We humans are social creatures! Communication, speech and language development happens within a social context and actually begins in early infancy. Neurotypical infants are amazingly adept at observing, imitating and problem solving the nuances of communication and language independently when they are provided an enriching and supportive environment. Those infants with intact hearing systems can take in human speech sounds and process, integrate and attach meaning to strings of sounds to understand spoken words, and, eventually, sentences and full conversations without those skills needing direct teaching. Early social-communication development is truly amazing even before a child utters his or her first word and so often is not fully understood by parents and caregivers. Unfortunately, parents may not realize there is a challenge until their child isn't hitting those universally known typical milestone of language development that emerge between one and three years of age.
There are critical early learning skills and social-emotional development milestones that impact the development of communication and language even before these language milestones emerge. In addition, an infant's ability to make sense of all of the sensory information from the environment (e.g., sound, sights, touch) and from within his or her own body (e.g., understanding where their bodies are in space) is critical to move infants along a typical trajectory in all areas of development. My aim in this series is to provide parents and caregivers with a basic understanding of the important skills that are foundational for a child's development of strong communication and language, and provide ways they can support their child along this journey of early infancy and toddler-hood.
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