Guide your child to effective communication with this fully updated handbook. Language is about so much more than just words, and healthy communication is the foundation of your child’s ability to succeed emotionally, socially, and academically. The first eight years of life are a critical period of language and literacy development, and as a parent, you are your child’s primary role model as he or she begins to acquire speaking, reading, and writing skills. And yet, you may be uncertain of what constitutes typical language progress and of what activities and practices will enhance your child’s learning experiences the most. Fully revised and updated for our modern times, Beyond Baby Talk is here to guide you through the easiest and most engaging ways to instill strong communication skills in your child, and to provide fun for you both along the way.   Inside, you’ll find all of the essential steps and checkpoints to help you gauge your child’s progress, as well as easy methods to: • Evaluate and monitor your child’s spoken language development • Enhance your child’s literacy skills for improved spelling, reading, and writing abilities • Understand and navigate environmental influences on language development such as television, texting, and cultural slang • Recognize the signs of language and literacy progress problems—and know when to seek professional help In collaboration with and copyrighted by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)  www.asha.org/BeyondBabyTalk " Beyond Baby Talk combines accuracy with readability to produce an excellent resource for parents, caregivers, and clinicians alike." --Arthur C. Maelender, Ph.D., Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth "[ Beyond Baby Talk ] is well written and enjoyable to read....made concepts much easier to grasp and understand. I would definitely recommend to the families that I care for. " --Michael Metts, D.O., FAAP, FACOP, Des Moines University Kenn Apel, PhD, CCC-SLP, is a professor and chair of communication sciences and disorders at the University of South Carolina and a widely known researcher and educator in language and literacy development and disorders. Julie J. Masterson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a nationally known educator and researcher in speech, language, and literacy development. She is a professor of communication sciences and disorders at Missouri State University.  chapter 1 Getting Started: How You and Your Infant Create Language Together Did You Know? • At birth, infants prefer their mothers’ voices to other women’s voices. • To an infant, the human face is a fascinating object. • Infants can express many desires and wants before they can talk. As young, ­first-­time parents, Jim and Karen were relatively calm and ­self-­assured in their parenting skills for their infant daughter. Three weeks after their daughter’s birth, Karen and the baby had a nursing schedule set, and Jim was fast becoming an expert diapering service. They marveled over how beautiful their daughter was and wondered what her voice would be like when she began to talk. They knew children did not talk until about age one, and they were anxious to begin communicating with their little one. However, during that third week, something interesting happened. As Jim was changing her diapers, she smiled. He also noticed that her eyes seemed to brighten when Karen spoke from the other room. Suddenly he realized that his little girl was actually communicating already! Believe it or not, this first year of life will contain one of the greatest accomplishments of your infant’s life. It is during this first year that she will catch on to the notion of communicating. She will learn to take control of her mouth, forming the sounds of language that will serve her well as she begins to talk. She will learn to relate her needs in more predictable ways that can be easily understood by you. She will develop, in essence, the foundation for all future language learning. And your part in this learning is vital. As you will see, your actions and interactions with her will help her catch on to this incredible communication tool: language. What Is Language? The quality of your child’s life is dependent, to a great extent, on her ability to communicate. Language permeates all aspects of her experience; it’s an essential part of her being, how she connects with others, expresses herself, and gets the care she needs. Language is also important because it’s your window into your child’s ­personality—­her words let you in on her thoughts and feelings. Through language, you are able to guide and influence your child and pass your values on to her. So what is language? Language is composed of six systems or aspects of communication, all equally important, all different from one another. These systems include sound, meaning, word order, grammar, letters and letter patterns, and the social uses of language. Taken as a whole, they represent the rules we must follow w