so much for being here today.

Becky Sughrim: Thank you so much for having me, Beth. I'm really excited to talk about conversational turns.

Beth: Awesome. As we think about strategies for creating these language-rich spaces where lots of conversations happen between adults and children, we really want to ground this work in equity. Equity means the fair and just treatment to all children, families, and those who support them. Equity enables everyone to achieve their full potential. We've included this definition for you in your viewer's guide. The key piece for this is getting to know families and what conversations look like for them, because it's going to vary across not only families, but cultures too. This is particularly important for home visitors as you help families support their children at home. Becky, I'd love to get started by asking how can we have conversations with infants and toddlers and support their language development through an equity lens?

Becky: That is such a great question, Beth. The first piece is, like you said, getting to know families and having an understanding of a family's culture around conversations, what they look like and feel like and sound like. 

We also, as educators, have a responsibility to make time to engage in conversation with all children, you know, regardless of their language or languages, their ability level, their temperament, their background. I think sometimes what can happen is some infants or toddlers are overlooked or, you know, not given as much attention as other infants and toddlers might get based on how we interpret the different aspects of their identity or the implicit biases we have around those aspects of identity. It could be something like, you know, these specific infants and toddlers don't get a lot of engagement in conversations because they don't have a lot of language skills yet. You find it harder to engage with them in conversation compared to a chattier child who has more developed language skills. 

It could also be something, you know, thinking about a temperament of a child where some children tend to be quieter and more observant. You talk with them less and you talk more with the children who are really outgoing. Or it could be like a child is a dual language learner or multi-language learner and you don't share their home language. You could have difficulty talking to that specific child or difficulty talking and communicating with their family in order to support having those conversations.

Beth: I'm so glad you mentioned all these different things. Because it's often unintentional, but with awareness, we can be more intentional in how we engage with children. LENA actually did a study where they looked at whether teachers engage in different amounts of conversational turns with children when they share home language compared to when they don't share home language with a child. And they found that on average, teachers engage in fewer conversational turns with children when they don't share their home language. 

Children who are dual language learners engage in 5.3 fewer conversational turns per hour on average compared to their peers who are monolingual. The LENA team also looked at the differences between toddler classrooms and preschool classrooms, which is what you can see here on this graph. What they found was really interesting. They found differences in conversational turns for children who are monolingual and for children who are dual language learners. 

The difference was much smaller in the toddler classrooms compared to the preschool classrooms. Toddlers who are dual language learners, they experience an average of 2.5 fewer conversational turns per hour. That's the left side of the graph whereas preschoolers who are dual language learners, they engage in about 7.2 fewer conversational turns per hour. That's on the right side of the graph. Becky, I'd love to ask, what do you think might be going on here? Why do you think there's such a big difference from the toddler to the preschool learning spaces?

Becky: This is, you know, such an interesting finding and such an important research and to be able to see it this way. My first thought is it might have to do with children's conversation skills as toddlers compared to as preschoolers. As we all know, toddlers have smaller vocabularies. They might not be speaking in full sentences yet, or they could be using shorter sentences. Even when an adult doesn't share their home language, it could be easier to learn the words they are using in their home language to continue that back-and-forth conversation. 

Then, when we think about, you know, preschoolers, they are often speaking in full and more completed sentences. It could be harder to follow what they're saying and kind of get by with only those 10 or more survival words. I see how it would be easier to gravitate towards children who you do share a language with or who you are able to continue conversations with for longer when you share a home language.

Beth: I could see that too. Since we're talking about supporting children who are dual language learners, I'm wondering, can you share some strategies that adults can use to create more equitable learning spaces, where they engage in conversations with all children, even when they don't share the child's language?

Becky: Of course. First, we want to remember that conversations are how we can build a relationship with the child. And we want to have relationships with every single child in our care. It can be helpful to start a conversation by sharing attention with the child, you know, to go slow, to look for their nonverbal cues, as well as their language to help kind of guide where the conversation is going. 

