The ability to communicate, to share information about intentions, thoughts, and feelings with others and with one's self, is a unique and necessary capacity of humans. In this paper, I summarize a large body of research and observation that helps to explain the development of communication in infancy. Babies are “bathed” in the chatter of their mothers. This provides infants and toddlers entry into the symbolic realm when a full range of communication—preverbal, gestural, imagistic, and the syntactic and metaphoric use of language—is gradually developed and integrated.