The Interaction Coach

Joyce talks about a course for parents who want resources, coaching or therapy services that directly address their child’s communication needs. Find out more here. 

Today’s activity: Hold one object…

Alternating attention between two objects helps your child learn to scan their vision between two objects, which will help them when they want to make choices between objects.

The activity helps your…

Attention to objects helps your child learn about their world. They can pay attention with their vision or hearing.

Today’s activity: Use a variety of child-safe objects that make sounds to attract y…

Attention to objects lays the foundation for learning concepts. As they explore their world, they learn about the characteristics of objects.

Your child’s attention becomes more focused during this l…

Your child is refining and expanding the ways they can respond to you. At the same time, you are becoming more aware of the body signals they are sending that let you know their interests and prefere…

Music is another way for your child to learn about sounds and voices.

Today’s activity: Move in time to music to help your child feel the rhythm. Sing to associate your voice and intonation with the …

Vocal inflections are the expressiveness you put into your voice—such as surprise, excitement, scolding, soothing.

Using exaggerated vocal inflections helps your child notice the importance of these …

Joyce confesses to a mistake she made when shaping her grandson’s responses during a play routine in Level Two.

Extinction is when a behavior disappears from use because it is not being reinforced.

E…

A social game is a shared activity where you enjoy spending time together by engaging in a familiar back-and-forth routine. Notice that this skill emerges as children are just learning to get another…

Turn taking with sounds develops after your child has been doing some turn taking with movements.

Imitating sounds doesn’t just happen as soon as you start modeling sounds. We “shape” that response b…

Turn taking is an important conversation skill that started at Level 1. Now your child is showing more ways they can respond to you when they take a turn in your back-and-forth social exchanges.

Rein…

We build joint attention by using objects the child finds interesting. You need to know how your child shows this interest.

Start building joint attention by engaging with objects your child finds in…

Joint attention is when you both are paying attention to the same object or activity.

At Level Two, your child is building skills that are needed for joint attention such as recognizing things at a d…

This activity allows tummy time and encourages your child to want to move toward you.

Today’s activity: Put your child on tummy on a blanket on the floor or a bed. Be face-to-face at your child’s eye…

We all enjoy looking at ourselves in the mirror. Your child will enjoy watching and peeking in the mirror.

Today’s activity: Use a child-safe mirror. You can move the mirror up and down to play peek-…

Your child will learn to recognize your face from a distance.

Children learn through action and touch. When you let your child explore your face, it becomes even more familiar.

Today’s activity: Allo…

Mutual attention is paying attention to each other, noticing what the other person is doing and responding to the other person.

Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child has researched the early Serve…

Read blog post summarizing Level One.  

Download the list of Level One Targets and Activities.

Writing requires using fine motor skills (small movements of fingers). Your child starts to develop thes…

Children need coordinated eye movements for reading. This starts to develop at Level One, when your child starts to wave toward objects they see.

With practice, your child’s arm movements will be dir…

Speech is a complex task that requires coordinated muscle movements of your lips, tongue, throat, breathing and more. Difficulty with feeding can be an early indicator of later problems with forming …