As always, to speak with warmth. A big part of this too is not being scared to start the conversation or nervous or hesitant to start the conversation, even if you and the child don't understand each other. Because I think any warm and responsive conversation is better than no conversation at all. Again, I would suggest to connect with the family to learn those top 10 or more survival words in that children's home language.

And learning a few words that are connected to what the child is most interested in can really help support conversations. I think it would also be really helpful and beneficial to talk with a coach and ask a coach to track which children the adult is having the most conversations with, and then use that data to ensure that all children are having opportunities for conversation. It's kind of like a mini-DIY LENA study.

Beth: I love that. These are helpful tips for not only increasing conversations with children who are dual language learners, but for all children in your learning space. And home visitors, you can use many of these tips to guide families too. Part of your role is to support families' use of their home language or languages, especially if it's not English. Many families, they don't use their home language with children because they're afraid their child won't learn English if they do. But we know this is not the case. It's important to share that information with families. 

When children have a strong foundation in their home language, it actually makes it easier for them to learn English. Encourage families to honor the strength of their home language and use it in not only their words, but their stories and songs and conversations too. As we dive into more strategies, we like to invite you to continue to view this work through an equity lens. We thought it'd be fun to revisit a couple of those videos that we watched at the beginning before we introduced back-and-forth conversations as our focus today. 

First, we'll watch a video of a family child care provider getting ready to change an infant's diaper. Then, we'll chat about some strategies before moving on to the next video. As you watch, we invite you to notice what language boosting strategies is this family child care provider using. We have space for you in your viewer's guide if you would like to jot down any notes. Here we go.

[Video begins]

Man: Four big toes. Five big toes. 

Look at that. I think I see five toes here too. One, two, three, four, five. He has ten toes. 

Can I change your diaper now? 

I'll take that as a yes. 

Thank you.

[Video ends]

Beth: I'm so glad we got to watch this video again because he's so warm and engaging and he made it look easy. But I also want to acknowledge it can be hard having a back-and-forth conversation with an infant, especially before they can talk. Becky, I'd love for you to talk us through this video a little bit.

Becky: Of course. I love this video so much. I've seen it a few times and I just enjoy it so much every single time I see it.

Becky: I first want to mention that this is during a routine. That routines with infants and toddlers are such a wonderful time to add more conversations to your day and to their day. And that you can make them playful like we saw in this video and like we heard in the very beginning from the I-LABS video. Routines like diaper changes and bottle feeding are such great times for conversation because you're one-on-one with a child, which as you all know doesn't happen as often during the day outside of those routine times. 

One of the many reasons I love this example is because the infant isn't forming clear words yet and the baby is still engaging the adult in conversations at the beginning with his eye gaze and the sounds that he makes. Then the adult talks about what he is doing himself and really connects with the baby before asking the question, can I change your diaper now? And then he pauses, the adult pauses for a response. And this pause is so important and we're going to talk more about that. It's so important and then the baby is able to respond back by a positive-sounding noise and the adult continues the conversation by saying, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

In this video the infant responded pretty quickly. Sometimes when you're engaging with a child or with an infant it can feel like you're waiting forever after you said your turn and you're waiting and you're waiting. I encourage you to wait a little bit longer and when you can't stand it anymore, wait a tad bit longer, because this is really important to ensure that the infant has the opportunity to take their turn in the conversations. Sometimes that turn may be verbal, it could be a sound like we saw in the clip, or it could also be non-verbal.

Beth: That's so true. Pausing is such an essential strategy and with toddlers and preschoolers too. Remember infants and toddlers, they're learning the rhythms of conversation through these conversational turns, and some children they just might be chattier than others.

Becky: Totally. You can also respond to a baby's coos or babbles where you're responding to their smiles as well or, you know, where they're looking at using your own words describing what they see or what they might be hearing or the movements that are going on can also help keep the conversation going. It's really key to treat infants and toddlers as active participants in the conversation and I think you'll be really amazed to where the conversation will go and where they will take the conversation.

