Communication and participation

Infants and toddlers

Create an environment that fosters awareness and increases interactions among infants and toddlers. To enable this staff should remain nearby and therefore be able to facilitate communication and participation between infants and toddlers.

• Place non-mobile infants at close proximity to each other.  This promotes awareness of each other as they begin to look and reach out to one another.
• Place toys and mobiles in close proximity to infants and toddlers, allowing them to explore different objects.
• Ensure that infants and toddlers are in a flat, uncluttered space where they can move freely to reach the objects of their choice.
• Support children’s spontaneous and independent exploration.
• Offer a variety of objects to extend experiences.
• Various tactile experiences can be provided for them to explore, watch, and learn, e.g. bubble wrap.
• Verbalise your actions to reassure a child when you are engaging with them – particularly during care routines.
• Model play/actions for children to mimic.

Children

• The ability of a young child to communicate and participate with another is different to that of an infant or a toddler. Combining observation with specific challenges for children is often required by staff.
• Observe children’s pattern of play.
• Set up the environment with a variety of equipment and allow for continuity of experiences, e.g. do not constantly alter the placement of objects as children often return to continue with their learning experiences and build upon them depending on the level of interest and curiosity.
• Allow for spontaneous communication – could be non verbal to begin with.
• Promote spontaneous first language development through play and family/whānau engagement to enrich first language development.
• Encourage peer interactions to foster additional language acquisition.
• Create situations for interactions by following a child’s lead or asking open-ended questions, allowing for continuity of ideas and enquiry.
• Support their curiosity by increasing complexity and providing challenges to their enquiry.
  Encourage peer interaction – tuakana-teina model works well to foster verbal interactions with all children, particularly if they are bilingual.
• Allow for continuity of learning and interactions. This may include having flexible group times and following children’s learning conversations, providing the experience that goes with it, e.g. a topic of their discussion could lead to an exploratory outing in the community.