Based on research originally published as: Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Masek, L. R. (2023). Embodied and embedded learning: child, caregiver, and context. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32(5), 369–378.

Key takeaways for caregivers

• Appreciate busy babies: Through their grabbing, swinging, walking, jumping, babbling, and cooing, babies learn about the world around them and their own place in it. Caregivers should take a moment to watch as their babies gather information and figure it all out. Babies are always learning.
• Join in on babies’ exuberant behaviors: Caregivers should sit with their babies as they play or move with them as the babies explore new spaces. As adults join in, they can find opportunities to support their babies’ learning by talking about what baby is doing, where they are going, and how they got there. When babies talk to their caregivers – or coo or babble or wave – adults should talk right back. Babies may not use words, but they are learning a lot about what it means to communicate.
• Structure an environment for learning: Caregivers should provide babies with a range of objects and spaces to explore while keeping safety in mind. Adults need to keep small objects that could be a choking hazard away from babies and remain vigilant as babies explore high places. They should also try to structure days and spaces around predictable routines to support their babies’ learning.

Babies’ natural curriculum

Babies are busy. From the moment they open their eyes in the morning, most babies are kicking, scooting, crawling, jumping, grabbing, mouthing, banging, crying, laughing, cooing, babbling, and so on. In a single day, babies interact with dozens of objects, take thousands of steps, and produce hundreds of vocalizations.

Caregivers should not misinterpret babies’ actions as misbehavior or inattention, but as part of learning.

In our recent article, we explained that this whirl of activity creates an ideal curriculum for learning how to use objects, walk, and talk. Drawing on our own and colleagues’ published research across cultures and communities, we summarize how babies – children under the age of three – learn about all three topics (i.e., how to use objects, walk, and talk) from three sources: (1) themselves, (2) the people around them, and (3) their environment.

Babies learn from themselves

Babies learn as they interact with objects around them, move through spaces and rooms, and produce sounds.

Exploring how to use objects

When babies bang a rattle on the ground, they learn that the rattle makes noise, that different noises are made when they bang the rattle on tile versus on carpet, and critically, that they control these effects. Each object in their environment offers unique lessons, so babies need a lot of practice interacting with those objects in a variety of ways to learn the objects’ functions: Before babies learn how to use objects as designed – for example, zipping, twisting, stirring – they engage in a lot of exploration in the form of banging, mouthing, and even throwing. Therefore, caregivers should not interpret babies’ actions as misbehavior or inattention, but as part of learning.

Practicing body movements

When babies scoot, then crawl, then cruise, then take steps, they learn how to support and balance their weight by adjusting their ever-changing bodies to accommodate their environment. Babies learn to adapt their movements on different surfaces – such as wood, carpet, grass, and even puddles. They learn to climb up hills and get down from couches. As babies begin to run, jump, skip, and move in other ways, their knowledge about themselves and their environment grows.

Photo by Adrie Molco on Pexels

Caregivers need to recognize that endlessly moving babies are practicing the motor skills needed to effectively interact with their environment – in essence, they are engaged in baby workouts! Of course, babies’ never-ending motivation to try new things and use their bodies in new ways means that one- to two-year olds are prone to injuries, so adults need to be sure to create a safe environment. Because new walkers will plunge down steps, gates or vigilant monitoring are essential.

Testing their vocal instruments

When babies babble, they learn how to move their tongue, lips, and mouth to create different sounds. As babies hear their own vocalizations, they refine their mouth movements and practice sounds that eventually will be combined into words.

Each “ba ba ba,” shriek, or playful “raspberry” teaches infants how to make sounds and communicate with others. Therefore, caregivers need to recognize that all these noises pave the way to future conversations and embrace the joy of watching babies figure out how to communicate.

Babies learn from people around them

Babies learn as parents and caregivers respond to their exuberant play, movements, and vocalizations.

Exploring objects together

When caregivers join in on babies’ interactions with objects – by talking, pointing, and engaging with their babies – they support learning. Babies learn words when caregivers talk about what babies are doing. For example, saying “red wagon” as baby pulls a wagon helps babies learn these words.

Joining in on babies’ play with objects also encourages babies to sustain their play for longer amounts of time and to engage in more complex play. A baby who is alone may bang a block on the ground, but with a caregiver, the baby may attempt to stack it or fit it into a shape sorter. As babies explore the objects around them, caregivers should join in by talking about the objects of their babies’ attention and playing along.

