Belinda Buckley is a Paediatric Speech and Language Therapist.

Introduction - Human Communication, Chapter One - The First Year: Hearing, Attention and Listening; Towards Early Verbal Understanding; Communication and Expressive Skills in the First Year; Why Do Babies Communicate; How Babies Communicate, Looking, Moving and Gesturing; Making Sounds in the First Year Chapter Two - The Second Year: Attention and Learning Language; Play and Symbolic Understanding; Understanding Meaning; Early Verbal Understanding; Communication and Expressive Skills; Why Do Children in Their Second Year Communicate?; Using Early Words; Early Speech Chapter Three - The Third Year: Attention Control; Links Between Play and Language; Conceptual, Semantic and Vocabulary Development; Understanding Words and Sentences, Communication and Expressive Skills; Speech Development; Chapter Four - The Fourth and Fifth Years: Attention Control; Links Between Play and Language; Semantic and Vocabulary Development; Understanding Words and Sentences; Further Developments in Communication and Expressive Skills; Speech Development; Emergent Literacy Skills Chapter Five- Learning More then One Language in Early Childhood: Bilingualism; Features of Bilingualism Speech and The Pattern and Stages of Bilingual Acquisition; Bilingualism, Cognition and Literacy Development; Environment Factors Impacting on Bilingual Acquisition Chapter Six - Problems Developing Speech, Language and Communication: The Nature of Communication Difficulties; Environmental and Internal Factors Contributing to Communication Difficulties Chapter Seven - Working with Parents of Children with Communication Difficulties; Which Professionals?; Understanding Parents of Children with Communication Difficulties; Parent-Professional Relationships; Considerations for Working with Parents at Different Stages of Their Child's Care Useful Addresses, Glossary, Bibliography