What Can Parents Do to Encourage Infant and Toddler Language Development?
On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, we sat down with Cari Ebert, of Cari Ebert Seminars. Cari is a speech-language pathologist, parent, consultant, author, product developer, and nationally recognized speaker in the areas of Apraxia, Autism, and early intervention (and routines-based intervention) who has dedicated her career to helping young children achieve their maximum potential with speech, language, and social and emotional development.
We discussed:
- Cari’s personal and professional background, and how she came to do the work she’s doing today
- Definitions of the terms, speech, language, and communication
- How parents and caregivers can support early communication through everyday routines (and what “routines” even are)
- Why there is no such thing as a parenting expert (and what the purpose of parent coaching, parent education, and routines-based intervention actually are)
- Cari’s top tips and resources for parents and caregivers hoping to support early communication development
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Understanding Your Baby & Understanding Your Toddler: My bestselling books, development & Activity Guides for Playing With Your Baby From Birth to Three Years
Learn With Less® Bundle: get our favorite infant and toddler development resources – including our bestselling books! (and save 70%)! Discover how to support & connect with your tiny human, without having to buy a single toy.
Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program: Use your existing skills as an educator or therapist to serve families holistically with a high quality program that will provide lasting impact! Apply now to become a licensed facilitator Learn With Less®.
Learn With Less® “Caregiver & Me” Classes: the magic of Learn With Less® lies in the communal aspect of coming together with our resources, in community with other families. Join us for a virtual or in-person class led by a licensed facilitator near you!
Games to Play With Babies by Jackie Silberg
Games to Play With Toddlers by Jackie Silberg
Free Download Handouts from Cari
Facebook Live series from Cari
Connect With Us:
Cari Website / Facebook / Instagram /
Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest
Text Transcript of The Episode
Ayelet: Today. I am speaking with Cari Ebert, a pediatric speech language pathologist in private practice in the Kansas City, Missouri area. Cari is a therapist, consultant, author, product developer, and nationally recognized speaker who gets paid to do what she loves most: talk! She specializes in early intervention, Apraxia, and Autism, and has dedicated her career to helping young children achieve their maximum potential with speech, language, and social and emotional development.
Cari, I have followed you for years and been familiar with your work in the area of early intervention and routines-based intervention, and just working with families with infants and toddlers in general, of all developmental levels. But I have to say that I was tickled when I realized that you were following me on Instagram and I’m totally going to go into fan-girl mode right now. When I say that you commented on a post in my feed with the words, “you are an early intervention rock star.” And I just wanted to let you know that that may have been the single most validating and gratifying moment of my career.
Cari: Well, I have to say I don’t comment a lot on social media, you know, I’m on there so much posting, so and I don’t tend to comment a lot. And so when I do, I mean it’s authentic and it is sincere. So, I appreciate everything you’re doing in our
Ayelet: Thank you. Well, you know, to be recognized by another person in the field who I have such deep respect for just, you know, it feels good. So thank you for that. And welcome. Welcome to Learn With Less.
Cari: Thank you for having me. I was honored that you asked me to be a part of this. It’s very exciting. Yeah.
Ayelet: Yay. I’ve asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us about these sort of differences between… What are all the pieces of early communication, what does it mean when we’re talking about that with a child who’s meeting communication milestones versus a quote-unquote “late talker,” and then how to support all of that during and within daily routines. But first I would love to just hear a bit more about you and how you got into the work that you’re doing today.
Cari: Very good. Yes. Well, I’ve been a speech language pathologist for 25 years, and 20 of those years have been as an early intervention provider. So working with the birth to three population is my passion. I always say those of us who get into early intervention, don’t do it for the paycheck. We certainly do it because there is so much that can be gained by working with families and caregivers and supporting early child development during those naturally-occurring routines and interactions that just happen every single day, whether the child’s at home, at daycare, at Grandma’s house, at the park, wherever.
So I am extremely passionate about the birth to three population. I do a lot of research, and write professional development courses that pertain to the birth to five population. So like I have a course on the power of play that really looks at play development from birth to age five. So birth to five is like my area, but birth to three is where my love is. And partnering with parents is the thing that means the most to me. One thing that I’ve said for years is that I am the expert in communication development as a speech-language pathologist, but the parent is always the expert on their child, their family, their routines, their culture, and their concerns. And so it takes two to tango. And, I am here for the dance.
Ayelet: I love that.
Cari: I also just for listeners who maybe are interested in this, I have, my husband and I have three children, two are neurotypical and our son is Autistic. And so I get to be a speech language pathologist working in the field of early intervention. And I come at this, you know, from the professional side, but also from the parent side. So it allows me to kind of, I don’t know, I’ve been in the shoes, you know, of the families with whom I’m supporting. And so it gives me a different perspective.
