You Already Do the Most Important Thing — You Just Don't Know Why Ep 162

You've been narrating everything. Labeling. Reading. Filling the room with language. 

And nothing seems to be sticking.

That's because your words only land when your child's attention and yours are on the same thing, in the same moment. 

It's called shared attention — and you're already doing it without knowing how much it matters.

In this episode I unpack what shared attention actually looks like between 12 and 24 months, the difference between a request and a shared moment, the connection to autism screening, and the one shift that makes your words actually land. Plus the discipline of the wait — counting to five so your child's brain has room to respond.

One skill. One shift. Two minutes a day.

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Educational and coaching information only. This episode is not a substitute for an individual speech-language, developmental, behavioral, or medical evaluation.

Transcript

Erin 0:00

There is a difference between your child pointing at a cookie up on the counter because he wants you to get it for him, and your child pointing at a bird outside the window because he wants you to see it with him they look almost the same, but they are completely different experiences. And Here's what it's missing entirely.

Speaker 2 0:27

Hello, and welcome to Talking Toddlers, where I share more than just tips and tricks on how to reduce tantrums or build your toddler's vocabulary. our goal is to develop clarity, because in this modern world, it's truly overwhelming. This podcast is about empowering moms to know the difference between fact and fiction, to never give up, to tap into everyday activities so your child stays on track. He's not falling behind. He's thriving through your guidance. We know that true learning starts at home. So let's get started.

