Turn-taking

Also called Conversational turn-taking, Serve and return, Reciprocity

The back-and-forth that every conversation runs on, learned in the first months of life through noises, faces and games long before words.

What it is

Turn-taking is the rhythm of conversation: I go, you go, I go. Babies learn it before they have anything to say, in the coo-and-answer exchanges of the first months. The adult makes a noise, the baby makes one back, and both wait for the other. Some people call it serve and return.

It's a separate skill from talking. A person can have plenty of words and no sense of when to use them, or almost no words and perfect timing. And it's the skill that AAC most obviously disrupts, because a device turn takes ten times as long as a spoken one and the speaking partner fills the gap.

Who it can help

Everyone, but it's worth thinking about deliberately with babies and toddlers, with autistic children, with anyone who uses AAC, and with people whose processing is slow after stroke or brain injury. In each case the problem is usually the same: the partner takes too many turns and leaves gaps too short for the person to take theirs.

It is not about teaching a child to wait quietly. A turn is something you give, not something you enforce.

How it works

From around two months, babies and adults fall into alternating vocal exchanges. By around six months, games like peekaboo add anticipation: the baby learns that a pause means their turn is coming. By around a year, turn-taking carries gestures and first words, and from two onwards it carries conversation. School-age children learn the finer rules: not interrupting, signalling you've finished, handing the turn over with a question.

The mechanism that matters most for partners is the gap. Typical adult conversation runs on pauses of well under a second. An AAC user needs seconds, sometimes a minute, to compose a turn. Unless the partner deliberately holds the gap open (wait time), the turn gets taken from them, every time, and the person learns that their turns don't happen.

Getting started

Play a turn game today. Roll a ball, bang a drum in turn, take turns making a silly noise. Pause before your turn and look expectant. With a baby, copy their sound and wait.

Count your turns in a conversation with someone who uses AAC or speaks slowly. If you took eight and they took one, the fix is on your side. Say something, then count silently to ten before saying anything else.

Give the turn a signal. "Your go." A raised eyebrow. A hand held open. Some people need the turn handed to them explicitly until the rhythm is established.

Where to get help

The NHS learning to talk pages for babies. Speech and Language UK for toddlers and older children. For turn-taking with AAC users, Communication Matters has partner guidance, and 1Voice connects families with adults who use AAC and know what a stolen turn feels like.