Ayelet: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Well, I mean, so much of what you just said resonates, obviously, with me, because I, I do say so often to people like I abhor that term “parenting expert.” And like, if I, if I’m like asked to speak on a panel or in a summit or whatever, I’m very clear to, like, clarify immediately that no, I am a professional who knows some things… And I am not a “parenting expert.” There is no such thing as a parenting expert. The goal is for each parent or caregiver to become an expert on their own child. And that is an ever-evolving process. And you know, that like, you’ll be trying to do for the rest of your life, if you’re lucky, right? Like is that’s the point, right? That’s the goal. And I think it’s a very important clarification that we have to make for both families and other providers, really.
Cari: Absolutely. I just have to add that two of my daughters are in their twenties now. And so now I’m having to learn how to parent adult children, because when you say it’s an ever, it’s a lifelong thing. It is because parenting toddlers is different from parenting teenagers and it is different from parenting adult children. So I feel like I’m having to relearn how to parent again, you know, so I love that you say nobody is a parenting expert, you know, we’re constantly evolving in that process.
Ayelet: Oh my gosh, completely. Well, and I think, you know, you and I both have that both parent and professional piece, which can be very helpful. I think as far as relating to parents and not to say that, you know, SLPs or other providers who are not parents or caregivers themselves, “can’t” do those things. But for me on a personal level, like when I became a parent, I suddenly realized all of the areas in which I personally was like, Oh wow, I cannot believe I ever said that to a parent. Like, oh my gosh.
And it totally reframes everything that you do. And, and all every statement that you have to feel like, okay, well, I’m going to qualify this with like, okay, this here is like the place that would be ideal that in a textbook, this is what we could do, but here’s what we’re going to start with. And here’s where we’re going. And here’s the path, right? Like start with what you can do. And, and again, like you said, too, individualized treatment, working with families of all types of all cultures, from all backgrounds, with all different kinds of priorities and working within family capacity, right. That is the entire point of what we do within early intervention.
Cari: I just love that you used that word. I’m sorry. I’m like, I’m so excited now. I know they can’t see us, but I’m like doing like this little party over here because when you say, you know, it’s building capacity. That to me is, is why I am such an advocate for early intervention because it is an early intervention is a capacity building program. And when I first heard that term, Oh, what do they mean? We’re building the child’s capacity? No, no, no. We’re building the caregiver. The parent’s capacity to support their child’s learning and development during everyday routines and interactions that naturally occur, right?
And so to me, that’s just really powerful because I don’t leave homework for families to work on. I don’t give them extra things to do. I’m a parent and I know I barely have enough time in the day to get through the things that absolutely have to be done. And if someone is going to give me a speech therapist or an occupational therapist or a physical therapist is going to give me homework, I’m going to be honest with you. It’s probably not going to happen.
So that’s why, what I love to talk to families about is embedded intervention. We want to embed strategies into your already existing routines. And that’s what I’m hoping we can talk about a little bit is what do we mean by those daily routines? Because it’s a term we use, but I’m not sure that everybody has a great understanding of the power of routines-based intervention.
Ayelet: Yeah. Right. Well, guess what, Cari, you’re in the right place, because this is Learn With Less®, which literally is all about using the materials you already have and the time and energy that you are already expending. So, first, first let’s dig a little bit into really that number one, like the term “late talker,” and then just really pausing for a moment and defining for families, those various aspects of early communication as the umbrella term, because I do find that it’s not uncommon for parents and caregivers to be unfamiliar (of course, why would they?), with the difference between speech, language, communication…
Like, so let’s break it down for listeners so that we can really just sort of help families understand why when we are talking about each of those things, they are actually distinctly different from one another. And also like why, when we say “late talker,” quote unquote, it’s not just about identifying a child who is not using words consistently or who is not totally clear or intelligible in their speech. So let’s start, let’s start there.
Cari: Okay. So communication, I love, again, you’d think that you and I have like had multiple conversations before, and this is really our first conversation, but the term that umbrella term, I always say, and I have in one of my, my seminars, an umbrella to show that communication is this umbrella term. And so on the umbrella, I have the word “communication,” and underneath communication dangling from the umbrella you have hearing, right. It’s very important that we make sure all children can hear. That’s why, in this country, we have, newborn hearing screenings, you know, so that we can make sure that they are able to hear. And if not that we can get them assistance, there. So hearing is one component of communication.
And then we have language, and under language, we break that down even further, right? We have receptive language: what does your child understand? And we have expressive language: how does your child express themselves to other, you know, with other people? And then we have speech. And speech is one component of expressive language, but speech is the actual physical, motor act of talking, right? So you can have a child who has both an expressive language delay and a speech delay. Or the speech could be intact, but they could just have an expressive language delay.
