Language Nutrition™ is free! Parents don’t have to have puzzles, fancy toys, or even be able to read. All parents have to do is talk, interact, and engage with their children in every day life conversations. Here are the basic guidelines for talking with your baby.

The mission of a TWMB coach is to empower families to take an active part in building their baby’s brain to support language acquisition and, later, school readiness. There is no better way to do this than to make every baby a conversational partner.

TWMB coaches: 

Inspire: Through talking with families about language nutrition, coaches equip them with the knowledge and skills to practice language nutrition themselves. One’s words and messages have the potential to empower families to develop habits that are crucial in shaping the educational outcomes of children. 

Lead: Coaches have many opportunities to lead by example, modeling to families how to interact with their baby and reiterating messages on how to encourage and support the baby’s development during these critical first years. 

Advocate: By being advocates for children having opportunities to learn and understand the meaning and uses of new words, coaches can help create a better future for all children. 

Reach the people who reach the people

Talk With Me Baby is not a program. It is a population-based approach that leverages the large-scale workforces and population groups that already interact with new and expectant parents on a recurring basis. By preparing individuals in these workforces to strengthen the capacity of parents and caregivers to deliver language nutrition to the infants in their care, TWMB can efficiently and affordably reach the whole population of infants and their caregivers—while ensuring an additional emphasis on those at risk of not receiving abundant language nutrition.

TWMB analyzed data to identify the places where new and expectant parents are going for services and supports – healthcare providers, WIC offices, childcare facilities, and child welfare offices – and developed a comprehensive set of tools designed to prepare the staff in those places who interact with parents and caregivers to become language nutrition coaches. In this way, TWMB takes advantage of these natural touchpoints to transfer capacity to parents and caregivers to deliver language nutrition to their children starting at birth.

Recognizing that infants are the largest and fastest growing population group of system-involved children and that the majority of infants enter the system within the first three months of life, TWMB also developed materials that can be incorporated into foster parent training programs. Many of these babies are born prenatally exposed to drugs, premature or low birthweight. As a result, they are more likely than other children to experience medical problems, disabilities, and developmental delays. By ensuring that foster parents deliver language nutrition to the infants in their care and by preparing them to act as language nutrition coaches for the biological parents of those children, TWMB seeks to reach these vulnerable children and support their healthy attachment and brain development.

Learn more about the research-based, curricula and multimedia training materials for these workforces and groups.

• Nurses
• WIC Nutritionists
• Case Workers/Foster Parents
• Early Learning Educators
• Physicians
• Technological Solutions for Training

The role of the TWMB coach is two-fold:

1. Help families realize the important role they play in building their baby’s brain, language, and school readiness, and the unique qualifications they have as their baby’s first and best teacher.

2. Empower families to practice language nutrition by building their skills and coaching them to use these with their baby.

Coaching is a collaborative relationship between a coach and a willing individual. The goal of the TWMB coach is to establish this relationship with expectant/new parents and family members who are caregivers or play a significant role in the baby’s life to guide them in creating reciprocal language experiences with their baby. Those interactions with the family of a young child are critical and will determine how families receive messaging and coaching. Tone and approach will affect the family’s feelings about being respected as individuals, a member of a family, and as part of a community. In short, the parents’ experience of these interactions can determine whether the concept of language nutrition is embraced or rejected.

The TWMB coaching model is based on a set of beliefs or principles that define interactions with families. Central to these beliefs is to approach families from a strength-based perspective, to empower families to take an active role in their child’s future and to continue to play that role in meaningful and sustainable ways throughout their child’s life.

The TWMB Coaching Model: “I do. We do. You do.” 

In the TWMB model, which is based on the coaching model developed by the Atlanta Speech School, the baby is the central focus of all interactions with parents. Being baby-centered means talking directly with the baby throughout all activities, such as examinations, patient education or even changing his or her diaper. Direct questions and comments to the baby whenever possible—realizing and expecting that parents will supply the answers. By directing the conversation to the baby, it emphasizes the importance of engaging the baby, knowing full well that the baby cannot answer yet. The baby becomes everyone’s conversational partner—especially that of the nurse. 

Nurses model language transactions and engage in educational interactions through the “I Do. We Do. You Do.” coaching model (also known as the Return Demonstration Model), illustrated above, by following these steps:

1. Coach initially demonstrates the skill. 
2. Coach and caregiver practice the skill together. 
3. Parent or caregiver attempts the skill on his or her own, while the coach observes and provides feedback and encouragement. 

The model is similar to a standard coaching model used in both educational and nursing settings. The nurse first uses his/her skills and strategies to provide language nutrition to the baby and models the behavior to the family. Then the nurse asks the family or caregiver to try it together. Finally, the nurse asks the caregiver to try it by himself or herself using an action-oriented opportunity.

Preparing America’s Most Trusted Workforce to Become Language Nutrition Coaches

Nurses play a significant role in the lives of expectant/new parents and family members who are caregivers. Parents and caregivers look to nurses for advisement on how to care for their little one the best way possible. The unique relationship between nurse and caregiver is the cornerstone of the Talk With Me Baby model.