Making babies’ movements into a partner dance

When caregivers join in on babies’ big body movements – by talking and repositioning their own bodies – they help their babies learn about actions. Moving their own bodies in coordination with their babies’ creates proximity. Proximity allows for more learning moments because it is easier for caregivers to talk to and interact with their babies when they are nearby.

When caregivers join in on babies’ interactions with objects – by talking, pointing, and engaging with their babies – they support learning.

Describing babies’ behaviour – such as saying “jump jump” as baby jumps – helps babies learn the words for their actions. As babies move around, caregivers should move with them to create proximity and talk about what they are doing. Adults can also support their babies’ safety by supporting their developing motor skills, for example, by teaching baby to back down off the couch.

Building babies’ vocalizations into a duet

When caregivers join in on babies’ babbles and words – by verbally responding – they teach their babies that vocalizations are a way to communicate. Repeating a baby’s babbles may seem silly, but an adult’s babble contains sounds that more closely approximate the sounds that comprise words. As babies hear a more refined version of their own babble repeated back to them, they modify their babbles to become closer to the sounds of real speech.

Responding to babies’ early communications also helps babies understand how communication works: “I say something, then you say something in return.” This may seem rudimentary, but turn-taking is fundamental to effective communication.

As babies go from cooing to babbling to using words, the responses of their caregivers will change from repeating babies’ vocalizations and offering words to building on the words babies say to expand their knowledge. So even before babies use words, adults can start a conversation by responding in turn.

Babies learn from their environment

Babies learn about the objects, spaces, and routines of everyday life as they navigate their environments. Caregivers can help create environments filled with opportunities for learning.

Make a variety of objects available to babies

Balls provide opportunities to throw and bounce. Blocks allow for stacking and building. And dolls give babies the chance to snuggle and change diapers. But babies do not need toys to play. They can shake bottles, fit lids onto pots, pick flowers, and stack rocks.

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels

Caregivers should allow their babies to interact with a variety of safe objects  – from pots and pans to books and toys – so they can learn to use the wide variety of objects in their environment. As babies learn to use objects as they were designed (figuring out, for example, that shoes go on feet, a spoon is used for eating, or a box can be opened and closed), caregivers should provide their babies a safe time and space to explore these objects and join in the exploration.

Expose babies to a variety of spaces

The spaces available to babies offer opportunities to learn about how to effectively move around. Couches and stairs allow for climbing, slopes and slides provide opportunities for descending, and walls and trees give space for navigation. Similarly, moving on tile, concrete, grass, and carpet provides babies with opportunities to adapt their movements to different surfaces.

Playgrounds provide rich opportunities for babies to practice moving on a variety of surfaces and in a variety of ways.

Caregivers should allow their babies to explore a variety of safe places, including outdoors. Playgrounds provide rich opportunities for babies to practice moving on a variety of surfaces and in a variety of ways. Of course, adults need to be mindful of babies’ motor abilities and the demands of the play space, and monitor accordingly. Babies are not aware of what their bodies can and cannot do, especially as they learn new motor skills.

Use daily routines to support language learning

The different spaces of home are where babies engage in their everyday routines – such as mealtime in the kitchen and story time in the bedroom. Thus, the routines of daily life provide predictability for babies in ways that support learning words.

As babies eat lunch in the kitchen, they are exposed to the names of foods and utensils. As they get dressed in the bathroom, they are exposed to the names of body parts and clothing. And as they play and read books in their bedroom, they hear the names of animals, vehicles, colors, and more.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels

Caregivers can capitalize on these routines by naming the objects that are a part of daily activities with their babies instead of using too many pronouns. For example, when helping an infant dress, instead of saying “Put it on,” the adult might say, “Put the sock on your foot.” Similarly, at lunchtime, instead of telling a baby to “eat them,” the caregiver might say, “Eat the peas.” Such language-rich responses help babies understand and learn.

Babies learn from their own exuberant activity, so caregivers do not have to be involved every minute. They should allow their babies the freedom to explore and make mistakes while also structuring the environment to facilitate safe exploration.

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Parents boost language development in early childhood by naming what children see, touch, smell, taste and do as they play.

What do you see, watching young children wander from one object to another, feeling, holding and playing with whatever they find of interest? In a single hour, toddlers will typically touch around 100 different objects, spending just 10 seconds, on average, playing with each.

In this whirlwind of exploration, I see a huge opportunity for adults. Children’s play offers a chance for them to name and describe what catches their children’s attention. In this way, they can support language development and foster the basic building blocks for literacy, maths and socio-emotional skills. Any parent can do it, but many don’t recognise the benefits that talking can offer.