I think there are a lot of people who think that speech and language are the same thing. And that’s where you and I, as you know, when we were talking about speech-language development, it’s so important to recognize that they’re not the same thing. Speech is a motor act, right? Language is this global way of expressing and having interactions, communicative interactions, with other people. And so they’re not the same thing and language develops before speech, right?
So it’s very… And the other thing that I think is so tough is separating out expressive and receptive language. It’s very hard to separate them, right? So when we talk about children who are struggling with language development, we always want to look at how much does your child understand are they following directions? You know, we really want to make sure that receptive language is strong because it’s pretty hard to talk about something that you don’t understand, right? So that receptive language is an important component, there.
And so when we really look at that umbrella of communication, we want to consider early language development. We want to consider, you know, speech development, and we want to consider hearing. And then we kind of want to look at, you know, pragmatics – or just those social components of language, things like eye contact and turn-taking and some of those. So, you know, we could talk for hours about that, but I think…
Ayelet: Right – that’s a whole other episode!
Cari: It really is! But when we talk about the birth to three population, really just in general, talking about early language development is appropriate, because that encompasses speech, too. You know, speech is a component of expressive language. So I really like to just give parents strategies on ways to support early language development. And then if we find there are actual speech concerns, you know, then we can, make more, really dive deeper into specific strategies for speech development.
But that term late talker, you know, it’s a tough term. There, there are different – Hanen has a specific definition of a late talker. When we talk about, you know, children who are late talkers, it’s usually that people say that because the child doesn’t have as many spoken words as we would think that they would have. And in some late talkers, you know, their receptive language is really strong. And it is just that they’re not saying the words, but it also can be that there is, you know, more of a global language delay that includes that receptive language as well.
Ayelet: Mm-hmm, okay. So talking about how to actually support early speech and language, early communication development, we spoke a little bit before we actually started recording a little bit about how those strategies to support communication within the birth to three population within infants and toddlers, they are the same things that you would do with a child who is developing along that, you know, typical progression of development that we see within the milestone checklists that you get from your physician. And also they’re exactly the same strategies that we are going to be using with children who fall outside of the norm, right? And really it’s about, like you said, embedding these strategies into the everyday life of families. And that means, into those interactions that you’re already participating in… And really what that looks like is routines.
But as you said earlier, I think when we say routines, families actually get confused and even providers, right? “Caregiving routines” or “daily routines” or “play routines” are all different types of routines. And when we say routines, what are we really talking about? Because I do think also for many new parents and caregivers, like, that word is also very much tied to sleep routine where it’s like something beneficial for the parent to create a set of steps that the baby can recognize as cues for say, going to sleep. And then everybody’s happier in the end. Well guess what, like that same preface, like that same rationale of creating that set of steps, a pattern of some kind… That routine is it’s the same premise for any type of routine. And you and I know that the idea of like caregiving routines or everyday rituals have much more value also than just like following a set of steps.
So number one, why are routines so important when it comes to supporting early language develop – not only early language development, but also we didn’t even talk. And we could someday about like the connection between concept development, which really is a cognitive skill and language development, understanding what a word means and all of the concepts that go along with it. But regardless, like why are routines so important when it comes to supporting that early language development for any infant or toddler, regardless of whether or not they are meeting early communication milestones?
Cari: Yeah, yeah. Routines based intervention is what I provide as an early intervention professional. When we talk about routines, the reason it’s so important is because these are naturally occurring learning opportunities. So I always say, the whole purpose is for the child to develop meaningful skills in meaningful ways with the meaningful people in their life. Okay. So a lot of times people say, Oh, you’re a speech therapist Cari, you do speech therapy. So will you come in and teach my child to talk? Right. I have a two and a half year old. He’s not talking. I want you to come in and teach them to talk. And I say, yeah, we don’t do therapy with infants and toddlers. The same way we do therapy with older children. I mean, we don’t sit, it’s not like golf lessons or tennis lessons where I’m going to sit this two year old down and drill them.
And you know, and that’s what some parents want, you know, from a speech language pathologist in early intervention. I say, no, no, no. What I’m here to do is to transfer my skills and knowledge to you. Okay. Because I’m the expert in communication development. You’re the expert on your child, your family, your routines, your culture and your concerns. Right? So together we are going to collaborate. We are partners in this. And what I want to know is, you know, what, what does a day in the life of little Joey look like? Right? So you’re going to tell me as the expert on your child and your family, what is a day in the life of little Joey look like? I want to learn about your routines. I want to learn about you, when you say, well, we get up in the morning.
