Communication and Motherese (part 1)

We all use non verbal communication, and it's something we are pretty much hard-wired to use with our infant children. It's intuitive. Because it's intuitive, when it doesn't happen for some reason or other the vast majority of us are probably unaware that it's not happening or why - although we may have a vague suspiscion that something is not quite right.

It is not a failure of the parents to interact with their child or to understand their communication or learning style. Many of the early interactions we have with children are "triggered", for example, by eye contact. The lack of this kind of early interaction has a cummulative affect, as the infant will ultimately have less opportunities to practice this two way banter.

This language is sometimes called "motherese" or child directed speech .

When Dimitri was a baby, he cried just as other babies did, but slowly but surely this crying stopped, and one day I suddenly realised that Dimitri never cried. I never knew whether he was hungry, thirsty, too hot too cold...or awake in the night. One night I woke up to a tap-tapping sound. Dimitri was still in his cot beside our bed, I looked over and saw his head was completely wrapped in a blanket and the tap-tapping was his feeble struggles to free himself. He was soaking wet with sweat.

At his 6 month check up I told the pediatrician that he never cried, "your lucky - other babies cry all the time when they are cutting their teeth". Four pediatricians later, Dimitri now 18months old, we were finally refered to a neurologist and started "therapy".

Dimitri was a very happy baby and had smiled early. He could be "engaged" and follow what people were doing - but always as a spectator. He loved to be entertained, so as this was what worked, this is what we did, "entertain", but there was no interaction and no initiation. Dimitri, if left to his own devices, would quite happily play and investigate simple toys all day long.

The 2 half hour sessions of pedagogy that Dimitri followed each week were based on teaching how to use a shape sorter "properly" etc, and follow instruction. As parents we received little information or advice. By the time Dimitri was two and a half, at home he prefered to play alone, although he still liked to be entertained - if anyone tried to join in his play he would turn his back or just abandon the toy altogether. He would turn his toy cars upside down and spin them or the wheels, and spent hours filling and empting a casserole pot with the same wooden blocks.

He had missed some of the vital basics of communication, that by interacting with his environment (us) he could affect it.