Parents — and even some educators — mistakenly regard a child’s foraging play as frivolous. Instead of perceiving a wonderfully exuberant, exploring, learning child, some adults worry that their young children are inattentive, too easily distracted, and lacking in concentration.

Some parents will try to persuade their busy two-year-olds to keep playing with the dolly or the building blocks, concerned that toddlers should already be able to meet the requirement for school-age children to sit still and regulate themselves emotionally and behaviourally. They may even fear – as a child moves from one object to another – that this wandering signals the beginnings of eventual failure in class. Sadly, some adults may be happier when children are sitting quietly in front of a screen. In that case, parents may imagine that their children are actively engaged. But, in fact, they are simply mesmerised and not learning much at all.

It’s time to revive the ideal of exuberant children and work alongside them to foster language development in early childhood.  When toddlers wander through space, carrying and fingering things, moving from object to object, they are learning so much about how objects feel and work, and about what they can do to manipulate them or create imaginary play scenes.

“It’s time to revive the ideal of exuberant children … as children engage in different types of play, what they hear from adults can promote specific skills and language development in early childhood.”

Children are also exercising self-agency. Often, they don’t choose toys. Children love to swing doors, press buttons on electronic devices and bang pots as well. Anything can become an object for play. In affluent homes, young children certainly play with an abundance of toys. However, they spend around 40 per cent of their time playing with ordinary household items – remote controls and toilet paper are such fun toys!

Support language development in early childhood

As children play in different ways, what they hear from adults can promote specific skills and language development in early childhood.  For example, when children pretend play – feeding a teddy, say, or putting it to bed –a parent might join in with a supportive narrative. ‘Teddy is hungry – why don’t you feed him,’ mom or dad might ask.  Or they might say: ‘Teddy is tired – is it time to put her to bed?’

Photo: docmonstereyes. Creative Commons.

By using internal and mental state words, pretending teddy is hungry or tired, parents help their children appreciate the emotional states that underpin actions, scaffolding children’s understanding of other people’s minds and thoughts. These actions help develop vital social and emotional skills.

Such contingent, responsive conversation from adults—labelling, describing and talking about what interests the child in the moment—has an important impact on language development in early childhood. The process needs attuned, talkative parents. But it also requires freedom for inquisitive, searching children to forage and explore lots of things in the environment during their play. A child who never picked up a candle or a pillow or a spoon would be less likely to hear and therefore learn the words for these objects.

Language development in early childhood helps maths and literacy

When children play with puzzles and blocks, they are likely to hear language for counting and for moving objects: “Put it on top … it’s fallen down … place it next to … behind … around”. Such prepositional phrases are spatial, relational terms that support the development of maths skills. And they all arise from children playing with, and talking about, different objects.

Likewise, play and adult engagement help children learn verbs. Think of all the actions that could be involved with play –for example, turn the knob, press the button, throw the ball, or pull the string. As children manipulate objects and adults respond by labelling possible actions, a vocabulary rich with verbs naturally grows.

Research has sometimes lacked insight into these processes of language development in early childhood. When studying play, researchers tend to give children and their parents some toys and then film their interactions to observe how well the parents are attuned to their children. But these studies have taken place in contrived settings, where parents and children have little else to do besides play with the toys in front of them. We’ve not followed little children in their daily lives to understand what they do in their everyday environments. We have few norms for how children interact with objects under conditions that aren’t artificial.

“Follow the child’s lead. Name the objects that the child touches and find words to describe their actions.”

Lacking a real understanding of what’s OK for young children, I sometimes find, well-off parents worry because, instead of sitting still and playing with his toys, their 15-month old likes to wander off and try different activities.  Parents should not expect toddlers to act like five-year-olds. Sitting still is not developmentally appropriate.

Moving around a lot is evolutionary and adaptive for toddlers and young children. It fits what we know from neuroscience, which shows that synaptic connections grow rapidly in early childhood. These connections will be pruned back in later years as children become more focussed. Adults should talk to toddlers and young children about the objects of children’s play and follow the children’s lead, rather than forcing children to sit still.

Show parents how to support language development in early childhood

It’s important to get this message out to parents. I recently conducted research in the homes of disadvantaged families. I watched exuberant, exploring children touching different toys. But many of those children played amid adult silence. Their parents didn’t view children’s play as an opportunity for learning language. As a result, the children weren’t exposed to valuable language inputs that might help them to connect words to their play actions.

