How might body-listening open up space for body-languaging?

This chapter discusses the challenges posed by the increasing focus on language and literacy targets in educational settings, combined with the uptick in diagnoses for non-speaking children. In exploring why an emphasis on spoken language can pathologise and limit children’s efficacy to be productive communicators, this chapter takes a refreshing dive into new ways of sensing, being-with, interacting, and attuning to children’s different rhythms, vibrations, and intensities. The author explores how body-listening to body-languages can broaden what we think young children are capable of beyond standard language and communication skills. Using examples of recent research with non-speaking families, this chapter offers ideas for how to listen differently through movement, sensory, and kinaesthetic interactions. Ultimately it explores how sensory practices can open valuable routes to attuning with nonlingual children in highly productive ways, emphasising that body-languaging is a fluid, relational process rather than a set of skills to master.