Rethinking Communication guide to advanced dementia

and from experiencing the way that others respond to them. A standard exchange between parents and babies happens when babies do something – make a movement, display a facial expression, utter a sound – that parents copy. The baby’s brain notices the response from the parent, and then the baby takes the next turn. This casual exchange of non-linguistic behaviour is the basis on which human beings become able to do a whole range of remarkable things: talk, notice other people’s feelings, regulate their own emotions. The exchanges are so fleeting and ordinary that they can feel unremarkable, yet they are central to the way that we function as infants. Babies’ brains are busy noticing the patterns in all these exchanges. It is on the basis of those patterns that our brains come to unconscious conclusions about how relationships work. Non-verbal communication forms the basis of all social interactions. It doesn’t convey all the