Erin 1:06

Your child does something several times a day that you've probably never thought twice about. He sees a dog across the yard. He stops, he points, and then he turns around and looks right at you. Not because he wants the dog, not because he needs something, just to see if you see it too. And that look back, that tiny turn of his head, is one of the most important things your child does at this age. It's the moment where communication actually begins. Not words, not sentences. This. And most parents walk right past it because nobody ever told you what you were looking at. Here's what you were told instead. Talk more. Narrate everything. Name every color, every truck, every animal, every baby doll, all on the page, who's doing what. Read more books. Describe what you're doing while you're doing it. Fill the room with language. And you do it. You have been doing it since the day he or she was born. You're narrating your way through breakfast, through bath time, through every car ride, and every walk up and down the block. And honestly, you're exhausted from it because nothing's moving. He's not repeating your words. She's just looking at you. He's not pointing at things when you name them. He doesn't seem to even be absorbing any of it. So you assume you're not doing enough, and you double down. More words, more books, more labeling. Still nothing. And here's the part that nobody tells you. You aren't failing. Your words aren't broken. He doesn't have a hearing problem. They're just not landing where you think they are. Because every word, every label, every sentence you speak to your child has to pass through a gate before it can begin to stick, and that gate has a name. It's called attention And I know a lot of people have a lot of misunderstanding about what attention is and how we develop it and where it lies on this whole communication journey especially in this modern-day life. But before we go any further, I just want to make a quick note here. If you want a clear map about what actually builds a good, strong talker step by step, starting before the words, grab the free guide that I made just for you. It's down in the description. It's free. It will help you see what the precursors are to true intentional talking, right? So grab it to learn step by step. Meanwhile, we'll keep going with what is attention And just to give you a quick background, welcome to Talking Toddlers. I am Erin Hyer. I'm a speech-language pathologist with nearly 40 years of clinical work in private practice, public schools, medical settings in multiple states. And several years ago, I closed my private practice, and now I work directly online with parents as a coach and a consultant, helping families get ahead of communication problems before they become big enough for anyone to label. And that's what it's all about, prevention first. That's where I live today for you. And this episode, I believe, is the heart of all of it. The belief that drives most parents when they're worried about language is simple: more words in equals more language out. I talk more, they start to imitate. That makes intuitive sense. Fill the room with language, and the child absorbs it. You talk more, the more they hear. The more they hear, the faster they learn. And that belief isn't entirely wrong. Input does matter, of course, and I talk about that a lot here. But here's what it's missing entirely. Input without shared attention doesn't stick. You can narrate all day. You can label everything in the house, and many, many parents do. But if your child isn't focused on the same thing you're focused on in the same moment, those words float right past him. I'm sure you've experienced it. They're just sounds in the room, background noise even. Not because he's ignoring you on purpose, but because his brain literally cannot map a word onto something that he isn't attending to. He isn't in it with you The variable was never the volume or the word count. It's aim. So what happens during all of that? You talk more. You try harder. You read an article or you look up something online about language development. You buy more books. You download apps. You ask your friends and your family. You try flashcards. And you're doing everything you're picking up, everything that everybody else says to do, and still nothing really moves, or it is moving so slowly you can't really tell or measure the difference from week to week. And that gap between the effort you're putting in and the progress that you're seeing, it does something to you over time. And I know it. I've seen it. I have felt it with hundreds of moms over the years. You start to wonder if something is wrong with him, or you start to wonder, "Is something wrong with you? Am I just not a good parent? Or is there such a disconnect between this innocent baby of mine and me?" Meanwhile, the actual mechanism sitting underneath all of this, the thing that makes language input actually work, has been invisible to you. Not because you can't see it. You actually do it every day without thinking about it. When your baby coos at a toy, you lean in, you make eye contact, you repeat the sound back. You're doing it. When you point at an airplane and you say, "Look," and then you wait for him to look up, you're doing it. You just didn't know it had a specific name and that it carried so much weight. It's shared attention. In my field, we call it joint attention. S- But the term doesn't really matter. The skill a- and, and the experience does. And believe me, it is the gatekeeper for everything that follows. Here's what joint attention actually means in plain terms. Two people are focused on the same thing at the same moment, and both are aware that they're sharing it. That's it. That's the whole thing. Not just being in the same room, not just looking at the same general direction, a specific shared focus and a mutual awareness that is happening between you. That look back that your child does when he points to the dog, that's joint attention already working. He saw something. He wants you to see it, too, and he checks. He turns to look at your face to confirm that you're in it with him. That's communication. That's shared communication. That check is the signal. That is the moment where his brain is most ready to receive whatever you say And here's something most parents don't understand or aren't aware of. There is a difference between your child pointing at a cookie up on the counter because he wants you to get it for him, and your child pointing at a bird outside the window because he wants you to see it with him They look almost the same, but they are completely different experiences. The cookie point is a request. He wants something and he's using you to get