Nursery World - Early Years Pioneers: Colwyn Trevarthen

Communication is the focus of study for an academic described by Professor Tricia David

Who is Colwyn Trevarthen?

Colwyn Trevarthen tells of how his parents encouraged him in his enthusiasm for the marvellous plants and animals of his New Zealand homeland, with the result that he initially specialised in botany, evolutionary biology, animal ethology and physiology at the Universities of Auckland and Otago.

He says that he was 'incredibly lucky' to be awarded a studentship to read for a PhD at the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Roger Sperry on brain function. (Sperry was to win a Nobel Prize in 1981 for his work on the different functions of the brain's hemispheres.) While continuing research on brain function, by now in Marseille, France, Colwyn met Jerome Bruner, who invited him to Harvard University in Boston.

Colwyn's work with human infants began.

Colwyn Trevarthen is now Professor (Emeritus) of Child Psychology and Psychobiology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, where he has taught since 1971. His professional generosity, enthusiasm and scholarship have been recognised internationally (for example, he has been made an Honorary Doctor of Psychology by the University of Crete, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters).

In Bosnia Herzegovina, Trevarthen collaborated in founding a centre for music therapy. His findings are widely quoted around the world, an example being the January 2005 edition of India's national newspaper, The Hindu, which, on Trevarthen's recommendation, urged parents to sing to their babies. He argues that talk and singing provides emotional stability and music gives small children clues, together with a sense of what is going on, even when they do not understand the words.

What has Colwyn Trevarthen contributed to the field of early childhood education and care?

For the past 30 years, Professor Trevarthen's research with infants and toddlers has focused on communication. He studied the rhythms and expressions of children's play and fantasy, and how musical games and songs, stories and acts of discovery, with real or imaginary companions, support the development of skills during infancy and the pre-school years.

As a consequence, he became interested in the interpersonal foundations of language and meaning, and on developmental problems such as autism that affect communication and thinking. With musician and acoustic expert Stephen Malloch and others, he developed a theory of 'communicative musicality'.

Professor Trevarthen insists that observation is the main key to our understanding and, through this type of research technique, he has gathered information about infants' expressive skills and the adoption of nonverbal therapies, especially music therapy.

Building on work concerning parent-baby interactions and 'motherese' (the sing-song speech pattern used by mothers) and analysing adults' speech to young children, he has revealed similar rhythms and tone in teachers' expression, which he calls 'teacherese'. He has demonstrated its importance to 'collaborative learning' and to children's confidence in expressing their understanding.

Recently, Professor Trevarthen was a member of the team which produced a research review for Scotland that was a parallel project to Birth to Three Matters in England. The report, Meeting the Needs of Children from Birth to Three, published in 2003, emphasised play-based learning. While stressing that relationships, self-expression and imagination are the keys to learning during this period, it stated that practitioners are the most important resource in out-of-home provision.

Many early education and care practitioners have been inspired by Professor Trevarthen's conference presentations, which have influenced their thinking about the amazing capabilities of babies and young children. They have also accessed his work through books and articles, and some have been privileged to collaborate in ground-breaking research, such as that on 'teacherese' and his current project about 'chuffedness' - the body language which indicates delight at having achieved something.

What are the main messages from Colwyn Trevarthen's work?

The messages in Professor Trevarthen's work to which we need to pay particular attention are:

that the human brain is purposeful and elastic (rather than plastic)
babies are born with a rhythmic sense
babies discover the essence of communication via movement and musicality
our nature, as animals, is to learn from other people.

This means that interacting with and observing babies and children in order to respond effectively and promote their self-expression and imagination are key skills for early education and care practitioners.

But it is not only the content of Professor Trevarthen's pioneering work that provides inspiration. His enthusiastic attitude is infectious. The testament to this is well reflected in his comment on his life's work - 'I still feel like a natural historian, but young human beings are by far the most interesting species I have studied.' NW Tricia David is Emeritus Professor of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University College. With thanks to Professor Trevarthen for his help with this article.