Beth: That's so true. And for the home visitors with us, we encourage you to encourage parents to talk to their child in the language they feel most comfortable speaking from the time they're little babies. Acknowledge when the parent is actively listening to the child and engaging in those conversational turns. Ask them to notice and describe how their baby or toddler responds. We talked about culture earlier, but I think it's important to mention again, we have to keep in mind that, you know, some families, they may have different approaches to talking with babies and toddlers both within and across their cultures. 

Conversations, they might look different or they might not occur as frequently. As a home visitor, your role is to support families' use of conversations in ways that are culturally sustaining. The only way to do that is to make time to talk with and to learn from families. I want to highlight another language-boosting strategy that I noticed in this video, parentese. Parentese is that sing-song speech has a slower pace and variations in pitch that adults often use with babies. When we talk using parentese, we use correct grammar and real words that we sometimes repeat.

Becky: When we talk using parentese, it helps babies more easily recognize different elements of language. They enjoy listening to it. It's a signal that we are talking to them, and we want to engage in those wonderful back-and-forth interactions with them. And it also is true across cultures and languages. And sometimes when we think of parentese, we might think of it as something that women do more often than men.

Beth: I've heard that misconception too, but we know this isn't the case and we actually saw it in this wonderful video too. I want to mention that there's a group of researchers, they looked at whether bilingual Latinx fathers used parentese. In this study, the researchers used Latinx, which is a gender-neutral form of Latino and Latina. They found that every single one of the fathers used parentese, even if the fathers themselves didn't think that they did. The fathers actually used more of this type of language boosting speech, if they knew how important it was to their child's language development.

Becky: We should be encouraging all adults from mothers and fathers to education staff and grandparents to use this type of speech as a really wonderful way to support language development.

Beth: Exactly. Parentese is a key part of our conversations with infants and toddlers. Science shows that babies who hear more parentese, those babies actually babble more, which is practice for eventually talking. Children who hear more parentese as infants, they tend to have larger vocabularies as toddlers. New research shows that parents' consistent use of parentese with infants has long-term benefits too. When parents consistently spoke using parentese with children as infants, their children showed more advanced language skills and engaged in more conversational turns with adults when they were ready to start kindergarten.

Becky: There are those conversational turns again that we've been talking about and focusing on, and they are truly so important for language development and school readiness.

Beth: In this video, that video between the family child care provider and infant, we saw some wonderful strategies to boost language development. There was shared eye gaze, conversational turns, parentese, and playfulness. 

Now I'd like to take a look at the video of the young toddlers during mealtime again. As you watch, think about how this adult is supporting children's language development. Again, there's space in your viewer's guide to jot down any notes if you'd like.

[Video begins]

Woman: Scooping and turning. 

Yes, that's ready for you. 

That seems like a good size. 

Oh, my goodness. Did it fall off? 

Oh, it fell off your spoon. That happens. 

Scoop and turn. 

You have to turn your spoon to put it in. 

More? More applesauce. 

Thank you for signing. 

Here you are, sir. 

More applesauce. 

How about you? More? 

Yes, I see more.

[Video ends]

Beth: So many positive things happening in this video too. Becky, can you talk us through this exchange? What strategies is this teacher using to support children's language development?

Becky: The first thing I want to mention is that this is another routine here. It's mealtime, which is also another great time to think about increasing your conversations with infants and toddlers. And in this video, we first see the teacher narrate the child's action as she scoops food with a spoon, and she's using a warm tone, a warm conversational tone, and complete and varied sentences, and she's being a language model. Then we see the child sign more, and the teacher notices and acknowledges him. This is an important first step to notice a child starting a conversation and engaging in a conversational turn. Then the teacher repeats and extends his communication. 

I also want to highlight something that was a little more subtle that was going on here is that, you know, while this conversational turn was happening, another child at the table on the lower left side in the white t-shirt was intentionally watching. And he observes his peers sign more, and he sees the teacher scoop more applesauce into his bowl. And the teacher is also tuned into him as he observes, and she starts a conversational turn by saying, how about you? And then she pauses. There's that important waiting again, and he signs more, and the teacher acknowledges his more. 

