Development

Happy Birthday Baby! Now we are one

Date: December 13, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 9-12 months, Age: General Baby/Infant, Development, Play & Activity
Comments: 1 Reply



now we are one, happy birthday baby, baby-brain.co.uk. (Baby's first birthday)

Now We Are One

Now we are one. I can’t believe how quickly it’s all gone. This time last year he was only a few hours old. I had no idea how much things were going to change after that. We had a great day today. Friends and family came round for a little party. Nothing too big and fancy. Had a cake, some food, some fun. It was loosely Caterpillar themed, based on our experiences of reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and that being something the Little Lovely might recognise.

 

We are going to continue the celebration tomorrow with a “birthday twin” friend who was born on the same day as LL, and her parents.

 

Time has flown. Back at work. Need to enjoy my free time with LL. Soon I’ll be writing a post or something on facebook and saying “now we are 10”, or something. Too fast.

 

now we are one, happy birthday baby, baby-brain.co.uk

First birthday mix

 

Our caterpillar themed cake complete with 1 candle! He couldn’t blow it out but we still did the whole happy birthday song to him. He pointed at the cake while we sang.

 

now we are one, happy birthday baby, baby-brain.co.uk

Birthday caterpillar cake

 

I tried to make some grape caterpillars by threading green and red grapes onto a cake pop stick. I avoided anything too sharp and spiky; the cake pop stick seemed good and no small children managed to poke themselves with it. Not everyone could tell they were supposed to be caterpillars though! Mainly the mothers could tell. Oh well. I was going to put icing sugar eyes on and little antennae made of carrot, but ran out of preparation time this morning. Here they are eating some paper fruit, a la The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
now we are one, happy birthday baby, baby-brain.co.uk

Grape caterpillars trying to get at some fruit

 

Look at that lovely spread!
now we are one, happy birthday baby, baby-brain.co.uk

Food spread

Decorations up. LL was quite interested in all the sparkly things hanging around the house.
now we are one, happy birthday baby, baby-brain.co.uk

First birthday decorations

Research on reading: vocabulary benefits. Oh and our baby health review

Date: December 8, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 9-12 months, Development, Psychological Research, Reading
Comments: Leave a reply
reading with baby, research shows link between reading for pleasure and vocabulary. baby-brain.co.uk

Free stuff from our child health review; toothbrush and books

We went for a health review today as the Little Lovely is NEARLY A YEAR OLD (almost unbelievable).
Anyway, as part of that we got some free stuff from the government. Booty! Yes, we got a free toothbrush, toothpaste and a bookstart kit that included 2 baby board books, some nursery rhymes and a booklet with a £1 book voucher in it. So, looks like government wants to develop a generation of book readers with good teeth. Sounds alright to me I suppose!

So when I got home, I looked up the bookstart website and had a look around their site. Came across some interesting research on their research blog about the benefits on vocabulary of reading for pleasure. They write:

 

 

 

Reading for pleasure in childhood has big vocabulary benefits later in life

 

This research from the Institute of Education looks at how vocabulary scores change between ages 16 to 42.

 

The findings show that the frequency of reading for pleasure is positively linked with vocabulary scores, and what people read matters just as much as how often they read.

“Those who regularly read for pleasure at age 10 scored 67% in the vocabulary test at age 42, whereas those who didn’t read regularly aged 10 scored 52%.

– Regular readers tended to have higher vocabulary scores at age 10 and 16

 

– Regular childhood readers (measured at age 10 and age 16) were still 9 percentage points ahead at age 42.

 

 

– The researchers speculate that regular childhood readers are likely to have picked up ‘good reading habits’ which continued into adulthood.

 

– The type of reading material also made a difference: the greatest gains in vocabulary scores were seen in those who read ‘highbrow’ fiction.