it. That's transactional. The bird point is social. He wants to share that experience with you. He's not asking for anything. He's inviting you into the moment. That second one, the social point, the one where he's sharing, not requesting, that is joint attention. And that is the foundation for every word, every sentence, every conversation that will eventually come out of his mouth. And here's what makes this even more concrete. Joint attention isn't something that either exists or doesn't. It builds. It has a progression. And if you know what to look for, you can see it developing in real time. So let me walk you through some of the, the growth steps. Somewhere around 12 to 15 months, your child starts to point to show you things, not to ask, but to share, right? They start pointing. He sees a truck, he points. He looks back at you, he looks back at the truck. There's a shared moment. That back and forth, object to you and then back to the object, that's the earliest version of this skill showing up. And then between 15 and 18 months, it gets a little richer. He starts bringing things to you, not because he's done with them or that he needs your help, but because he wants you to see it too. He wants to share it with you. It could be a rock, a leaf, a toy that she pulled from the bin. They walk it over to you and hold it up. That's joint attention becoming more active So he's not just responding to share moments anymore, he's actually re-creating them for you. And somewhere between 18 and 24 months, you'll start seeing where gestures and early words are really combining, and that is pivotal. He points at the dog and says something. Maybe it's, "Duh, duh," or, "Augie, augie," or, "Woof, woof," right? Maybe it's just a sound or a noise. But he's pointing and vocalizing at the same time, and then checking your face. That combination, gesture plus sound, plus focused attention with you, is the scaffold that language gets built on. So vocabulary starts to take off from this point, and it's not a coincidence. The attention system is finally mature enough to support it. That's not a checklist, it's, it's a window, right? That's a developmental window that we need to honor and respect and nurture. A way of watching your child that tells you more about where his communication actually is at that time will give you great insight, much more than looking it up on a developmental milestone chart or, you know, searching the internet, what do two-year-olds do? Now let me share that some children move through this progression naturally, almost effortlessly. And some of you are sitting there thinking, "Oh, yeah, this happens all the time," right? They're pointing and checking back at you. They're bringing you things all day. The shared focus is easy and frequent and comfortable. Other children need more from you to get there, more face-to-face positioning, more following their lead, their gaze, right, more patience in the pause before they look back. That doesn't mean that something's wrong with them or with you, right? It means that they need a more active partner in the building of this skill. If this skill is so pivotal and consequential in growth and development of human communication, then some kids need more of a direction, right, more of a hand over hand. But here's something I want to say directly because it truly, truly matters. In nearly 40 years of clinical work, the vast majority of children I saw who were later identified as being on the autism spectrum had difficulty with joint attention early on. It is often a question that maybe your pediatrician or a therapist might ask you if you have concerns, but I don't think anybody really explains what it means or how to nurture it. It was one of the earliest observable signs when I worked with kids that ended up being diagnosed with autism, and it's often before any other flag was noted. That does not mean that your child is on the autism spectrum if he's not pointing yet and looking back at you, and it doesn't mean that you sit with it and just accept whatever comes. It means you have a window, like I said earlier, right now in these early years, one and two and three, where building this skill intentionally can change the trajectory. I've seen it over and over again. That is not a safeguard against a diagnosis, but it is a prevention. That is exactly what I'm here doing each and every week. We can prevent things from going awry. And one more thing, not every child does it in a textbook manner with a nice, clear, pointed finger and looking back at you. And some children don't really even point, but they use their whole body. They get excited. They have a sound. They reach, or, or their form of reaching and getting you to look in their direction is a whole body experience, right? If your child is trying to share a moment with you in any way, even if it doesn't look like the classic index finger pointing, that counts. I want you to receive it and acknowledge and be in it with him. So what does this actually look like when we need to support it, It starts with a shift, not in what you say, but in where you look. And, and I think this takes a little contemplation, I, I... and I want you to consider how you're engaging with your little one during the day. Right now, you're probably choosing what to talk about and then trying to bring your child's attention to it, And that's just a natural default, I think, for most adults. You hold up a ball and you say, "Ball," right? Or you point to a picture and you say, "Cat," You're leading with the label and hoping that his attention follows. What I want you to consider is flipping that. Instead of bringing him to your focus, you go to his or hers. Watch him. Before you say a single word, find what he's already looking at or attentive to. Get down to his level, get into his line of sight, and then, only then, name what he's already attending to. You're putting language to what his eyes are seeing. If he's watching the ceiling fan spin, you don't redirect him to a book. You say, you lay down with him and say, "Round and round the fan." And both of you are watching it. You can even blow on his face. The fan makes air, right? If he's staring at a dog through the window, you don't pull him away to try to get him to do a puzzle with you. You get next to him and say, "Dog. Woof, woof. Dog," while his eyes are already there. That only takes a couple of moments. And then, this is the part almost everyone skips, you wait. Not a half a second pause before you say something and move on to the next thing, but a real wait. In your head, count to five, seven, eight sometimes. Give his brain the time to actually process what he just heard, translate it, right, decode it, connect it to what he's