Well, okay. Let’s start there. How did you know little Joey was awake in the morning? I mean, a lot of people don’t even recognize that waking up is a routine. It happens every single day. So how did you know, how do you know when little Joey’s awake? Well, what do you mean? I have a baby monitor and I hear him crying. Okay. So does he call for you? Does he say “Mama?” You know, I mean, what happens if you don’t go in right away and when you do go in, does he reach to be picked up or do you just scoop him up? I mean, I I’m telling you, we could talk for a half hour just about the routine wake up, you know, and all of the different components of that. And so then what do you do next? Oh, well we go to breakfast. Well, how do you get to breakfast? What do you mean, how do we get there? Well, do you carry him? Does he crawl? Does he walk? I mean, I don’t know. How do you get, see all, every single interaction with a child is an opportunity for learning and development. Can we work on gross motor fine motor communication, social/emotional. We can address all areas of development in every single interaction, right? And that’s, what’s so powerful about routines.
One of my favorite routines to talk to families about is getting the mail. If your mailbox, like in our community, in my neighborhood, you have to walk like a couple houses down and there’s this, you know, mail box center, if you will. So everybody has to go out. So take your child instead of getting your mail at nap time, let’s build this into a regular routine where we take our toddler and okay. So are we going to walk down the driveway? Well, I’m going to actually walk through the grass because that’s an uneven surface. So it’s going to challenge the new walker’s balance. It’s going to, you know, maybe teach them to hold my hand. You know, maybe this is a child who isn’t great at holding hands. It’s going to really force them to visually scan and look at what’s going on in the yard. So they don’t step in a hole. I mean, again, we can talk forever. So we finally get to the mailbox and maybe we have a key, what do we do? Do, do I wait for him to request, to be picked up or do I anticipate his needs and pick him up?
You see, every, oh, I, I mean, I’m so excited. I’m sorry, I’ll try to calm down. So we get the mail out and maybe we count the pieces of mail, you know, so we know how many we’re going to carry home. Now he’s got to carry mail in one hand and maybe try to balance either holding my hand with the other or walking, you know, maybe we walk along the curb again to challenge balance, there. We go inside, what are we going to do with the mail? Well, we’re going to junk mail from important mail. Mommy’s mail and Joey’s mail. Right? And then Joey’s mail is the best. Look. I’ve got some of Joey’s mail here because I keep all my junk mail because these are the best things in the world for teaching children to snip with scissors. Because you see how they’re they’re they’re I mean, look at them all I always save them, but my husband’s like, why do you save the junk mail? I’m like, you don’t understand. I’m like powerful stuff. Right?
Ayelet: For reference, Cari is holding up… Because this is a listening podcast. I know, I know. She’s holding up a bunch of stuff, like junk mail.
Cari: Postcards like this one’s like, get some new windows or this one’s from tele floral or, you know, backflow water testing. I don’t even know what they are. I don’t care. But they’re postcards. So they’re thick, right?
Ayelet: Yes. Yes. And guess what, like all of that has print on it too, right? So all of the things that you’re doing there is also supporting early literacy because you’re looking at print in the environment and you’re pointing out letters.
Cari: Yeah. There’s a J! Your name is Joey. Your name starts with a J. Look here’s mommy’s name, my name look that says Cari, that’s mommy’s name! I mean, it’s so amazing. So you can, I mean, it’s just, yeah. I love grocery store ads. That’s one of my favorites for building vocabulary. So we’re going to look through every Wednesday is when we get our grocery store ads. So we flip through and we, we, we talk about the different foods. We circle the foods we want to buy. Maybe we make a grocery list, which is another early literacy skill. So these are things we can just model. So all of a sudden we’ve taken getting the mail, which maybe the parent used to do while the toddler was napping, to now, it is an interactive activity that encourages learning and development across all different domains of development. And it’s just so exciting.
And that’s really why I think you and I are kind of like soul sisters, if you will. Because even though we live, you know, in different areas of the country, and it’s just a fluke that we finally, you know, connected on social media, what we are talking about is you don’t need to go and spend a lot of money and buy store-bought toys. I mean, are toys fun. Yes. They’re great. Do I sometimes post, you know, toys that I like sure I do, but I do just as many posts about, you know, using what’s available in the natural environment, you know, and about to me, it’s about relationship-based learning. That is my absolute favorite term.
It’s not about screen-based learning. Because I know everybody wants to know, is there an app for that? What app can I download for my two year old Cari? And you don’t ever want to ask me that question? Because my response is there is no app to replace your lap. And I’m not going to give you any apps. I don’t know any apps for toddlers. So don’t even bother asking me because I want you to feel comfortable supporting your child’s learning and development, not just during routines, major routines, like bath time and meal time and dressing time. Like those are great routines, but also when getting the mail, when playing in the backyard, when hanging out in the family room, right? When riding in the car, right? When brushing your teeth, when washing your hands, when putting on your mask, I don’t care what it is.