As infants and toddlers, as they start to sign and say their first words, we might not have to guess as much about what they're trying to tell us. Keeping conversations going might feel a tad bit easier. Again, it's important to pause and wait in between conversational turns, because this allows the child to process, you know, what was said, to think about how they're going to respond, and then to respond back. Like we saw in this video. 

Conversational turns can include repeating or expanding on what the infant or toddler is signing and/or saying. You might mirror a child's facial expression or gesture or vocalization. So for example, when a child signs more, you might expand by saying, you'd like some more applesauce? Here you go. Sometimes a response won't include talking at all, and it will be non-verbal, and that is okay.

Beth: As infants and toddlers, they're developing their language skills. We have to keep in mind, there's times when the response will be non-verbal, or it'll be verbal, and you'll have to try to interpret what it was they're trying to communicate because you don't understand them. You can use what you know about a child based on their facial expressions, their eye gaze, body movements and language, and those vocalizations to help you. 

But still there's going to be sometimes when you don't get it quite right. Some of your conversational turns, they're going to be you and the child kind of in a dance, right, trying to figure out what the other person is communicating. This has been such helpful information so far, Becky. I'm wondering if you have any tips for educating staff when those conversational turns feel a bit more challenging to start or to keep going. Some of the things you mentioned earlier, like a child hasn't started babbling yet, or they tend to be more quiet, might not share the same home language, or their speech is difficult for you to understand. Things along those lines.

Becky: I bet most of our viewers today have experienced at least one of these, and I know I did when I was working in infant/toddler settings in group care. I actually experienced this recently. My brother and his family were visiting from Sweden, and he has two children, and one of them, my nephew, is an older toddler, and they speak mostly Swedish at home and some English. Most of the time, when I was with him, I had the luxury of my brother and sister-in-law being right there, like translating what he was saying for me. 

Of course, there were times where my brother and sister-in-law weren't around, and my nephew was playing independently, or he was playing with my son, and they were talking, trying to talk to each other, talk to themselves. After I spent some time with my nephew, I started to pick up on words that he was frequently saying, and I tried to repeat those words in Swedish. In combination with observing his play, listening to him talk, noticing patterns, and then asking my brother and sister-in-law what specific words meant, and how to say them, I learned that he was mostly talking about cars and planes. 

This is where observation is such a helpful tool to know where to start, that it allows us to pick up on what the child is interested in, and any patterns in their behaviors, interactions, or engagement that might help us get a clue into how to start a conversation. I also think that some, like, pre-planning can be really helpful. Thinking about some conversational prompts that you could use, you know, during routines, like during a diaper change, or a mealtime, or during book reading, and playing outside, and to write down some of these ideas ahead of time, so that you're ready when you feel like, oh, I don't know what to say, or I'm stuck. Some of my kind of go-to sentence starters that really helped me was, I'm noticing. 

For instance, looking at the picture on the screen, I'm noticing that you're holding the yellow rubber duck. And you could try another sentence starter, like, I'm wondering. I'm wondering what's going to happen when you squeeze the yellow rubber duck. And you're pausing. Or something like, I see that. Looking at the other picture on the screen, I see that you're looking at yourself in the mirror. Pause. I wonder if you can see your pink hair clips, or I'm wondering if you noticed this. Some of those sentence starters were really helpful for me. 

Another tip is, if you work with children who are dual language learners and don't share their home language, in addition to connecting with their family, using the Ready DLL mobile app for some survival words can be really helpful to learn what words and phrases children are saying, and to make that connection between program and home, and find out what they mean. This can be really helpful if you're having trouble also understanding what a child is saying. 

Not just because you're, not only because you don't share their home language, but you might not be understanding how they're pronouncing the word. Connecting with the family is really important and learning some of those keywords and phrases or signs can go a really long way to supporting conversational terms. If you're having trouble remembering these survival words, or how a child pronounces a specific word, you're writing these things down, laminating words, having images, or writing out how to say things phonetically, and putting them up in your environment or on a key ring for easy access can be really helpful.

Beth: I love that idea. I think home visitors could also support families in setting stuff up like that as well. I bet even just spending a few minutes thinking about prompts, or taking that time, or observing your co-workers and what they do or say during conversations with infants and toddlers could be helpful in getting some new ideas. 

