Sandra Smidt - Introducing Trevarthen: A Guide for Practitioners and Students in Early Years Education

In writing this book I have had many interesting and relevant informal discussions and interactions with and from members of my family and my friends. Hazel Abel shared with me episodes in the development of her grandson, born as I started writing this book and now having already had his first birthday as the book faces publication. Jonathan Miller who knows more about communication and gesture than anyone else I know, talked to me about what he had been reading and introduced me to the work of Susan Goldin-Meadow. And my thanks go to Jess Buckle, David Mindel, Stella Mindel and Hannah Gardiner for permission to use the photographs in this book. Also, of course to Colwyn himself who read the book and made detailed suggestions in his careful and critical reading of it.

Almost a year ago I decided to approach Colwyn Trevarthen, Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh to ask if he would agree to me writing a book about his work. When I told him that the book would become the seventh in a series of books about great thinkers in the field of early childhood including Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner he said he would be honoured to be in such august company. So I duly made my way to Edinburgh to spend a day with him. This book is the first one in this series to be dedicated specifically to the development of babies and toddlers. It is in this arena that his work has become known throughout the world. It tells us the story of how the human infant makes herself part of her family, community and culture through her intentional interactions with others. Trevarthen is primarily an evolutionary biologist and neuropsychologist, a philosopher and scientist, and his written work is scholastic and academic. Film plays an important part in his life and work and the illustrative use of film clips in his presentations and online reveals him as a warm and approachable man with a sense of humour, a passionate interest in babies and toddlers and a whimsical way of creating titles for his published papers. Trevarthen, unlike the thinkers discussed in other books in the Introducing Early Years Thinkers series like Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner and others says that he is not particularly interested in cognition but rather in conation . If you dont know what that means dont worry: the language he uses in his academic writing is often very specialised and for that reason you will find a glossary of unfamiliar words after this Preface. Conation, as you will see, means having to do with intentions. Trevarthen is more interested in what human infants purposefully do in order to be part of the worlds of others than in how they are learning facts. He also says that he loses interest in babies once they start to speak because then they become like everyone else, a talker who shares, and argues about, conventional ideas! So this book will be different from the others in the series in the following small ways:

• It is written for those involved with babies and toddlers who automatically include those caring for and interacting with them in and away from the home parents, grandparents, carers, practitioners, teachers and early years professionals.
• It invites you, the reader, to sometimes access Trevarthens work online following a link or using your browser. There you can find brief film clips he uses to illustrate the points he is making or listen to and see his online presentations. I really recommend that you do this because it brings his work to life. Some of these are on YouTube.