Every single interaction is a time for your child to learn, to learn about sequencing. What do we do first, putting your shoes on – isn’t that an important routine that we do on a daily basis? So what do we do first? What do we do next? What do we do last? We’re building vocabulary. We’re teaching children how to be patient and how to wait. I mean, we can, we’re building fine motor skills, gross motor skills, you know, social skills. It’s just learning and development… It doesn’t have to be complicated. Okay. What we want to do is empower parents and caregivers that every interaction, every routine that you engage with your child is an opportunity to help them learn and develop new skills.
Ayelet: Yes. I love, I mean, everything there was exactly. Yes. But I, I love also when you started with the, like, getting that sort of pre-assessment of like what, helping families identify, what is happening here? What does it look like? And you asking those really seemingly very mundane questions. Like how do you know that that child is awake? Well, they are crying. Okay. Then you go in, then what happens? The fact that they’re raising their hands and reaching for, you… well guess what? If they’re doing that and a parent can report all of that. Then even if you’re not there at morning wake up time, you now know that the child that you’re in, the family that you’re working with, that child is able to gesture using a representative gesture to represent, “pick me up” by holding their hands up. Right.
Okay. Well now this is very useful information. You can jot that down in your notes as a provider and say, great, this child is using gestures. And then you can also show the family, show that caregiver like, look, your child is communicating in these certain ways already during this specific time. So one thing you might do is you could say the word for what the gesture represents like, Oh, look, Oh, you want to come up! Up, mama, up. And then you’ve provided the very specific singular word and verbal language for what that gesture represents. And now you’re embedding and building and scaffolding doing all of the things that you are, number one already doing, you’re just doing them slightly more enhanced. You’re, as one of my clients said, you’re creating like a tiny play revolution because it’s, you’re like, Oh my gosh. Now you’ve just expanded on just maybe making a tiny to what you are already doing. It’s this very revolutionary feeling of empowerment, right?
Cari: I love it. Can I just give you two words? I mean, this is just, I just get so excited about this stuff. Okay. So my two words that I love about parent coaching and about early intervention is reflect and refine. So what I want to do is ask thought provoking questions that encourages parents to reflect on what they already know about their child’s learning and development. How do you know when he’s awakened warning? How did you know he was hungry right then? How did you know that he had a dirty diaper or was lonely? You are the expert on your child. So sometimes parents just don’t spend time in reflection mode to really think about, Oh my gosh. I do know. I do know that my child communicates, right? So I want, I want to ask you these questions.
These open-ended, thought provoking questions, that encourages parents to reflect on what they already know. And then together, what we’re going to do is figure out how you can refine the way you interact with your child, in order to support an area of learning and development. So it’s reflect and refine. So what I’m here to do is ask the question. So you can think about how did you know that he wanted to be done eating? Oh, well, cause he threw his plate across the rooms. That’s how I knew he wanted… Well, are you, are you happy with that way of communicating because all behavior is communication? Well, no, I don’t want him to throw his food across the room. Well, how do you wish he would let you know? How do you want him to communicate with you? So now, see, we’re going to, we’re going to try to work on this. Well, I mean, I wish he’d maybe say “Mama” and then hand me his plate or maybe, you know, tell me all done well, since he doesn’t talk yet, what do you think about teaching them to sign for all done?
Oh, well I don’t know any sign language. Well, would that, you see what I mean? So we can actually then build skills through our collaboration. And that is why I think parent coaching is, I think parent coaching gets a bad name. Parent coaching is about capitalizing on the family’s strengths, right? What they are already doing and focusing on their knowledge, they are the experts on their child. So my early intervention case history form that I created is like eight pages long. Not that you guys can see it. I’m here trying to show it on the screen, but I have routine activities. And again, these are some of the basic ones. And just with the basic ones of wake up time… You know, when I asked things like, what time does your child typically wake up? How do you know when your child is awake? Does your child play for a while in the crib or bedroom after waking up?
So it, I actually, you know, made all these prompts for me to ask, because if I just say, you know, tell me about your day. All of that stuff just gets skipped over. You know, when we wake up about seven, we eat breakfast, then we go to the park, then we do… Well, we missed like 500 opportunities for learning and development in there. So for me, it’s all in the details, right? It’s all in the, within one routine, we should be able to break that down into like 25 learning opportunities. And so it’s really about empowering parents, for example, following directions.