Based on information from bookstart research blog, The Institute of Education news (read their article here) and Sullivan and Brown, 2014. Vocabulary from adolescence to middle-age, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Working Paper 2014/7

Return to the baby lab – we’re infant scientists, again! (psychological research participant)

Date: December 6, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 9-12 months, Age: General Baby/Infant, Development, Psychological Research
Comments: Leave a reply

The Little Lovely, (age 11m 2 weeks) acted as a baby research participant again.

infant psychological research participant @the baby lab. Taking part in the study with EEG hat

Taking part in another research study

I wrote a few months ago about how we took part in some psychological research (i’m an infant scientist) at the Birkbeck BabyLab and Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development. LL took part in a study that was looking at which parts of the brain were responsible for understanding others’ beliefs. He wore some fancy headgear which I assume was supposed to detect which areas of the brain become activated and “light up”, when looking at some video clips during the study.
Well, we got a call asking if we would like to take part in another project. LL seemed to like it the first time so we went back. This was a different study and the headgear was slightly different. Fortunately, Mr Bear was on hand to model the new “hat” and tell us all about it and whether LL would like to wear it himself (pics left, and below)

 

What is this EEG hat thing?

The information sheet from the baby lab says that our brain cells communicate with each other using faint electric signals. We can “eavesdrop” on the communication by placing an array of sensors on the head that can pick up the natural activity of the person’s brain (EEG, electroencephalogram). The netted “hat” used (as shown on Mr Bear below, and later pictures by LL) is specifically designed for babies and can help researchers achieve a detailed “map” of the working brain. It’s safe and only monitors brain activity, a bit like a thermometer, it only measures what’s going on – it can take your temperature but can’t change it at all.

 

baby-brain.co.uk infant psychological research participant @the baby lab. bear shows EEG
Mr Bear shows us how to wear the EEG hat

 

The study: We’re ready to learn!

infant psychological research participant @the baby lab. Taking part in the study with EEG hat
Another day, another fancy hat
The researcher put the EEG net on LL, while another one distracted him with some toys. He didn’t seem to mind it at all and was not in any distress or discomfort. We then went into a room with a television screen. LL sat in a high chair and watched video clips of two women pointing to an object and naming it. One woman always named a familiar object correctly, the other incorrectly. Then, LL saw videos of only one of the women naming novel objects.
What was the aim of the study? The aim was to help us understand more about how infants prepare themselves to learn new information, and will enable further research into how infants seek information and how expectancy of information affects learning.
The idea behind the study was, as adults we learn best when we are interested in what we are learning. When we know we are about to be taught something we prepare so that we can process and remember as much as possible. This “readiness to learn” can be reflected in brain states, the intensity of which can be used to predict how well the information will be learned. This study was looking at these brain states reflecting “readiness to learn”.
When LL watched the video, the lab was observing his eye movement using an eyetracker and brain activation using the EEG.
The eye movement findings will help to establish whether infants preferred the informing or mis-informing woman in the videos. With the EEG – if infants learn to expect reliable information from one of the women, and not the other, we should see increased activation when the informing adult is present compared to when the mis-informing adult is present.

 

infant psychological research participant @the baby lab. Taking part in the study with EEG hat
In the study room – what’s going on?

 

Again, we got to contribute to a study that will tell us more about infant brain development and behaviour, and it was a fun afternoon out for us. The place was very baby friendly, and set up for us, of course.
And after all his hard work, LL got to have a nice play with some toys, oh and another free T-shirt! Then, he was quite tired and so had a nice sleep on the way home.

 

infant psychological research participant @the baby lab. Taking part in the study with EEG hat
A well deserved play and nap after taking part in the research

baby and infant visual development

Date: November 30, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: General Baby/Infant, Development, Psychological Research
Comments: 1 Reply

…

A little piece about baby and infant visual development:

What can babies see in the first few months of life?

The visual system is not fully developed at birth (1), and sight develops gradually. Baby has difficulty distinguishing between similar colours such as orange and red and so prefer high contrast colours such as black and white.
  • This is why you might see toys, pictures, stories for young infants in black and white, or simple high contrast patterns and colours
In fact, some research shows that infants might prefer blue and purple colours (2). This article outlines that:

Babies do have color preferences, and these preferences seem to be mostly determined by hue. Blues and purples are babies’ favorites, while greens, yellows, and reds are liked less…

 

…Does this mean expectant parents should run off to buy purple and blue toys?… In the end, I doubt it would make that much difference in a baby’s life. The first few months of infancy are over quite quickly, and are spent mostly sleeping…but it’s still interesting to see how babies’ visual systems develop, and how at just 3 months of age they do appear perceive colors in a way that is analogous to adults.”