Again, I just want to remind you to take time to consider and learn about a family's cultural practices, and then how that influences whether, how, and when they have conversations with their child. We've left space in your viewer's guide to jot down some prompts of your own that come to mind, or feel free to share them in the chat. Becky, I'm wondering if you have any other last tips for increasing conversational turns throughout the day?

Becky: I do. We could probably talk about this for hours. My first tip is to repeat, extend, and expand on how a child responds. You might use parentese to repeat sounds or words and then add to them. For an example, if an infant blows a raspberry, you might repeat and expand by blowing a raspberry back and saying, “whoa, that is a different sound. Did you hear that?” Or “oh, that feels funny. How does that feel for you?” 

And then pause for their response, like we talked about before, that important pause. And remember that the infant or toddler might respond with a smile or a shift in an eye gaze or another sound, babble, sign, or word. And then try to continue the conversation as long as the child is still interested. And read their body language and their cues. And, of course, be flexible with where the conversation goes as it plays out.

Beth: We all know, any of us working with infant/toddlers knows that being flexible is super important. 

Then, like Becky said, pay attention to what they're interested in, like she did with her nephew, and then use that to start conversations and follow the child's lead. Even these brief moments during routines and play can have big impacts on children's language learning. And remember, it's okay to be silly. In fact, we recommend it. It makes life more fun. We've been talking a lot about engaging infants and toddlers in conversations, but we also understand there's times when this is easier said than done. We thought it'd be fun to do a quick practice. 

I'm going to show you a clip of a baby and then have you share what you might say next. This clip is short, so it's going to play twice. We invite you to think about how you would engage in a conversational turn with this babbling baby. What could you say next? There's space in your viewer's guide, or we'd love to hear your ideas using the chat widget as you watch. Here we go.

[Video begins]

Teacher 1: All right. Yeah?

Baby: [Babbling]

Teacher 1: All right. Yeah?

Baby: [Babbling]

[Video ends]

Beth: Those babbles are so sweet. They're very short. But I'm just curious, how would you respond to this babbling baby? What might you say? Becky, what do you think you would say in this time?

Becky: I think, I feel like I would say something like, oh, I hear you singing.

Beth: Oh, someone just said big jumps.

Becky: I like that.

Beth: It's kind of like how we're talking about, so basically describing what he's doing, his movements. I think I might be like -- I think I might almost, yeah, I'd probably start repeating him too. And then also describing all of that. Some other chats are coming in. You're so excited to pop up and down. A lot of things about jumping up and down, up, up, up. Thanks so much for those of you. Please continue to share. I do want to say that we're going to take a look now and see how this caregiver actually responded in this situation. Let's watch the video again and see what she did.

[Video begins]

Instructor 1: All right. Yeah?

Baby: [Babbling]

Instructor 1: Oh, oh, oh. I'm sitting on the block. Oh, oh, oh. Sitting on the block and looking at Saba.

Baby: [Babbling]

All: [Laughter]

Baby: [Babbling]

Instructor 2: You’re watching Kenny bounce? Kenny bounce. 

Baby: [Babbling]

Instructor 2: Yeah. You’re pulling on your foot now. Yeah.

Instructor 1: [Inaudible]

Instructor 2: We’re talking to you. 

Baby: [Babbling]

Instructor 1: Bounce, bounce. You can bounce together. 

Instructor 2: Bounce. 

[Video ends]

Beth: Such a chatty little guy. For me, it's fun seeing how she responded. She did a lot of things that was coming up in the chat, right? She was describing what he was doing and what he was interested in, which is a wonderful way to keep that conversation going with someone, especially when they're not actually using words yet, right?

Becky: This adult, we showed so many of the language boosting strategies we've talked about. I heard parentese. She paused for the baby to respond, to continue the conversational turn. She also followed the child's lead and described what they were doing and interested in.