That’s a really great thing to work on. Let’s say, during diaper changing, right? So instead of just getting a diaper, picking your child up and putting them on the changing table and changing their diaper, how about Oh, stinky, you know, p-u! Did you go poopoo? Maybe we teach them the sign for toilet or for poopoo, right. Whatever it is. And then, Oh, go get me a diaper. So now, we’re going to start working on following one step directions. Do we have to point to give them a cue? Do they need that gesture? You know, and then, you know, throw it, you know, lay down on the floor, lift your legs up. We can teach body parts whenever we’re doing things like that. And then, you know, at the end, throw it in the trash. I mean, there’s so much that we can focus on right
Ayelet: Well, right, and even before, before they are expected to do this, or we even give them the words to do that. We feed that language to them, right? Like when they’re infants and we’re – this, again, we’re talking about kids who are “typically developing” quote unquote and kids who are, have developmental delays, right? This is you create a language rich environment by saying those things out loud. Oh, we’re going to pull up your feet. Okay. Up, up, up! Feet up. Here we go. Okay. And then you talk through what you’re doing. We give them those cues. Yeah,
Cari: Yeah. Becoming a narrator. Isn’t that really what that’s, what a language rich environment is, is I’m going to talk about what I’m doing. Okay. I’m going to talk about what you’re doing or seeing, or hearing. Right. And so we become a narrator of sorts. Oh, you’re waving to daddy. Bye, bye daddy. And then we add some language to it for our children who are not expected to, you know, they’re too young to be verbal yet, but absolutely. It’s, it’s really, and that’s why relationship based learning is so very powerful because there’s, there’s, um, learning to be had in every single interaction.
Ayelet: Yeah. Well, and you know what, here’s the thing I get asked a lot. Also. What about us introverts? What do I do? If it just feels super unnatural to me as a parent or caregiver. And I’m curious to hear what you have to say, but generally what I say is like, Hey, start with a routine that you, that you do this with. And then just let it, let it go. See how it feels. Do that every time you change the diaper or every time the child wakes up, or every time you put your shoes on before you go outside, whatever it is, and see how that feels. And then over time, you’ll see a difference in how your child relates to you and reacts to you because they start learning to expect you to talk about that thing. And they might hold up the thing for you to say it, expecting you to say the word, whatever it is, right?
Cari: That’s so exciting.
Ayelet: So that’s why, like, in our Learn With Less® classes, in like our curriculum for “caregiver and me” classes, which is really parent coaching outside of an education or therapist context, it’s just that, it’s what you said, Cari, right? It’s like, exactly. You’re creating an opportunity. You’re giving the family an opportunity to understand a concept, right? Like whether it’s using early literacy through junk mail or some kind of caregiving routine or some kind of motor play, whatever it is. And then you’re giving them that practical application to actually do it, right? Because number one, we know that and toddlers learned through interactions and everyday context and everyday partners and all of that. And we know that grownups learn very differently. We know that we need like this system to follow, we’re procedural. We need like to see what the steps are and observe other people doing it and, and emulate. And then we can explore and reflect.
And that’s, what’s packed into like a Learn With Less® class. Right, for instance. And, and that really helps like all of the parents and caregivers who, regardless of whether they aren’t number one, parenting, a child who falls in or outside of the norm would, regardless of whether they feel confident or competent, regardless of whether they’re introverted or extroverted, right, like, to learn through watching others is actually, as we all know, like very powerful and in practice, like that’s how you do it, but I would love to hear, like, what, what do you say for parents and caregivers who have that, “Ah, I dunno, this feels a little weird,” kind of a thing?
Cari: Well, I’ve actually had parents say to me, kind of with this odd look on their face, like, um, Ms. Cari, I’m not sure I can talk like you. And I say, Oh, well, that’s because I haven’t taught you the strategies yet. Okay. And they look at me like, what do you mean? I say, well, when I talk to teach children language, okay. I talk much differently than when I just talked to communicate with an adult or to communicate with an older child. So the way I talk is certainly not something that comes natural to everybody. So I always tell parents, of course, you should feel uneasy with this. I’m going to ask you to be, I’m modeling for you. And I’m going to be asking you to use new strategies that maybe aren’t very comfortable in the beginning. So I anticipate that there will be this learning curve for you.
So what I like about that conversation is it helps parents to understand that I’m not just “good with kids.” I’ve had so many parents say to that to me when I was, at first, you know, in the field, they’re like, Oh, you’re just so good with kids. And I was like, Oh, well, yeah, I kind of am. But I now understand that’s not it. Okay. The reason I can elicit so much from young children, the reason I’m so successful in my job is because I’m using skilled strategies. And I know how to use them. I know when to use them. And what I’m here to do is to help parents see the value in those strategies, as well. Okay. You and I are not just – contrary to popular belief – just good with kids, right. We are providing a skilled service. And so I would love to share with you. I know we probably don’t have a lot of time left, but maybe a couple of my favorite strategies. Would that be okay with you?
Ayelet: Yup, let’s do that. That’s exactly what I was going to ask you.
