ABSTRACT
From birth, children react to things going on inside them and around them. Gradually these reactions and changes in behaviour become planned and controlled by the child. Eventually the child begins to deliberately aim his behaviour at the adult in order to give a message. In the early stage, it is rather hit and miss, but by the established stage the adult is in no doubt that the child is communicating a message, and we describe the child as being an ‘intentional communicator’. Using the following framework based on work by Coupe O’Kane and Goldbart (1998) enables us to consider all children to be communicators, however subtle their behaviour, and to provide the most responsive interaction environment that we can.