Here’s some high contrast images that can be printed out:
Download & print for free: High contrast images, newborn & baby, visual images, 0-6 months

Click on image to open

 

Download & print for free: High contrast images, newborn & baby, visual images, 0-6 months

simple square high contrast flash cards for baby. Visual Stimulation. from baby-brain.co.uk

 

What do babies prefer to look at?

  • Newborns have shown a preference for looking at faces (3)
  • Some research suggests that ability to process faces is quite well developed, despite the very young age, and might not be much different to an adults’ ability (4)
  • Infants are probably born with some information about the structure of faces (5)

 

 

What about other stuff like depth perception? Are babies born with it?

No one wants their child to go crawling off the sofa, table, any other deep drop. There’s a “classic” psychological study called the “visual cliff” (6) (Gibson and Walk, 1960; read the article here) that looked at depth perception. The psychologists predicted that depth perception would be something we are born with, rather than something we learn as children. They therefore developed an experiment to test this prediction with babies aged 6-14 months.
The study set up a “visual cliff”, which used a board laid over a heavy glass sheet, raised from the floor, with some patterned fabric under it. The fabric was immediately beneath the glass but then it looks as though it “drops off” on one half of the glass because the fabric is then laid down on the floor below (rather than directly beneath the glass). The glass still covers the space though, so it creates the visual effect of a drop off, or “cliff”, but the glass is still sturdy and continues across the drop so that any crawling baby will not actually fall, but it can see that there is a drop below.
The parent then stands on the “cliff side” and calls for the baby to crawl over to them from the “shallow side”. Many of the children found it difficult to crawl over to the parent because of the perceived drop. Only 3 of 27 “crept off the brink” onto the drop, many crawled away from the parent as they called to the baby from the cliff side, and some cried because they couldn’t get to the parent without crossing an apparent drop (this is an old study when ethics committees were maybe slightly differently, ok, so maybe not so nice to read about the kids crying)

Often they would peer down through the glass on the deep side and then back away. Others would pat the glass with their hands, yet despite this tactual assurance of solidity would refuse to cross. (pg 64)

The study concludes that:
Most human infants can discriminate depth as soon as they can crawl.

 

and… The behavior of the children in this situation gave clear evidence of their dependence on vision. (pg 64)

 Still, a good idea to buy those stair gates and other relevant protection though, yeah?!

 

 

References:

  1. Brémond-Gignac D., Copin H., Lapillonne A., Milazzo S. (2011). Visual development in infants: physiological and pathological mechanisms. Curr. Opin. Ophthalmol. 22, S1–S8
  2. ZEMACH, I., CHANG, S., & TELLER, D. (2007). Infant color vision: Prediction of infants’ spontaneous color preferences Vision Research, 47 (10), 1368-1381
  3. Stein, T., Peelen, M. V., & Sterzer, P. (2011b). Adults’ awareness of faces follows newborns’ looking preferences. PLoS ONE, 6(12), e29361.
  4. Farroni T, Johnson MH, Menon E, Zulian L, Faraguna D, et al. (2005) Newborns’ preference for face-relevant stimuli: Effects of contrast polarity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102: 17245–17250.
  5. Morton, J., & Johnson, M. H. (1991). A Two-Process Theory of Infant Face Recognition. Psychological Review, 98 (2),164-181
  6. Gibson, E.J.; Walk, R.D. (1960). “Visual Cliff”. Scientific American 202 (4): 64

Simple colour match activity idea for baby and toddler

Date: November 1, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 9-12 months, Age: General Baby/Infant, Behavioural & Cognitive-Behavioural Psychology, Development, Motor Skills, Play & Activity
Comments: Leave a reply

Simple colour match activity idea for baby and toddler

A quick & easy colour match activity to try with baby and toddler, use existing items around the house. baby-brain.co.uk

Colour match activity idea: Easy and quick to set up

I Just set this up for the Little Lovely to play with tomorrow morning.

At 10.5 months he’s probably a bit young for colour matching (I think, but let’s see what he does tomorrow), but we will:

  • talk about the colours

  • and I’ll demonstrate (model) sorting them

I think these will be important aspects if the kid is a bit too young to sort the colours themselves → Learning through observation (vicarious learning), and also the social and fun aspects of doing it this way will be important.

Other things he might get from this activity: Motor skill development, sensory play (items have different textures and functions), exploration, learning about colours.