Cari: Wonderful. So one of the strategies, and again, I have this whole list. I have like 12 or 13 strategies. So we’re not going to go through all of them. But one of my things, one of my favorite strategies is: don’t tell your child to say words. Okay? So “don’t say, say” is one of my favorite strategies. Instead, what I want parents to do is to model the word you wish your child would say in the moment, but don’t instruct them to say it. So let’s say, you have a ball and your child is reaching for it. “Eh, eh!” Instead of saying, say ball, okay. That’s not that that creates this prompt dependency where the child then waits for someone to tell them what words to say.
So instead of say ball, if I have a ball in my hand and the child is reaching for it, I would say “ball.” And I use the rule of three, which is where I say the target word three times and pause. After each, each time to give the child an opportunity to imitate me. Ball. Count to three, silence. Child goes, “eh!” He doesn’t talk. Right? So I do it again. Ball, pause, look at him, expectantly. Okay. He just says, “eh,” that’s fine. The third time I say “ball” and I hand it to him. It’s automatic reinforcement the third time. I just want him to get used to me saying words, having him look at my face. I want to make sure he’s not expecting me to tell him to say those words.
What I want is spontaneous verbal limitation. That is how children learn to talk is through spontaneous imitation. And so try not to say, say, okay, just say the word. So if your child is pulling on your shirt and clearly wants to be picked up, don’t say, “say up mama.” Right? And we don’t want another adult to say, say up, mama, tell her what you want. Say up mama. No, no, no. We’re just going to say “up mama.” He grunts again “up mama.” He grunts again. Third time “up mama.” And then you pick them up and love on him. So we’re giving him the language right, where we’re giving it to him, but it’s in context and that’s, what’s so important about that strategy.
And then the other strategy I would love to share with you. Again, I have so many, it’s hard for me to pick, but I, this is probably my all-time favorite. And I wished somebody would have taught me this strategy in grad school. What I try to do is get families and caregivers to balance out “business talk” versus “extra talk.” Okay? So if somebody had given me this language a long time ago, I feel like I would have been better able to support parents. So business talk is language that we all have to use when interacting with young children, “business talk” is what keeps life moving forward. So some examples of business talker, things like no, stop it. Sit down, be quiet. Keep your hands to yourself. Not now. Finish your breakfast, clean up your toys, put on your shoes.
Does that make sense? Those are directives that we give children to keep life moving forward. If we didn’t have business talk, we would never accomplish anything in a day. So everybody parents, caregivers, speech-language pathologists, teachers, daycare providers, everybody must use business talk, but here’s the kicker: business talk is not language-rich. Business talk is highly repetitive. No, stop it. Sit down. Be quiet. Finish your milk. No, stop it. Sit down and be quiet. Finish your milk. We say the same exact words, all day, every day in order to keep life moving forward. So you cannot create a language rich environment if your own language is filled primarily with business talk. So what I try to coach parents on is to balance business talk with extra talk.
Now, extra talk is spontaneous chit-chat. Extra talk does not serve any purpose. It doesn’t keep life moving forward. It doesn’t get you through your day. Some examples of extra talk would be things like, Oh, I like that sparkly unicorn on your shirt. Whoa, that building is taller than the tree, you know? Or, uh, Oh, look at that little tiny lady bug he’s so small! Or wow, it is raining so hard outside. I hope the neighbor took his puppy in, you know, it’s just, mm. This chocolate cake is delicious.
So extra talk is where we get this language rich environment. Okay. So what, what I like to do is have parents kind of keep track of their own, you know, become aware of how much business talk am I using in a day, and how much extra talk. So here’s the great thing: when you read a book, when you sing a song, okay, what is that?
That is not business talk. What is that? That is extra talk. And that is why we, I think it makes so much more sense to me now in understanding why we promote reading and singing to children so much, is because it’s all extra talk, right? And so for me, it’s been extremely powerful to help families and childcare providers really start to intentionally use more extra talk. It’s not that you can use less business talk. Does that make sense?
It’s just that a lot of what our introverted parents will do are parents who aren’t talking a lot to their child. They’re only talking when they need to use business talk. So if you want to change one aspect, if you want to do one thing at home, start being very aware of how much extra talk you are using with your young child, with your language learner. And it doesn’t matter if they’re learning one language or three languages, right? This, this all applies. And that’s, what’s so powerful about early language strategies.
Ayelet: Yeah. Well, you know, what I love about that too, is that it’s very much a parallel process of what, of course we want our children to then emulate. When we think about these sort of three categories of function of communication, right? Behavioral regulation – regulating another person’s behavior. Stop. Don’t do that. I want that. No, don’t like to, to protest or reject or deny to, to request an object or an action. All of those kinds of things. That’s the business talk, primarily. And then you have socially interactive communication. Hello. Thank you. Yes. I love that. Right. Like, and, and also joint attentional acts, right? So all of the like commenting and soliciting attention and relaying information and… All of the pieces of why we communicate are in those, those two categories that you’ve defined, but like really so many different things. And you give them all of that? Yeah, go ahead.
