It Takes Two to Talk® Guidebook

Your child’s language learning is like a snow ball. The bigger the snow ball and the faster it rolls, the bigger and faster it gets as it moves along. Similarly, the better your child’s language skills are at an early age, the more she can gain from the language she hears in the world around her. That’s why there’s no better gift you can give your child than an early head start to get that ball rolling!

It Takes Two to Talk is a practical, research-based guidebook that was developed primarily for parents of children with language delays, but which is based on current research that shows how all children can build strong language skills. This guidebook can show you simple ways to build communication into every moment you spend with your child to provide her with the best possible language-learning opportunities.

With It Takes Two to Talk, you will:

►Get to know your child’s communication better

Simply put, the more you know about your child’s communication, the easier it will be to help her learn. The It Takes Two to Talk guidebook will help you understand how and why your child communicates, and provide you with helpful checklists for identifying your child’s current stage of communication.

Your child may be a Discoverer, a Communicator, a First Words User or a Combiner, and knowing which stage she’s at will give you an idea of what she can and can’t do right now and what you can expect and encourage her to do next.

To view sample pages from the guidebook explaining the characteristics of a child at the “Communicator” stage, click on the link below:




►Recognize your own communication style and learn which styles work best to promote your child’s learning

As a parent, you play a variety of roles with your child. The role you choose to play may depend on a number of factors, including your own personality, your ideas about parenting, your child’s communication style, and the challenges of a busy life. The It Takes Two to Talk guidebook explains these roles and helps you recognize which ones work best for helping your child learn.

There are six common roles that parents play with their child. To view a sample page from the guidebook describing the first three, click on the link below:




►Learn practical strategies that you can use during everyday activities and routines

What makes the It Takes Two to Talk guidebook so useful for parents is that it fits right in to the daily activities they’re already doing with their child. Bath time, play time, story time – any time is a good time for building your child’s communication using Hanen strategies. 

You may not have known that small tweaks to the way you interact with your child can greatly increase her opportunities to build language comprehension and to use new words and phrases.

It Takes Two to Talk will teach you how to:

  • Let your child lead in a conversation so that she’ll be interested in the things you tell her
  • Engage your child in back and forth interactions within which language learning actually takes place
  • Use play and daily routines to help your child learn how to take turns, especially in the first 18 months of life
  • Add language to interactions in ways that will help her understand and use new words when she’s ready
  • Change the way you share books with your child to help her learn language
  • Use music to help your child interact and learn new vocabulary
  • Build your child’s language skills during play activities

One very important strategy in the guidebook is “The Four S’s”:

























It Takes Two to Talk
explains how this strategy can help you highlight the words you use with your child to make them stand out for her. This will help her understand new words and, in time, say them herself.

To view a sample page from the guidebook explaining the first two ‘S’s’ in “The Four S’s” strategy, click on the link below:  




Give your child’s learning a head start!

By building communication into every part of your child’s day, you’ll be helping to give her the best possible start on her path to success. With It Takes Two to Talk, you’ll gain the knowledge and skills to make language-learning a fun and natural part of your child’s day, turning every routine and activity into a rich learning opportunity.

To order the It Takes Two to Talk guidebook, click on the link below: