Connecting Through Talk

Nurturing Children's Development With Language

David K. Dickinson, Ann B. Morse

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781681252315
• eBook ISBN: 9781681252391
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

How do responsive adult–child interactions influence early language development? How do a child's language skills develop in tandem with social-emotional development, executive function, and literacy? What are effective ways to help parents support their child's development? Uncover the answers to these questions in this fascinating book, which draws on current research to examine connections between language, social-emotional, and literacy development and profiles effective programs that support this development.

You'll begin with a research-based examination of multiple facets of early childhood development and examine how each one is linked to language development. Explore critical topics such as:

• How the brain develops in the first years of life
• Why parent–child attachment is fundamental to early development
• How executive function skills affect academic achievement and social success
• What responsive and language-rich parent–child exchanges look like and how they support multiple developmental areas
• How children begin to understand symbols, establish joint attention, and develop a theory of mind
• How children learn the building blocks of language and literacy, from phonology to pragmatics
• What role socioeconomic factors play in early development and intervention
• Which guiding principles professionals should follow for effective intervention
• Which economic arguments support early development

Building on this foundational knowledge, the book gives you snapshots of more than a dozen programs that support language and literacy development by coaching parents and providing books for young children. You'll learn how these programs promote thoughtful, responsive adult–child interactions and expand children's access to books, and you'll get brief summaries of the research that demonstrates the success of each program.

Essential reading for researchers, administrators, and educators, this synthesis of science and practical guidance will help you foster foundational language skills and nurture the healthy development of every young child.

SEE IT IN ACTION! Videos demonstrate responsive caregiver–child interactions and show how they support language and literacy development.

I

Research on Early Development, Language, and Literacy

1

Laying the Foundations

Attachment and Executive Function

I magine the following scene, which you can view in Video 1, available with the downloadable materials for this book at the following link: www.brookespublishing.com/downloads with (case sensitive) keycode 34ckDaD1k. It is bedtime, and Tanya and her 18-month-old daughter Eliza are preparing to read a book, Eggs, Eggs! (Yoon, 2008). Eliza steps to the foot of the bed where there are two large pillows and turns around as Tanya offers her the book, “You hold it.” Eliza opens it and vocalizes with pleasure as her mother sits next to her and says, “Ready?” Eliza hands the book back to her. The following exchanges occur during the first 60 seconds of this book reading.

1. Tanya: The title . . .

2. Eliza [as she points to the cover]: Eh!

3. Tanya: Yeah, it’s a niño. [Tanya is bilingual and is using Spanish and English with Eliza.]

4. Tanya: . . . Eggs, Eggs! It’s the title.

5. Eliza: Eigh! [She points, still focusing on the book.]

6. Tanya [as she looks at Eliza]: Eggs!

7. Eliza [carefully, as she points to a picture]: Whey dah?

8. Tanya: Is that a flower? Yeah, look at him. He looks like he’s looking for eggs. Eggs.

9. Eliza [as she points to a picture]: Bah.

10. Tanya: Um hmm. It does look like a ball, doesn’t it? [She looks at Eliza and pauses.] It’s an egg though.

11. Eliza: Bah! [She points again.]

12. Tanya: Um hmm. [She turns to the first page and looks at Eliza as she asks a question.] Shall we start?

13. Tanya [reading the text]: Hooray, it’s Easter, a day of fun. There are eggs to find for everyone. Let’s grab our baskets, ready-set-go! Search here, search there, search high up, low. . .

14. [As Tanya reads, Eliza reaches for a flap on a page and opens it. Mom continues reading as Eliza opens another flap.]

15. Tanya: Look it. There’s niño [points] . . . and they are looking for eggs. [She points to pictures as Eliza watches.]

16. [Eliza opens a flap and vocalizes.]

17. Tanya [pointing]: Remember you and Helly looked for eggs on Easter and put them in your basket [looks at Eliza with slight pause] on Easter? [long pause]

18. Eliza [sitting very still and focusing on the picture as her mother speaks, then opening a flap]: Ba- ba- . . .

19. Tanya: Basket. But are there any eggs? Look it. [She points.] . . . No eggs! Okay! Shall we turn the page? [She pauses.] Wanna turn the page? [She pauses and looks at Eliza.]