Cari: And one last thing that feeds into exactly what you were saying is we need to limit the number of test-like questions, because I feel like when parents are thinking, Oh, I need to help make my child smarter. You know, I need to help my child learn to talk. What color is it? What shape is it? How many are there? You know, all of those questions, the problem is then kids, if they do respond it’s with one word response, right? Blue, four green. Okay. So it’s this… that’s not that communication.
So instead of quizzing your child, life is not a quiz after all, instead of quizzing, what color is it? I would much rather you create a language rich moment and say, Oh, you found the blue ball. I like that blue ball. I don’t know where that blue ball came from. I didn’t buy it. So you see how now all of a sudden I’ve created this language rich moment with my child, or I could have just said, when he picked up the ball, what color is it? “Boo.” And he walks away and it’s over that doesn’t support back and forth, conversational reciprocity, which is really what we want is we want to create communication, not just quizzes for children to prove that they know their letters, numbers, shapes, and colors.
Ayelet: And can I just, can I just say that, like, that’s what communication is. It’s an interactive event it’s back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until we’ve completed the, the journey, right. That’s also what play is, right. We, we don’t want to only provide our children with things that are cause and effect-type toys. We want them to have an open ended experience where they can explore and look at and use one thing in a very unexpected way and put, you know, the chapstick on top of the Kleenex box, because my goodness that’s tower building, right. By the way, you don’t need blocks. And it’s also like, and all of the things that…
Cari: I keep wanting to show you things, but I’m like, Oh, I forget. They can’t see me. I’m like, Oh, if you could see my container blocks, I save all our cottage cheese containers and sour cream. And we, I call them container blocks. I’m like, you don’t have to go spend money on blocks. So yeah, no, that’s play, man. We could do a whole other episode, but yeah, yeah, no, this has been great. I just, I, again, lots more strategies, but I think in general, limit the number of questions, use balanced business talk and extra talk and try to avoid telling your child to say words all day long. You know, those would probably be three of my top strategies.
Ayelet: That’s they are so good. Well, tell us, we’d love to know about a few of the different resources that you like to share with families who are either looking for more strategies or concerned about their child’s communication development, those that you have created, and also ones that you just love to share with families in general.
Cari: Sure, sure. Well, following early intervention providers on social media, if you happen to be on social media, I think that’s where you can get daily, like I do daily posts related to early child development now because I’m a speech-language pathologist. Some of my posts may not be relevant, but you know, you can always sift through and find those. So I think following providers who serve the birth to three population, following childcare providers who are on social media or Pinterest or whatever, and want to share, you know, their activities and ideas, that can be very helpful on my website, cariebertseminars.com. I have a whole host of different handouts and materials. Again, they’re designed for early intervention providers to use in their parent coaching sessions, but like my parent coaching handouts for early language development, I mean, obviously parents would find those extremely helpful, you know?
So there are, there are those things I have again, I know you can’t see, but my, my bookshelf is just filled with so many different resources. Can I just show you one thing? And then, you know, they can’t see it, but like for example, I have these, these two books and I know you have amazing books as well, but like when I just pull off my shelf, Games To Play With Babies, this is just a very simple, and they’re just, you know, very short activities. I have Games To Play With Toddlers. There’s one that’s called Games to Play with Preschoolers. So I sometimes think, gosh, for a baby gift instead of buying, I don’t know, you know, Baby Einstein DVD, I don’t know, please don’t buy that. I would much, this is what I often give is a baby gift is, you know, a book about ways to play with your baby that don’t require you to go out and buy toys.
And if you are going to go buy a toy, can I just end with this one thing? That the more the toy does, the less your child does? So please buy toys that do nothing. We want your child to provide all the power, all the imagination, all the sound effects. And so I’m not a big believer in battery operated, cause and effect button pushing toys. They’re my least favorite ones that are out there. So I always just say, you can go to the kitchen and find plenty of toys. The kitchen has the best toys on the planet. And sometime I would love to, uh, that I feel like almost has to be… Maybe what I can do is have you on my Facebook live some night. I do every Thursday night, we do a Facebook live, but because I feel like we need to show people things, but I would love, I love to talk about using what’s available in the natural environment, which is your whole premise of everything that you do. And so I’m just so excited that we were able to connect and now we can be besties forever.
Ayelet: Can’t wait, yay! Cari, thank you so much for your time and energy today. It was such a pleasure to connect with you and for everyone listening from home or on the go. Thank you so much for joining us and we will talk to you next time.
Cari: Thank you. Bye bye.
