Teacher-infant dialogue as pedagogy

Infants are relatively new to formal education, and, by association, notions of pedagogy in consideration of these young learners are also a recentconceptualization. Over the past 20 years, therehas been a rapid rise of infant participation in early childhood education institutions as a result of social and economic trends. A concurrent articulation of infant pedagogy has been necessary due to their location in educational discourse giving rise to increased attention to what that might look like for teachers and learners alike. Across the world curriculum, frameworks and policy initiatives have variously argued for a distinction between pedagogies for infants and their older peers aligning the former more closely with attuned caregiving relationships. The rationale most often cited for such an alignment lies in compelling neurological and developmental research over the past 20 years that demonstrates long-lasting positive outcomes for learners when infants are exposed to predictable, loving adults who know how to communicate effectively with them. Caregiving relationships are evident in the nature of infant-teacher interactions that take place during everyday encounters across all routines (including sleeping, nappy changing, and meal times) and play. Learning is now widely recognized as taking place in reciprocal exchanges which implicate teachers for their actions accordingly. As a consequence relationships form the basis of effective pedagogy for thisage group and are evident in the kinds of dialogues that ensue. For this reason effective dialogues are viewed as a central feature of infant pedagogy