 

Materials:

I used things that I already had about the house for this. The items are:

Blue: wooden round shapes, dolphin bath toy, a large lid from fridge pack of baked beans, linky loop, and a small plastic baby food pot

Green: crab bath toy, rattle, linky loop, and gum massager stick for teething

Pink: ball, wooden triangle shape, measuring spoon, and a roller with Velcro texture.

They are sitting on two pieces of LL’s clothing (blue vest and green jumper), and one of his toys (child safe mirror turned face down).

 

….. Hope he enjoys it!

Practising that pincer grasp and fine motor skill development – with raisins!

Date: October 18, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 9-12 months, Age: General Baby/Infant, Development, Feeding, Motor Skills
Comments: Leave a reply
developing pincer grasp and fine motor skills by grasping raisins, for baby.

Fine motor skill and pincer grasp practice for baby – with raisins

So we were eating snacks today, and LL (aged just over 10 months) always wants to eat what you’re eating if you eat in front of him. I was eating jaffa cakes and so decided he probably shouldn’t have these because they are covered in chocolate and quite sugary.

I gave him some nice organic raisins instead (still have sugar in them, I suppose, but natural sugars?). I put them in a plastic tub for him to fish out and practice his fine motor skills. This was probably a good activity to help him practice his “pincer grasp” as well. Here’s some pictures. He seemed to like the raisins

 

developing pincer grasp and fine motor skills by grasping raisins, for baby.

Baby enjoying his raisins, pincer grasp and fine motor skill development

 

 

 

 

Treasure Baskets & Heuristic play: Quick guide, Themes and Content ideas

Date: October 14, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: General Baby/Infant, Development, Montessori, Play & Activity
Comments: Leave a reply
10 treasure basket ideas for baby: ideas for themes, content and how to present them (trays, bucket, basket, treasure shoe box). Treasure baskets & heuristic play - what/why/how - from baby-brain.co.uk

Theme and content ideas for infant Treasure Baskets

I’ve decided to write a new post streamlining the Treasure Baskets and Heuristic Play post – in order to make a kind of:

Quick reference guide on Treasure Baskets: the what, why and how

– oh and with some more pictures of what me and the Little Lovely have been trying out too! Here’s 10 ideas on contents and themes

 

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Treasure basket out of a shoe box. Balls. treasure baskets and heuristic play: what, why & how. baby-brain.co.uk psychology resource perspective babies motherhood & blog

Treasure Chest – make an old shoe box into a treasure basket! I filled this one with balls

The What:

What are treasure baskets? A collection of objects, presented in a basket/container, for infants who are old enough to sit up but not old or mobile enough to get about and explore. Hence – you bring the world to them and let them explore and experience various sensory aspects (touch, sound, sight, taste, smell) through exploring the items in the basket and discovery – alongside developing hand-eye coordination skills.

 

The concept was originally introduced by  Elinor Goldschmied. You can read a bit more about her here in this article from The Guardian where the author describes her as “one of the pioneers of early childhood care and education”.

 

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The How:

Collect a range of items from around the room or house, that are baby safe, mouthable and excite the senses.

The parent/caregiver role is also important. After presenting the Treasure Basket to baby, sit close by, be attentive and available to the child if needed but do not direct the exploration or play; let baby explore at their own pace and make the decisions without giving in to the temptation to go through the basket yourself and show baby each item or demonstrate how to use them.
Resist the urge to impose your own ideas;
        • ⇒ Treasure baskets should be child-led and….
        • They offer very young children an opportunity to actually make decisions about what to play with and how  (an opportunity which they don’t usually get)
For my reflections on how difficult it was to resist, but how I experienced an interesting outcome, see “a personal case study” in the full treasure basket post here

 

Contents and theme ideas: 

Some themes we have tried

Treasure Chest:

  • Made out of a shoe box! (full picture above) – just be mindful of the corner edges, these aren’t soft and round like the baskets. I filled one with balls and LL enjoyed opening and shutting the lid
Treasure basket out of a shoe box. Balls. treasure baskets and heuristic play: what, why & how. baby-brain.co.uk psychology resource perspective babies motherhood & blog

Box of Balls (Treasure Box)

Kitchen set:

  • Lemon, orange, lime (smelly fruits), safe utensils from different materials like metal, wood (plastic if you are not being traditional)
     Kitchen themed treasure baskets and heuristic play: what, why & how. baby-brain.co.uk psychology resource perspective babies motherhood & blog

