Revolutionising our communication

"Being a member of a loving family beats anything you're going to learn today."

I loved this start to a talk I attended recently on Early Development and how children with Down's Syndrome learn.

I learned something there which has revolutionised how we communicate with Coraline right now.

It was:

Copy Coraline’s babbling, and actions, exactly as they are, back to her.

It was as simple, and as profound, as that.

She says “gggggg”; I reply “gggggg”. She says “babababa”; I reply “babababa”.

Child led interaction. Copy and model. Mimic Coraline's sounds.

I now copy whatever Coraline does in terms of her sounds. I had known this on some level before, but I think previously Coraline might have said, "gagagaga" to me and I would have replied, "yes, yes, yes, good chatting" but now I am simply replying exactly what she says, "gagagaga" back. She then might move to say "bbbbb" and I reply "bbbb".

Coraline blossoms when I do this. She is delighted and thrilled. We are really communicating and she loves it, and it is encouraging her communication. She quickly moves between little gestures and sounds that she knows I will copy. It's a really different feeling of response from her than when I just replied with different sounds. She loves moving her finger up and down her lips to make a “bbbbbb” sound and I do the gesture and sound back. When she does that one, it’s as if she’s saying, “let’s chat”. I know when she’s with someone, and she doing that, she’s communicating with them and looking for them to do it back.

The lady giving the talk mentioned people who are naturals with children and said basically, the secret is that they do this, they copy the child’s sounds and actions. Aha! I see! #communication #earlydevelopment #twentythreemonthsold