Early communication … it’s never too early to start!

Before we show you some activities to help you encourage your baby’s nonverbal communication skills, we will first take a look at what we mean by non-verbal communication – and why it matters.

Many people think that newborn babies just eat and sleep (and cry!). However, from the moment your baby is born, he is learning and developing skills. Right from the start, babies are communicating. At birth, they can communicate through looking, moving and crying.

They very quickly develop different types of cries to convey different information – hunger, tiredness, pain, and so on. They watch your facial expressions and listen to voices. They even attempt to copy facial expressions and mouth shapes.

Even children with profound deafness are keen to communicate with you right from infancy. Babies are particularly interested in their parents’ voices so it is important to talk to and interact with your baby from the moment he is born.

Child-directed speech

When parents talk to their baby, they use speech, touch, gestures and facial expression in a very special way that is different to communication with adults. This style of talking is called child-directed language or child-directed speech and makes parents’ communication and language noises more interesting to babies. The way parents do this varies from culture to culture.

Communicating this way with babies often involves lots of repetition, varying and exaggerating your tone of voice and using facial expression and gestures. Because of what parents do, babies watch and listen for increasingly longer times.

Language: the meaning of communication

For the most part, as a baby we learn our place in our families and in society through language. We hear what our parents say to us, to each other, to family members and to other people. By listening to their language, we learn how their lives affect each other and how we fit in.

One of the most important skills we learn is how to communicate with each other. The ability to understand other people and to make oneself understood is the basis for most human interaction.

We can communicate without words

We communicate with each other in basically two ways:

• verbally – with words, and
• nonverbally – without words.

When we think of nonverbal communication, many of us think of babies. Before they use words, babies use sounds, movements and facial expressions to tell us how they feel. Babies coo, cry, gurgle, smile, frown, wiggle, kick their legs and flail their arms. These nonverbal behaviours are powerful communication tools. If you observe closely, and give your baby plenty of time to respond to your actions and expressions, you can help them to become a good communicator.

A shared communication experience

Adults and babies share nonverbal communication. This makes it possible for them to communicate with each other.

Babies have nonverbal “conversations”

Almost all infants and children respond to their parents’ nonverbal communication.

A baby may not understand the words his parents say to him, but at a very basic level, he understands the smile or frown on his mother’s face as she talks. He notices her gestures and body movements. He can tell if they mean she is happy, angry or sad and he responds accordingly.

Most infants use and respond to nonverbal communication. This means they can take part in “conversations” with older children or adults almost from birth.

Babies learn quickly that communication is a two-way street. There’s a speaker and a listener. In their own way, they can play either role. Even a very young infant will take turns with his mother as “speaker” and “listener.”

When you speak or use facial expressions, your baby is apt to watch intently. You are the speaker and he is the listener. When you stop talking and just look expectantly, your baby may begin to gurgle and smile. This might be accompanied by wiggling or by waving of arms. Now the baby is the “speaker” and then you become the “listener.”

Just imagine what would happen if parents didn’t respond to their baby’s nonverbal communication. The baby, hearing or deaf, would think there was no reward for “talking.” He would soon “turn off” and his language development would be discouraged. It’s important to talk to all babies, but it’s even more important to talk to children who are deaf – whatever their degree of deafness.

Early interactions

A baby begins to develop spoken language when an adult responds consistently to the child’s nonverbal communication and when the baby is talked to. As the baby grows, he learns which nonverbal behaviours get results – things like:

• Making facial expressions
• Vocalising
• Looking at an adult or an object
• Gesturing
• Pointing
• Tugging
• Reaching or crawling

You need to provide a large variety of language in a context that is meaningful to your child. It is important to remember… language only develops when there is a real need to communicate!

A baby is a “listener” when he or she:

• displays a startle response to sudden changes like the unexpected sound of your voice, movement or light
• turns his head to look at an object or person
• looks at an object placed in front of him
• pays attention, even briefly, to specific events

A baby is a “speaker” when he or she:

• initiates simple body actions (‘I’m excited and I like this!’)
• cries or whines in various ways to signal different wants or needs (“I’m hungry!”)
• enjoys making sounds (“Here I am!”)
• grasps objects placed in his hand (“I’ll play with that!”)
• puts different objects in his mouth (“What is this?”)
• reaches, creeps, and/or crawls to objects or people (“I want Grandad!”)

Developing your baby’s early communication skills

You can help your baby develop their early communication skills by helping them become aware of your face and facial expressions, body movements and your voice.

Social eye contact – looking at someone when you are communicating with them – is important as it tells the speaker you’re interested and are ready to have a conversation. Learning to give social eye contact helps a deaf child gain information about the message being conveyed. Eye contact also signals to you that your baby is trying to communicate something to you.

Remember that language arises out of the need to communicate. A baby’s earliest demands revolve around satisfying his or her needs, hunger, sleep, companionship and comfort. When you respond quickly to your baby’s needs, you’re communicating with them and they are able to learn the effects of their behaviour.

Your baby is communicating when he/she:

• demands – a cry to say, ‘I’m hungry, wet, tired, or uncomfortable’ or ‘Don’t forget I’m here!’
• protests – a turn of the head or pushing things away
• responds (answers) – a smile to say, ‘You make me happy’ in response to your hugs.
• requests – a smile, a tug or a gesture to say, ‘Will you play with me?’
• describes – a gesture to say ‘There’s my bottle’.
• imitates – a hand gesture or facial expression that says ‘I can do that too!’
• questions – a turning of the head toward a person or sound; a frown to ask , ‘What is that?’