20. [Eliza reaches for a page to turn.]

21. Tanya: Good girl!

In this charming scene, we see a carefully choreographed interactional dance between a mother and child. Each is attending to the words and gestures of the other as, together, they enjoy a book they have read on many prior occasions. In lines 4 and 6, Tanya responds to Eliza’s pointing and utterances with information—the title of the book and the name of the object (eggs). In lines 7–10, we see Eliza’s initial comment result in a series of back-and-forth exchanges, in which Tanya affirms Eliza’s thought that the picture shows a ball but gently informs her that it really is an egg. Only after these initial conversations does Tanya suggest, in line 12, that they start reading. At that point, parent and child continue to be closely attuned to each other, with Tanya monitoring Eliza’s attention and allowing her time to explore the book. At the same time, Tanya begins to play a somewhat more directive role. Her comment, “Remember you and Helly looked for eggs on Easter and put them in your basket?” is particularly interesting. Here she draws on a shared memory and encourages Eliza to connect it to the book. As will be evident in later chapters, such talk that moves beyond the pages of the book, into the past and future, is powerful. It plays a role in supporting the child as she constructs a sense of her own history and her connections with her family and community.

We begin with this scenario because it exemplifies the type of parent–child interactions that support all facets of development that we will investigate in this book. Tanya and Eliza are engaged in a warm, sensitively tuned interaction that suggests they have a secure attachment relationship. Tanya is helping Eliza develop her ability to regulate her own attention and actions while also fostering Eliza’s language and early literacy development. All within 60 seconds! This is the marvel of effective parenting. Joyful minutes spent together, marked by loving, responsive, and language-rich exchanges, can help lay the emotional, linguistic, and conceptual foundations for a lifetime of literacy experiences. Such harmonious and intellectually and cognitively rich moments also nourish brain development during the early months of life that are marked by explosive neural growth. Exchanges such as these can be characterized as responsive adult–child interaction, from which other intertwined aspects of development in early childhood—attachment (and social-emotional development), executive function, theory of mind, language, and ultimately literacy—emerge. This relationship is depicted in Figure 1.1, which we will revisit periodically throughout this book as we explore early development in depth. (Note that sensitive and responsive interactions can occur in homes, centers, and community settings. Optimal environments are free from violence; toxins; food insecurity; and hostility based on race, ethnicity, or religion.)

In this chapter, we first consider parent–child attachment, which is a fundamental building block of emotional and interpersonal health. We explain the concept, discuss factors that foster it and sad cases in which strong bonds are not established, and note the long-term consequences for early development. Then we turn to executive function, explaining what it is, describing early interactions that foster its development, and discussing long-term impact on early development. For both constructs, we highlight the role of language and emphasize the similarities in the patterns of adult–child interaction that give rise to these capacities. We close by considering some interventions that have been found effective and summarizing factors that bolster early development.

ATTACHMENT

It has long been recognized that the nature of a child’s early relationship with his or her primary caregiver, usually the mother, can have a profound and lasting impact on how she engages with others and handles the challenges of everyday life. This understanding is known as attachment theory. This section provides an overview of attachment theory and distinguishes between secure and insecure attachment; see Rees (2016) for a practitioner-oriented review of attachment.

Figure 1.1 How responsive adult–child interaction leads to the emergence of other intertwined strands of development in early childhood: social-emotional development, executive function, language, and ultimately literacy.

Overview of Attachment Theory

Attachment theory was first developed by Bowlby (1969) and was based on observations of the bonding that occurs among animals—with geese and apes being of particular interest. Bowlby also drew on experimental studies of the traumatic effects on young monkeys as a result of being raised in cages where they lacked the comfort of a mother. Such animals displayed great distress, and they were unable to relate to other monkeys or parent their young appropriately later in life. He postulated that there is an instinctual need to form a bond with a (maternal) parent, and such bonds enable the young to explore the environment without excessive anxiety and lay the groundwork for their later ability to nurture their own young in a sensitive, loving manner. This theory was refined and tested by Mary Ainsworth, a colleague of Bowlby. (See Bretherton [1992] for a discussion of the development of attachment theory.) Ainsworth found striking variability in how mothers cared for their children during a series of careful observational studies of patterns of mother–infant interactions in different countries. Some were very responsive and sensitive as they adjusted their pace and their requests of the infant to the child’s interests and attention. We note this in Tanya’s reactions to Eliza.

Eliza [carefully, as she points to a picture]:	Whey dah?
Tanya:	Is that a flower? Yeah, look at him.

Tanya has quietly allowed Eliza to guide the interaction, and she has patiently waited as her infant studied the book and then vocalized. Once Eliza vocalizes, Tanya interprets it as a question and responds accordingly and with approval. Note also Tanya’s warm, gentle, and pleasant facial expressions and the physical contact between parent and child.

In the course of learning about the parent-coaching programs profiled in Section II of this book, we were given the opportunity to view videotapes made during home visits. We will discuss one gentle interactional dance between a mother, whom we will call Perla, and her three-month-old infant, whom we will call Rosalita, who was seated in a baby seat. During this visit Perla handed her baby a toy that contained small parts that rolled around as the toy was moved from side to side. Perla quietly held the toy so Rosalita could study it. After roughly 30 seconds, Perla turned away slightly and vocalized. Perla interpreted this as flagging interest and gently removed Rosalita from the baby seat.

In both of these mother‒child interactions, the mother gently allowed her child time to examine an object and responded quickly and appropriately to her child’s actions and vocalizations. Also, both mothers accompanied their actions with talk, supplying language to express what they believed their child might be saying, thinking, or feeling.

Long-Term Effects of Early Attachment

A history of such interactions during the first 2 years of life typically results in a secure attachment (Ainsworth, 1979, 1989; Rees, 2016). Such security allows the toddler or young child to explore the world, returning to the mother or other attachment figure when reassurance is needed. In this way, attachment provides a secure base for exploring the world. In contrast, very young children who experience distant, unresponsive, or harsh parenting fail to develop such secure attachments. They exhibit anxiety and fearfulness and may resist efforts of the caregiver to soothe them. They lack the security needed to fully engage with the world and the trust needed to accept loving support when it is tendered to them.

Attachment Styles and Behavior Researchers elaborated this theory and found three basic types of attachment—secure, anxious/avoidant, and anxious/resistant (e.g., Ainsworth, 1989; Bretherton, 1992; Siegel, 2012). In this book, we only focus on the contrast between children who are securely attached and those who exhibit less secure patterns of attachment (i.e., anxious/avoidant, anxious/resistant) in order to clearly communicate broad patterns of findings. The nature of children’s attachments has been studied by putting an infant or toddler in a strange room with her mother, toys, and a stranger. A securely attached child will happily play with toys while her mother is nearby but will become distressed if her mother should leave. The distressed child seeks reassurance and quickly settles when her mother returns. Children who have mothers who are distant, unresponsive, or harsh, however, tend to develop an insecure attachment. Children placed in a strange situation may ignore their mothers and show no response when their mothers leave or when they return. Others may express anger mixed with avoidance when their mothers return.

Longitudinal studies have examined the extent to which early attachment is predictive of later patterns of feeling and action. Looking at the association between attachment and later evidence of internalizing behavior is one way researchers have considered the effects of attachment. Internalizing behavior refers to behavior patterns in which a person turns emotional distress inward, resulting in depression, fearfulness, and withdrawal. (In contrast, externalizing behaviors, further discussed next, are those that express in an outward manner a person’s emotional distress, resulting in aggressive and hostile behavior.) A meta-analysis that included more than 4,600 children from 42 samples found that secure early attachment had a tendency (d = ....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Downloads and Videos
• About the Authors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• I. Research on Early Development, Language, and Literacy
• II. Programs Supporting Early Literacy
• III. Putting It All Together
• References
• Index