Why not? Parents said their children were occupied and they were happy to let them be. That’s understandable for parents who may see their role as keeping children nourished and safe, and intervening only when children are unhappy. Those roles are paramount. Yet we should also help parents recognise the benefits of talking with children while they are playing. That play is not frivolous. It matters.

Easy for adults to give words to play

Our workshops with parents – which demonstrate how to include language in everything young children do – have been extremely successful. Some parents didn’t understand that children’s everyday activities during play offer valuable opportunities for children to learn language. Once parents were shown this, they found it quite easy to talk about whatever their children were doing.

Such interventions are much simpler than the sometimes complicated child-rearing prescriptions that parenting programmes offer. Our message is straightforward – follow the children’s lead, be it at bath time or play time or during meals. Name the objects that the children touch and find words for their actions. Parents have the tools to do this. They just have to get the message.

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Computers can’t replace the vital language inputs that caregivers provide, finds research that highlights the importance of social interaction.

Infants learn language from high-quality, responsive interactions with other people, usually their parents, for a host of reasons that research by my team and others is helping us to understand. They don’t learn from apps, television, or videos, even those that are labelled as “educational”.

This reality flies in the face of a common misconception that screen time can be learning time. It’s an understandable mistake. Babies stare at the screen, enraptured by what they see. But that attention and focus is misinterpreted as a signal that they’re learning.

It’s true that babies are drawn to visually changing fields, colours, sounds and movement, and they find them interesting. But that doesn’t mean they’re processing the language that accompanies the otherwise appealing images and sounds.

“Babies were asked, for example, to point out objects such as a flower. Those babies who had interacted with their mothers knew the word. Those who had watched the DVD didn’t learn the word.”

In a study by Patricia Kuhl, for example, an adult spoke Mandarin to babies raised by English-speaking parents. Other babies instead watched a video of someone speaking Mandarin in precisely the same way. Infants exposed to the live speaker learned to discriminate among the speech sounds of Mandarin. In contrast, those who watched the video learned virtually nothing.

In another study, mothers were asked to take every opportunity to say various words to their babies for what was around them – such as “flower”, “grass”, and “water” —during everyday interactions. Other moms were given access to a DVD that contained the same words and their pictures. They played the DVD to their babies repeatedly. Later, the babies were asked to point out what they had been taught. Babies who were exposed to the words in the course of their interactions with their mothers had learned the words. Those who watched the DVD had not.

The Importance of Social Interaction in Language Development

So, why is social interaction vital to language development? There seem to be several reasons why social interaction is important, particularly during infancy, for learning language.

Combining findings across many studies, a picture begins to emerge that spotlights the importance of responsive and synchronous communications, infants’ understanding of others’ intentions, the rich social cues contained in caregivers’ interactions, and the ways that caregivers gradually modify their language and other behaviors to accommodate infants’ growing skills.

Let’s break down these reasons in more detail.

1. Babies benefit from responsive, synchronous interactions with others
2. Babies understand that humans have intentions
3. Caregivers offer many supportive cues to infant language learners
4. Building on existing knowledge

1. Babies Benefit from Responsive, Synchronous Interactions with Others

The first reason that social interactions support language learning is because of the synchrony between what infants do and how caregivers respond. Synchrony between a baby’s actions and perceptions is generally important. When they reach out and touch, say, a doll, touch and look are temporally aligned. In the same way, they learn language because when they touch the doll, they hear and gradually learn the word “doll”.

And just like adults, they notice when this synchrony is disrupted, for example, when the soundtrack for a film goes out of sync. One study by Philippe Rochat filmed babies as they kicked their legs so they could see the video of their own actions, mirror-like, in real time. When the playback was shifted by several moments, the infants became upset by the asynchronistic display.

A critical factor – and one that an app struggles to mimic – is the in-the-moment responsiveness of parents or caregivers to their babies’ interests. For example, a baby might move, vocalize, play with, gesture or look towards a toy truck and—just as they do so—the caregiver might say the object’s name or describe what’s going on. This helps infants learn the words for the objects and events of their world. An app or DVD can’t easily figure out what infants are looking at or touching, so it can’t react in the same way.

“Parents employ an arrray of skills to help infants to understand… No computer can know so well the infant who is watching the video – parents are better than any algorithm.”

The connection between babies’ actions and the responses of their caregivers is also important at an emotional level. Moms and dads engage their babies in back-and-forth reciprocal interactions, smiling, speaking, and gesturing in turn—and babies love this. In fact, babies can get quite upset when their actions become unlinked from their caregiver’s reactions.

