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Find out how to use tips from the ESDM for early social-communication skills important to life-long learning, behavior, and health with your child or with families whom you support in an early childhood learning environment.
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Read monthly research about intervention outcomes for children with or at risk of autism; coaching supports for their families; and/or family-centered, culturally inclusive coaching tools to help early childhood professionals support families. Each monthly article is publicly available for free access.
Toddlers and their caregivers spent about half of the time engaged in play with toys, play with people, and play with props. Children communicated at significantly higher rates per minute during book sharing and play with people compared to other interaction contexts. Most child communication was for the function of joint attention during book sharing, for social interaction during play with people, and for behavior regulation during necessary activities such as family chores and meals. Parents used a variety of responsive and directive communication that followed their child’s focus of attention with book sharing and play contexts associated with the highest proportion of comments.
Infants and toddlers learn by engaging with caregivers during the ordinary activities that families do every day. These vary across and within cultures and are highly individualized; however, every family participates in repeated interactions that help them function, form connections with each other, and provide enjoyment for family members. Results offer insight into the dynamic exchanges and range of skills that can be naturally enhanced within the activities, interactions, and shared experiences they do every day.
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Books are for reading, right? To this we reply an emphatic “Yes! And…” Reading with a child is important on many levels and in addition, you might consider how to use board books you have lying around your home, clinic, daycare, or other early childhood learning environment as a toy. These heavy-duty book are versatile and can be added into many other toy sets that you may have to help expand the complexity of the play.
Pay attention to what children like (or seem curious about) and follow their lead as long as you are a part of the action, too. Remember, the most important thing is for children to have fun doing this with you! Fun means engagement and that excites children's brains and bodies for meaningful learning to happen.
Simple play actions that encourage children to explore, use their senses, and move their bodies:
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A board book can serve as a perfect ramp for a ball or car. You can either set it up like an upside-down “v” or put one end of the book on something taller (like a box) to create a ramp. You can also hold it slanted over the edge of a table, that way, when you put a car down the ramp, it will crash to the floor (what could be more fun for a toddler than making things crash loudly?). While you’re playing, you can use sentences such as, "The car is up. It went down. You’re pushing the car. The car is going fast!"
- Board books can be stacked into a tower either lying flat or standing up (alternate the direction of the “v” so that they stand on top of each other). You can say things such as, "We’re stacking the books. It’s on top. We made a tower. The books crashed!"
- If you are playing with a train set, books can serve as wonderful tunnels to put over the tracks. Then you can use location words like, "The train is under. It went through the tunnel." And you’ve also expanded the train set play so that it has more steps and complexity.
Imaginary play that encourages children to make-believe and role-play:
- Books can serve as great little houses if they are turned upside down. Line a few of them up and you have garages to park cars in or houses for small animal or people figures as you describe, "The sheep is in his house. The house is dark. The sheep is sleeping."
- Pretend that an upside-down book is a car wash for a toy car. You can talk about how the car is dirty, make some funny washing noises while it goes through the car wash, and when it comes out you can talk about how it is clean now.
- If you are playing with toy animals or people, introduce the idea that it is raining (you can make rain noises and move your hands/fingers up and down like rain) and help the child put all of the animals or people into the house (overturned book) so that they stay dry.