Representing a workforce that reaches the largest percentage of the population of new and expectant parents, nurses are uniquely positioned to deliver language nutrition coaching.

• Nearly all – 99% – new and expectant parents are seen by nurses between the third trimester of pregnancy and the child’s first birthday.
• Between the third trimester of pregnancy and the baby’s first birthday, there are approximately 14 natural touch points between nurses and the parents and child
• Health education is rooted in the origins of modern nursing and has become an increasingly important role played by nurses.
• According to annual polling by Gallup, nurses are the most trusted profession in the United States.
• Representing a national workforce of 2.8 million, nursing is the largest healthcare profession.

Talk With Me Baby: A Curriculum for Nurses is designed for obstetric, neonatal and pediatric nurses, including nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, and midwives and has been approved by the Georgia State Nursing Association for one (1) Continuing Education Unit. (TWMB is currently developing two (2) and three (3) unit versions of the curriculum. Several colleges in Georgia have also begun to integrate this curriculum into their nurse training programs.)

The role of the nurse as a TWMB coach is two-fold:

1. Help families realize the important role they play in building their baby’s brain, language, school readiness, and the unique qualifications they have as their baby’s first and best teacher.

2. Empower families to practice language nutrition by building their skills and coaching them to use these with their baby.

The TWMB Coaching Model: “I do. We do. You do.” 

In the TWMB model, which is based on the coaching model developed by the Atlanta Speech School, the baby is the central focus of all interactions with parents. Being baby-centered means talking directly with the baby throughout all activities, such as examinations, patient education or even changing his or her diaper. Direct questions and comments to the baby whenever possible—realizing and expecting that parents will supply the answers. By directing the conversation to the baby, it emphasizes the importance of engaging the baby, knowing full well that the baby cannot answer yet. The baby becomes everyone’s conversational partner—especially that of the nurse. 

Nurses model language transactions and engage in educational interactions through the “I Do. We Do. You Do.” coaching model (also known as the Return Demonstration Model), illustrated above, by following these steps:

1. Coach initially demonstrates the skill. 
2. Coach and caregiver practice the skill together. 
3. Parent or caregiver attempts the skill on his or her own, while the coach observes and provides feedback and encouragement. 

The model is similar to a standard coaching model used in both educational and nursing settings. The nurse first uses his/her skills and strategies to provide language nutrition to the baby and models the behavior to the family. Then the nurse asks the family or caregiver to try it together. Finally, the nurse asks the caregiver to try it by himself or herself using an action-oriented opportunity.

Become a TWMB Nurse Coach

The interactions between the family of a young child and the nurse are critical and will determine how families receive messaging and coaching. If you’d like to learn more about how to become a TWMB coach, please contact us at [email protected].

WIC: Integrating Language Nutrition into Messages about Food Nutrition

With a mission of safeguarding the health of low-income women and their young children (up to age 5), the Women, Infants and Children Program – commonly referred to as WIC – provides a vehicle for reaching a critical population of families with children who are at risk of not receiving abundant language nutrition.

• Children in low-income families – like those who are eligible for WIC services – hear an average of 11 million words by age 3, 32 million fewer than their peers in higher income families.
• WIC serves 53 percent of all infants, up to age one, born in the United States, reaching approximately 8.3 million women and children in 2014.
• More than 50 percent of new and expectant parents in Georgia – and 80 percent of children in low-income families in the state – are eligible for WIC enrollment.
• In 2015, 26 states had more than 100,000 individuals enrolled WIC while the enrollment in 36 states exceeds 50,000.
• Because WIC offices are located in every county in Georgia but managed by a central state office, TWMB was able to quickly and efficiently scale statewide. A similar model can be applied in other states.

Talk With Me Baby, with leadership provided by the Georgia Department of Public Health, developed a WIC Champions Tool Kit which it used to train the more than 1,000 WIC nutritionists working in the state’s 199 WIC offices. This tool kit prepared the WIC nutritionists to incorporate messages about language nutrition into their interactions with enrolled families. The tool kit and supplementary materials include flip charts, posters, PowerPoint presentations, and educational and collateral materials that parents can use with children (stickers, bracelets, postcards, flashcards, and prescription pad magnets).

In addition, WIC offices are showing TWMB’s Baby Ella video on televisions in their waiting rooms to reinforce those messages while families are waiting for their appointments. 

Case Workers and Foster Parents:
Reaching Infants Who Have Experienced Trauma, Toxic Stress, and Traumatic Separation

The brain undergoes its most rapid development during the first three years of life, making infancy and early childhood a period of both great vulnerability and opportunity. Young children in foster care have often suffered from environments that do not nurture brain development and many of these children have experienced exposure to trauma, toxic stress and/or traumatic separation. Case Workers and foster parents, therefore, represent a strategic workforce and group to engage in an effort to ensure that all children – including our most vulnerable – receive abundant language nutrition.

• Infants are the largest and fastest growing population group of system-involved children and the majority of infants enter the system within the first three months of life.
• Infants in foster care are at risk for attachment disruption, but research shows that adult-child language-rich interactions can foster parent-child attachment.
• Only 50 percent of children in foster care will receive a high school diploma, 32 points below the nationwide high school graduation rate.