Researchers have demonstrated this through what’s called the “still face paradigm”, in which the mom is instructed to keep her expression frozen even when the baby coos, babbles or laughs. In the presence of a mother’s frozen behaviors, a baby becomes upset, cries and does whatever it takes to encourage mom to re-engage and respond.

2. Babies Understand That Humans Have Intentions

Another reason that interactions with parents are more meaningful than interactions with apps is that infants recognise that people are distinctive in having intentions and goals. At this early age, they don’t seem to recognize intentionality in characters or in moving images on a screen.

Amanda Woodward’s research showed babies a hand that was reaching for one of two objects. In the experiment, the babies’ gaze was tracked. When the hand reached instead for the other object, the babies suddenly paid attention—they were surprised because they thought the person liked the first object.

In contrast, when the toys were grabbed by a mechanical claw, the babies didn’t react—they didn’t care which toy the claw picked up. Social intentions involving live humans, as compared with simple actions, seem to have much more meaning to a baby.

Interested in reading more articles on infants? Find all of our articles on babies here.

3. Caregivers Offer Many Supportive Cues to Infant Language Learners

A third factor is that parents use an array of skills to help infants to understand. For example, melodic contours in their speech can direct a baby’s focus.

Tone and pitch changes align with the word that’s being learned. These modulations are accompanied by physical cues to meaning, such as: ‘Wow, there’s your cup,’ while shaking the cup, or pointing at it or touching it.

These social cues tell the baby where to look and what the person is talking about. Looks, gestures, and changes in voice can function much like a spotlight during a play—they focus the baby’s attention on what’s important.

It may be possible for a computer to highlight a salient object, but it’s still not as good as a live, three-dimensional person interacting with a baby in real time.

4. Building on Existing Knowledge

A fourth factor in infant language development is the way a parent—better than an app or a DVD—can build on or scaffold existing language. So when a baby says “Ba”, mom might say “Ball”, building on what the baby already knows. This reflects the caregiver’s skill at attuning to the baby’s developmental level.

So once babies know that something is a cup, a spoon, or a ball, parents don’t keep telling them. Instead, a parent responds with new words that are not yet in the child’s vocabulary. Sentence lengths increase, and grammar is extended. New words are introduced, gradually raising children’s knowledge.

No computer knows so well who is watching the video—parents are better than any algorithm. Good practice also develops language by doing much more than using simple imperatives such as “look at that,” “stop” or “listen”. Parents build language by using lexically diverse words about, for example, colours, smells and tastes.

Some people, such as some fathers, may not be so closely attuned to the baby if they spend less time at home, but this might serve an important purpose. Jean Berko Gleason published a fascinating paper based on filming fathers with their babies. She found that, for the most part, moms were with the babies more than the dads, so when the baby said “haa”, mom understood that the infant wanted water. But Dad might not know, so he tended to ask the baby more questions.

As a result, the infant modified its language and said “water”. Berko Gleason called fathers “the bridge to the outside world”. Their unfamiliarity and lower levels of attunement meant that they challenged infants to reframe what they said more clearly to fit in with the wider world.

What Should Parents Do?

What’s the message to parents and policy-makers? As a start, it’s important to distinguish between the value of live social interactions and the reputedly informative inputs of apps. However, not all screen time is the same. In fact, there’s good news for parents who can’t be with their children because of travel and other reasons, or for grandparents who live far away. It’s that video chat apps such as Skype can help with language learning.

An important study demonstrated that it’s not video technology per se that delays language learning in infants. The problem is a lack of reciprocity between the baby and the medium. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek conducted a study which considered whether babies could learn from Skype interactions. For example, if babies saw someone on Skype showing them one of their toys such as a teddy, could the babies learn language? The answer was yes, highlighting that this medium’s interactivity provides better support for language learning than just watching a DVD or an app.

Nonetheless, research highlights the many reasons that parents and caregivers are central to language learning by infants around 1 or 2 years old—and why they don’t learn language by watching TV or viewing DVDs and apps. And children won’t fall behind on their technical skills with computers if they wait till ages 3 or 4.

Research by my team and others on infant language learning suggests that well attuned human interaction at the earlier stage helps infants talk and understand the people around them. These are the skills that underpin so much of what they will do and study in the future. We should be careful not to let our fascination with technology (or the fascination of babies) delay or hamper richly responsive, in-the-moment interactions, which are unparalleled building blocks of language development.

The Child and Family Blog writes on the latest research on how families influence child development. To discover more research, please browse our articles here.

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