Baskets of Round and Circle shapes, and a basket of Assorted Shapes (in wood)

  • LL loves taking all of these shapes out of the basket, throwing, waving and bashing them around (9.5 months)

Assorted wooden shapes. treasure baskets and heuristic play: what, why & how. baby-brain.co.uk psychology resource perspective babies motherhood & blog

Round and circle shapes. treasure baskets and heuristic play: what, why & how. baby-brain.co.uk psychology resource perspective babies motherhood & blog

 

Treasure Tin: Mixed Circles

  • More shapes again

treasure baskets & heuristic play: how, why, what. mixed circles. baby-brain.co.uk

 

Treasure Tin of mixed colour fabrics

Treasure Bucket of different textured fabrics

  • Silky ribbon, thick fishnet, netting type material, cotton, and so on. LL enjoyed feeling all the various textures, the depth of the bucket (sticking his hand right in the the bottom and pulling the fabrics out), and the clatter of the tin and tin lid when the fabrics were presented in this.
treasure tin, mixed fabrics. Treasure Baskets: what, why & how. baby-brain.co.uk psychology resource perspective babies motherhood & blog
treasure bucket, mixed fabric textures. Treasure Baskets: what, why & how. baby-brain.co.uk psychology resource perspective babies motherhood & blog

Wooden – or try grouping other materials, like metal

  • This set included some wooden kitchen bits such as a spoon, brush, a wooden rattle, baby hairbrush (soft goat hair), large coloured counters

    treasure baskets & heuristic play: how, why, what. Wooden. baby-brain.co.uk

Colours

  • A basket of mixed green items

treasure baskets & heuristic play: how, why, what. The colour green. baby-brain.co.uk

Noisy treasure basket- musical treasure box 

  • A little box of noisy toys, including a shaker, rattle, tambourine, cage bell

treasure baskets & heuristic play: how, why, what. Music box. baby-brain.co.uk

In general – we have used different materials and ways to present the Treasure Basket contents, including

  • tins

  • baskets

  • shoe boxes

  • trays (e.g. baking tray)

  • buckets

LL has enjoyed the noises he can make with different materials, like the sound the tin box makes when banging the lid against the box, and the kitchen implements against the metal baking tray. He experimented with reaching into the bottom of the bucket and pulling fabric pieces out.

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The Why:

For development (senses, physical, emotional, and more), for exploring, for play, for fun….

Heuristic Play:
This is about discovery play–  used to described the activity of toddlers when they play with objects, how they experiment with objects and the environment. It’s called “experimental” because the child is interested in discovering what they can do with the objects. Treasure baskets are relevant here because they allow baby the opportunity to handle and mouth objects (sensory motor skills) so that they can find out more about them, and they offer new sensory experiences that allow the brain to grow and become more active (2). The term Heuristic Play is more relevant to children of toddler age, and Treasure Baskets to babies.

 

References

  1. Gascoyne, S. (2012). Treasure Baskets & Beyond: Realizing the Potential of Sensory-rich Play. McGraw-Hill. (access the introductory chapter to this book here, and read a more about sensory, heuristic play and Treasure Baskets)
  2. Hughes, A. M. (2010). Developing Play for the Under 3s: The Treasure Basket and Heuristic Play. Routledge

 

Other references influencing this post:

  • Goldschmied, E. & Jackson, S. (1994) People under Three. Young Children in Day Care. Routledge (see chapter 6 – The Treasure Basket)

Reading with baby – what, why, and how to

Date: October 12, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: General Baby/Infant, Development, Reading
Comments: 1 Reply

 

How to read with baby? just read to them right? Yes mostly. And enjoy it.

  • But here’s some more information and tips on how to read with baby from the first few months onwards.

→ → → For the full story on reading, see the more detailed page here

 

Age 0-3 months (and 3-6 months)

  • Baby will love hearing the sound of your voice. They may recognise voices from the womb so it’s not too early to start reading to them

  • Baby’s eyes are developing still, obviously, but they can see stark, high contrasting colours and images, such as the ones below. I bought some high contrasting flash cards for the Little Lovely to look at, see more about that here, but you can easily make or download these. I knocked up a few below, available as a PDF.