Beth: Yes. Those are all great points of other things that she was doing in the video. I love seeing all these strategies being used together. One of the other things I noticed in the video and the mealtime video too that we haven't talked about yet is really how the learning space is set up, right? Like in this video, she's able to get down on the level with this little guy, and he's also facing his peer. They're able to easily interact with each other. Really setting up that learning space to increase opportunities to have conversations with infants and toddlers. 

Let's dig into this a little bit more. Many of you might be familiar with the Reggio Emilia idea of environment as the third teacher. And this is relevant for increasing our conversations with infants and toddlers. Having accessible materials, space for both small group as well as one-on-one conversations, which as Becky mentioned earlier can happen during routines. They can help increase opportunities for conversational terms. Becky, what are some other things to think about in setting up your space for conversations with infants and toddlers?

Becky: It's important to have a comfortable space for conversations. I want to share this example from the Early Learning Outcomes Framework, or ELOF, Attending and Understanding Effective Practice Guide. It's one of the guides in the language and literacy domain. The example is, Miss Rollin moves her nursing rocker from the bedroom to the family room in her family child care home. Pleased with the new addition to the setting, she tries out the chair with baby Elizabeth. Now we have a comfy place to sit and talk and enjoy your bottle. “Bah, bah, bah,” says Elizabeth. “That's right,” says Miss Rollin, “I wonder what interesting things we can see from here.” 

And with older toddlers, this might be about making space for the adults to sit in the dramatic play area or in the block area so that the adult can not only engage in conversations with the child but also support conversations between peers. In family child care homes, it's about, also being intentional about setting up this space and time for older children to talk with younger children and be, you know, an active participant and support those conversations. And this is really great practice for everyone.

Beth: I love those tips. Then we think about home visitors. They can support families to find those comfortable spaces too, right, for them to connect and have conversations with their child or encourage them to do it during routines. And remember to encourage families to engage infants and toddlers in conversation using the language that they feel most comfortable speaking. Because you know what? If they feel comfortable, well, they're going to be more likely to have those language-boosting conversational turns. 

I want to thank you, Becky, for those final tips and again for joining us today to share so many useful strategies. It's been really wonderful having you here with me. I want to spend our last couple minutes here just recapping some of the strategies we talked about to create these language-rich learning spaces that support conversations with all infants and toddlers. If you are a teacher or family child care provider, I invite you to think about how you can use these directly with children. For home visitors, consider how you might share one or more of these tips during an upcoming home visit or use them to support a parent's conversation with their child. 

Some of these important things we talked about today are one, making space and time for conversations, having that equity lens to ensure you're engaging with all children in your care and considering their family's cultural practices, using parentese, being playful, treating infants and toddlers as active participants in the conversation, which means often having to pause and wait, as Becky mentioned for us so many times because it's so important to give them that chance to engage in the conversation. 

Even if it's a non-verbal response, right, that still continues the conversation too. Remember to follow a child's lead and pay attention to what they're interested in. And if you're still having trouble figuring out what to say, you know, a little planning ahead can really help think of those prompts, chat with families, and learn some of a child's favorite words or phrases. 

As we wrap up, I just want to leave you with this one big takeaway today, conversation is key. I think this quote from LENA really sums it up nicely. Conversational turns have more brain-building power than adult words alone. It's not what you say, but how you say it and the context that matters the most. We can practice and teach these skills to create equitable learning spaces that best support infants' and toddlers' language development. 

Just a few quick notes before you go. I want to remind everyone that all of our Baby Talks webinars are transformed into iPD courses. We have a link for you here to that. I also want to mention again that my colleague Marie Beata will be back on April 18th for our next Baby Talks at this same time with more research and practices to share. 

As I mentioned earlier, Marie will share about using American Sign Language to support infant and toddler language learning for not only deaf and hard of hearing children, but for children with typical hearing too. It's going to be a fantastic webinar. We really hope to see you then. One last favor, we ask that you please complete the evaluation that Evie has entered into our chat for you. We really value your feedback. Once you complete the evaluation, your Certificate of Participation will be available for download and printing. Thank you again for being here and for all you do on behalf of children. Have a great afternoon and we hope to see you next time.