looking at, and then generate some kind of response. It could be a look at you, look at him, or look at the object, or a sound, a gesture, a smile, anything. That response time, though, is typically much longer than you ever realized. Much longer. And I know it's hard. Most parents fill it in, and the truth is unfortunately, most therapists and teachers do as well. They fill it in with another word, another label. You expand upon it, right? Another prompt, because that silence feels uncomfortable, like nothing's happening. Something is happening. The wheels are turning. He's coding what you said. You just can't see it yet. His brain is working. If you are in that shared moment with him, he's looking at the dog through the window, and you say, "Woof, woof, doggy," he'll turn and look at you, then look back at it. Give it time. Give it room to connect. And that's the shift. You're not teaching him single words. You're catching the moment when his brain is ready to receive one that's related to what he's looking at and attending to. And when he points, you receive that. Don't redirect it. Don't dismiss it. Don't correct it. Don't turn it into a lesson. Just acknowledge it. He's inviting you into a shared moment. Accept the invitation. Say something short. "Oh, wow. I see that big truck." Match his excitement or his interest level. Let him feel that what he found was worth sharing. That response, your response, is what teaches him to do it again. And if you listen to me every week, you'll see a thread here because last week I introduced my whole platform of the three Ps: present, purposeful, and playful. Joint attention is where all three of those actually meet. So you can't share attention with your child if you're not present. You can't follow his lead if you're not purposeful about watching before speaking. And the warmth or the delight, the responsiveness that makes him want to share the next moment with you, guess where that comes from? That's playfulness, lightheartedness. That's the energy that keeps the window open So for this week, let's just focus on one thing. I know what your day looks like. Too many toys, too much background noise, maybe the TV is on, somebody needs a snack, somebody needs a diaper change. There's a program at 10:00 or a play date at 10:00, but there's a nap at 12:00. And in the midst of all of this, I have to figure out what are we gonna have for dinner. And in the middle of all of that, connection gets lost. It has to. Days are busy. And it's not because you don't care, but it's because there's no room left for that connection because it's just go, go, go, move, move, move. Every minute is filled. Every silence gets covered. And the thing your child actually needs from you, your presence, your shared attention, your unhurried focus, gets crowded out by everything else competing for that space. You don't have to do this all day. I'm not suggesting that. You can't. Nobody can. That is not my point here. But here's the key. You can find pockets, small moments of everyday events on the floor, at the table, in the yard, where you can stop, get low, get close, find that emotional connection, that energy, and give him your full attention for two or three minutes. That's it. No agenda, no lesson plan, just you and him or her in sync, breathing the same air, looking at the same thing. There's a shift that happens in those moments, and I used to do it all the time in one-to-one therapy. And parents would feel it when I would get down to- on their kid's level, and I would just have just enough space between him and me, and they would know that they're being recognized, that we're sharing this moment. And if you do this, I assure you, you will feel it too. The energy between both of you changes. It- he settles, you settle, you're in it, just for a minute or two. And then what happens is something opens up that wasn't there 30 seconds ago. That is where development lives, right? True work, not across the whole day, but in those pockets. So before you name anything, before you label or narrate or teach, and we have to do all of that stuff too. I am not disregarding that. But before you get there, find what your child is already looking at or interested in. Get down to his level, get into his line of sight or her line of sight and watch for a second or two. A pregnant pause, Then you can speak. That's the move. Attention first, language second. Always in that order And, and you could think of it, it, it could be he's looking at the buckle when you're trying to get him in the car seat, and you stop for a moment and you acknowledge that. Buckle, snap. Buckle. Or he's looking at the rain outside through the window, and you take a moment of your busy, busy day and watch the rain fall with him. And when he points at something and then turns to look at you, whatever you're doing, try your best to stop and respond, even if it's that same truck that he has pointed to four times this morning. That repetition isn't meaningless, it's practice. That's what they need. His communication, his pool to pull from is very limited, so he's gonna use what he has He's building the skill, and every time you respond, you acknowledge, you're confirming that sharing a moment with another person is worth doing. That's the beginning. That's where human communication and dialogue begins. Here's what I want you to take from this episode. Believe me, you're not doing anything wrong. You've just been taught the wrong order, All of that narration, and I talk about narrating all the time, All of the labeling, all of that reading and talking, It is not wasted. It just needs a landing pad. Think of it that way. It needs some place to land to, and that landing pad is shared attention. Your child's eyes and your eyes on the same thing in the same moment, and you both acknowledge it. When that's in place, your words stop floating by. They begin to land. They begin to stick, and they begin to build. That's what true language acquisition is. But attention, joint attention, that is the gatekeeper. Everything else in language development passes through this initial gate. If you want the full picture of what builds a healthy talker step by step before words actually come on board, remember to grab that free guide that I have down below in the description. It will help you see where your child is with the precursors, and then help build that joint attention so next week, we will continue this conversation about the precursors and the steps leading to his ability to use language intentionally, fluently, i- as a conversational partner. So you don't wanna miss that one. I'm so grateful you show up every Tuesday. Talking Toddlers. God bless. Take care. Enjoy the moments. I'll see you next week