TWMB has developed Talk With Me Baby: Foster Parent Curriculum, which can be incorporated into a state’s program to train foster parents as well as case workers. The curriculum and supplemental materials will prepare the case workers to integrate language nutrition messaging and coaching into their interactions with biological parents and foster parents. In addition, foster parents will understand to importance of delivering language nutrition to the infants in their care and will be encouraged to act as language nutrition coaches for biological parents. By engaging the case workers and foster parents who care for these children, TWMB is able to reach this vulnerable and growing population of infants.  

Infant/Toddler Educators:
Delivering Language Nutrition Coaching in Early Learning Centers 

More than half of all mothers with children under the age of 3 are in the labor force, leading a growing number of families to turn to family home and center-based care for their young children. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 16 percent of infants under the age of one in the U.S. are enrolled in child care centers with that number increasing to 26 percent for one-year old children.

A growing body of research points to the positive impact that high-quality early care and learning programs can have on very young children, especially on children from low-income families.

• While most infants are cared for in home-based settings, infants whose parents are receiving child care subsidies are more likely to be in center-based care.

• 29% of children receiving child care subsidies funded by CCDBG (Child Care and Development Block Grant) are infants and toddlers.

Because of their relationships with families and the many available opportunities to interact with them on a daily basis, infant and toddler teachers are ideally suited to take on the role of TWMB Coaches, to support and empower families to practice Language Nutrition with their children. 

Building the capacity of infant and toddler educators to become conversational partners

The following professional development courses and tools are available to build the capacity of infant and toddler teachers to become conversational partners with the children in their care and to coach families on practicing Language Nutrition with their children:  

Read Right from The Start on Cox Campus

Read Right from the Start on Cox Campus synthesizes the work of the nation’s leading literacy experts and provides free, online access to research-based professional development for teachers of children from birth to eight years of age. This interactive, video-based coursework is focused on practical strategies teachers can use to promote young children’s language and literacy. All coursework is accredited by Bright from the Start, Georgia’s Department of Early Care and Learning. Currently, the Cox Campus offers courses on Infant /Toddler and Preschool/Pre-K Tracks.  An additional K-3^rd grade track is planned for 2017. 

The following courses are available on the Infant Toddler Track: 

• Talk with Me Baby for Infant and Toddlers Teachers – building on the trusting relationships teachers have with families, this course is designed to empower teachers to transfer their own Language Nutrition skills to families, so they can be their child’s conversational partner. Teachers learn how to turn everyday interactions with families into powerful coaching moments on Language Nutrition. Embedded in this course and developed in partnership with Harvard’s Center for the Developing Child are two lessons on the science of brain development, offering insight into how early experiences shape brain architecture. (Bright from the Start - 3.5 credits). View Course

• Power of Language - focuses on how teachers can engage in responsive interactions with infants and toddlers, using five elements: tuning in, facial expressions, gestures, touch, and child-directed speech. (Bright from the Start – 2 credits). View Course

• TALK with Me – centers on how to have meaningful conversations with infants and toddlers using the TALK© Strategy. TALK encourages adults to: Tune-in by observing what the child is doing; Ask open-ended questions; Lift language; and Keep conversations going. This strategy is designed to increase a child’s vocabulary and lay the groundwork for reading comprehension. This course includes two lessons on having meaningful conversations with dual language learners. (Bright from the Start: 2 credits). View Course

• READ with Me, Parts 1 and Part 2 - using the TIPS strategy (Tune in, Introduce the book, Promote language, and Summarize the book), this course supports teachers in transforming reading books with infants and toddlers into powerful opportunities to have great conversations to promote children’s language development and critical thinking. (Bright from the Start credits – 2.5 and 1.5, respectively). View Course 1  View Course 2

Read Right from the Start on Cox Campus, Preschool/Pre-K Track: 

• The Cox Campus offers 18 additional research-based credit hours of preschool and pre-k courses, designed to enhance early learning instructional experiences for preschool children through the use of strategies that promote language and literacy development.

Social Emotional Engagement – Knowledge and Skills (SEE-KS) – a free professional development framework for educators and service providers built around neuroscience-based instructional strategies that increase social engagement during the first years of life.

An evaluation of Read Right from the Start on Cox Campus entitled Read Right E-Learning Evaluation Study Project and conducted by the Urban Child Study Center in the College of Education at Georgia State University and the Rollins Center for Language and Literacy at the Atlanta Speech School, explores the impact of the Cox Campus on preschool teacher practices in four underserved areas of Georgia. The study found that teachers who utilized the online professional development program increased the quality of their classroom instruction during the intervention period as measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) compared to teachers who did not participate in this professional development program.

For Clinical Leaders

If you oversee clinical operations in your healthcare center and you would like your staff to learn how to create a Talk With Me Baby culture contact us at [email protected].

Coming soon! 

We are delighted to announce that we are weeks away from launching our first TWMB app. Here's a sneak peak at the features and what to expect.   

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