The It Takes Two to Talk Program is based on some well-researched principles of intervention:

01.

Putting the family front and centre

The It Takes Two to Talk Program is a family-centred program, in which parents are involved in their child’s intervention in ways that strengthen their ability to help their child. Parents learn what to do to help their child learn and develop, and the earlier parents are involved in their child’s intervention, the better the child’s outcome.

02.

Therapy is part of everyday family life

The It Takes Two to Talk Program makes use of everyday activities and interactions within a family’s life. When children learn to communicate in their natural environment in real-life situations with their caregivers, they are more motivated to communicate and are better able to apply their newly-learned skills to other situations.

03.

Learning to communicate takes place within parent-child interactions

The It Takes Two to Talk Program is based on the view that it is the interaction between adult and child that is the catalyst for the child’s language learning.
This theory is based on the belief that children’s language learning is fostered when the adult:

• Is very responsive to the child’s communication efforts; and
• Simplifies and fine-tunes what she says to the child so that the child can understand and learn from it.

04.

Being responsive to the child is the key

The It Takes Two to Talk Program teaches parents to be responsive to their child. Being responsive means:

• Responding promptly (often within 1-2 seconds of a child doing or saying something)
• Responding positively – responding in a way that shows the child the parent is really interested in what she or he is saying
• Sticking with what the child is “talking” about and not trying to get him interested in something else (e.g., if the child is showing the parent how he can drive his toy car along the kitchen floor, the parent then talks about what he is doing with the car, not the colour of the car or about the toy train)

Studies have shown that, when parents respond sensitively to their children, the children demonstrate:

• Greater understanding of language at one year
• More advanced speech and vocabulary development and understanding of language in the second and third year of life
• Larger receptive vocabulary (understanding of words) at age 12

05.

In Summary

The approach parents learn in the It Takes Two to Talk Program is based on overwhelming evidence that it is the parent-child interaction that provides the context for the child’s language learning and that, when parents are more responsive and fine tune how they talk with their child, children’s communication development is accelerated.