What really matters- An explosion of symbols, a new world of words- During this sensitive period, our toddlers go through an amazing transition from being somewhat trapped in the present and having to act to get their needs met to now being able to form a robust mental image of their wants and desires and label it with specific spoken words. Instead of pointing, grabbing your shirt and pulling you over to the doorway, They become able to look us in the eye and say “Go“. This transition does not happen overnight but is a gradual process beginning as early as 16 months and continuing up to their third year.

Whitney’s “Non-verbal world” of the here & now is more fully joined by a symbolic “Verbal world” of the past and future, of naming and categorizing. These two separate worlds can be exhilarating and confusing. Her familiar nonverbal world of experience lives with a completely separate version of the same event, a new world of words. Life now and forever will be lived in parallel as the verbal and nonverbal constructions of experience live together.

The challenge during this sensitive period, is to maintain the richness of the nonverbal world and the ability to be fully present in the here and now while encouraging the symbolic shaping and categorizing of experience-- and the ability to reflect on that experience. This is the beginning of a division of labor between the left brain and the right brain with the left kicking into high gear in its ability to carve up, label and sequence the world.

How to put it into practice-

Tuning In-

You will notice this explosion of words by the frequency of chatter. We often did not recognize the words Whitney was saying but simply noticed she was articulating sounds much more frequently than before. This chatter reveals a new level of ideas popping into our little toddlers’ heads and the emerging use of words as their attempts to share these ideas!

Extending/Bridging-

The key seems to be to propel this verbal ability (left brain led skill) while maintaining a solid connection to the richness and real context of the nonverbal experience (right brain led skill). We all want our children to excel with language because we know the importance of words and labeling things. One word of caution before we jump in is that words can also shatter a toddlers important connection to the present and leave him no where and worse off. So we want to be careful in properly introducing words that best provide bridges to the new verbal world. 

Identify and build upon the nonverbal experience.

Daniel Stern in “Diary of a Baby” provides a vivid example of the negative use of words. He describes a baby, named Joey, enthralled by a ray of light and the effects it is making on the floor. Joey is exploring this pool of bright and beautiful warmth with all of his senses-- feeling, hearing, touching, seeing-- including his lips. His mom breaks in and severs the simple wholeness of this experience. Instead of empathizing with what her baby is interested in, fascinated by, and richly experiencing, she is disgusted at seeing Joey’s lips on the floor and shouts “Don’t do that!”. The ensuing verbal exchange shatters the baby’s experience with his old friend the sunpatch, stops everything and leaves him listless, unable to bridge to the verbal world. Stern explains how this type of exchange must happen every day, many times a day in a collision between the nonverbal world and the world of words. To be able to jump out the of the nonverbal and embrace the verbal, toddlers need us to join their world seeing the situation from their perspective with empathy and then using words that help build upon and enrich the nonverbal experience. Stern ends by saying “It is important for parents to be aware of the potential for such breaks at this point in development when the child is struggling with learning a new code for old experiences. Empathetic caregivers can help the child knit together these two worlds.”

Offer our toddlers countless opportunities to translate their intentions into images, ideas and symbols.

Take the “departure” routine (see video on right), for example, Whitney would announce “Go” to express her intent to leave. She would be able to call up in her mind all the necessary preparation for such a departure. She would say “Coat”, “Shoe”, “Hat”. We would support her thinking about the departure by repeating her words and asking leading questions. (see “‘Go’- Departure Routine” video to right). Whitney was familiar with the “snack bag” that frequently accompanied her on her departures. Here she knows she has “apples”, “milk”/water, granola bar. (see Snack Bag video). Whitney can even imagine the future and the place that she is traveling to, the “A-Ha!” play center (See “A-Ha!” video). This reveals a miraculous new ability for thinking abstractly and using symbols or words as support for that thinking. Fostering symbolic expression in our child supports a higher level of awareness and communication.

We want to seize these opportunities to use words and they happen all the time during play as well. Words and symbols are learned most quickly if you connect them to your child’s gestures, motivations and strong feelings. Always try to relate the gesture to the symbol at least in the early stages of speech development. For example, if you are racing cars together, you can zoom your car by hers and excitedly call out “Fast”. Then at a much slower pace move your car next to hers and say “Slooow.” Using appropriate words to label the actions that she is able to see and duplicate will help her use them herself.

As our toddlers loosen their reliance on the concrete world and begin to imagine objects, behaviors and their symbols in words, they can more fully replay experiences for themselves that have occurred in the past and imagine the future. They can create new ideas that are made up of bits of behavior or feelings they have experienced before. These multisensory experiences will be held in memory for much longer periods of time and are the beginnings of more abstract thinking.