What is the ‘talking dance’? It’s the interaction between the parent and child as communication connections are developing. The parent and baby are partners, joined together in practicing a variety of steps for language learning. The parent-teacher is the responder who models, guides and cheers on the learner. The newborn is involved with the talking dance -- first as a watcher and listener. It won’t be long before the young baby will start the back-and-forth exchanges of movements and sounds. It’s a social time filled with learning and excitement. Dance away!

”Serve & Return” – The Dance

“Serve and Return” opportunities may occur during any talking time with a baby. It’s a shared experience, done together facing each other. The baby may be on its back or in one’s arms or later-on sitting up while enjoying the full attention of their parent. The “ Serve and Return” dance steps are easy to learn, let’s begin!

The baby-serves an action using – eye contact, facial expressions, body movements, gestures or sounds. The baby wants to receive a response-a return from the parent. The returner-parent acknowledges the serve in a variety of ways, such as, a joyful expression-smile, copying their verbal sound, body touch-hug and/or saying words. Taking turns, pausing to wait for each response is important. But how to respond will depend on the age of the baby and the focus of talking time. For instance, in the first months, non-verbal serves are to be expected followed later by beginning cooing sounds.

Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University wrote in 5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return the following: “Supporting and encouraging rewards a child’s interests and curiosity. Never getting a return can actually be stressful for a child. When you return a serve, children know that their thoughts and feelings are heard and understood.”

“Serve and return” partnership – some examples:

• The baby serves up a cooing sound and the parent returns a smile and imitates the cooing sound back.
  OR
• Parent observes the baby making a serve by gazing at their milk bottle—parent takes this opportunity to return a response by saying, “Yes, that is your bottle. Here it is.” The baby happily serves by reaching and accepting the bottle. Parent provides a return by saying, “I love you!”
  OR

• An older baby may serve babbling sounds while pointing to a stuffed bear. Time for the parent to return a response-- “You’re pointing to the bear?” Baby shakes hands excitedly, signaling a serve of yes.. Parent claps hands together showing they’re excited as their response – the return. The baby copies by serving up clapping hands as the bear is being given to them. Parent returns with a smile and says, “Molly loves her bear!”

It’s important to note that researchers have found that a young baby first watches the eyes of the talker, until they’re around six months old. Once the babbling stage begins, there’s a shift in their focus. Their attention now goes to the speaker’s mouth. The need to learn how to form speech sounds leads them to use a form of lip reading. Developmental psychologist Dr. David J. Lewkowicz, stated after an extensive study “the baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they’re hearing. It’s an incredibly complex process.” Later, most one year-olds will go back to using direct-eye contact during talking time. Their talking skills are beginning to bust out—real words are starting to be expressed and the need to lip read has lessened or disappeared.

“Serve & Return” creates a back-and-forth dance, these two-way interactions are important for a baby’s brain development. It helps to increase and strengthen neural connections for learning, communication and social/emotional skills. It’s exciting to realize that “Serve & Return” is a successful talking time concept to be used with infants, babies, toddlers AND children of all ages! Keep on dancing!!!