  • Simple squares might be ones to start with. Print off and cut out. Stick onto card, make into a mobile, or just show on paper. Alternatively, make your own flash card book.

  • I bought a small baby board book from a charity shop (about 50p I think), and cut out and attached one image to each one of the pages. The high contrast images were covering the original book, but it was cheap and not that interesting so I didn’t mind. It was much simplier than trying to make my own board book from scratch!

simple square high contrast flash cards - visual stimulation - baby-brain.co.uk

High contrast flash cards for baby – simple square designs – available to print

⇒ Click link to download: High contrast images for baby –  visual stimulation – simple square images

 

 

 

 

3-6 months

  • High contrast images might still be interesting for baby to look at

  • Reading early on with baby gets both you and them into good reading habits and pattern of behaviour – for example, a recent study found that reading with 4 month old children was related to shared book reading when the child was 8 months old – and reading at 8 months old was found to be related to language skills at 12  and 16 months, so earlier book reading promoted later book reading and skills

  • Read with expression – don’t forget about facial expression and mirroring baby’s expression also – babies are fascinated by faces. 

  • Describe and name the pictures, describe what is happening – children’s books at this age might not have much text, but make the most out of the pictures. what’s going on? what are the colours? is there something relevant to your life and baby such as the little boy in the story likes a red car, and you have a toy red car? What sound does the car make? And so on.

 

 

6-12 months

  • Continue to read with expression, different voices, faces

  • Now that baby has more attention they can sit through a short story book

  • Now that baby has more control of their hands and increased motor skills – try some interactive and lift the flap books. At 9 months the Little Lovely is very curious (and was in the months before this) and likes interactive books where he can flip things back and forth, feel different textures and some books that also play sounds. He can’t always press all of the buttons hard enough to make the sound yet though.

    • Interactive books will help baby learn about cause and effect, and increase their sense of their own control and direction over their actions

  • As before, describe and name the pictures, describe what is happening – There might be more text in the story now than in 3-6 month old books. But still, make the most out of the pictures, link the text to the pictures, point and describe. What’s going on? what are the colours? is there something relevant to your life and baby?

  • What sound do things in the book make? Baby will be able to imitate some sounds now – they might love blowing raspberries, making certain sounds like dadada, bababa, mamama (at 9 months, LL likes to shout DADADA very loudly, can’t remember exactly when he started on the dada, maybe 7 or 8 months, followed by baba, then mama) – so can you link this to characters or things in the book so baby can learn more about the meanings of those words/sounds?

    • We attach meaning to words as guided by parents and those who teach us – e.g. “cat” just means a random collection of sounds unless we learn to associate it with what a cat is.

    • So, can you start to associate the sounds and words with what they actually mean and increase your baby’s understanding of these words?

 

 

References:
  1. Lariviere & Rennick (2011). Parent picture-book reading to infants in the neonatal intensive care unit as an intervention supporting parent-infant interaction and later book reading. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 32 (2),  pp 146-152.
  2. Karras, J. & Braungart-Rieker, J. (2005). Effects of shared parent-infant book reading on early language acquisition. Applied Developmental Psychology, 26, 133-148.
  3. Brémond-Gignac D., Copin H., Lapillonne A., Milazzo S. (2011). Visual development in infants: physiological and pathological mechanisms. Curr. Opin. Ophthalmol. 22, S1–S8.
  4. Decasper AJ, Fifer WP. Of human bonding: newborns prefer their mothers’ voice. Science. 1980;208:1174 –1176.
Other references influencing this page:
  • High P, Lagasse L, Becker S, Algren L, Gardner A. Literacy promotion in primary care pediatrics: can we make a difference? Pediatrics. 2000;105:927–934.

 

 

Psychological research: winter babies crawl earlier than summer babies

Date: September 14, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: General Baby/Infant, Development, Motor Skills, Psychological Research
Comments: Leave a reply
Psychological research paper: are there differences in crawling age between winter and summer babies? baby-brain.co.uk. Psychological perspective, resource and blog on motherhood

Crawling baby

Psychological research paper: I saw this paper here, about crawling, thought it looked interesting:

Babies Born in the Winter Start Crawling Earlier Than Those Born in the Summer

Study shows a seasonal effect on the pace of motor development in babies

 

Babies born between December and May (“winter” babies) were found to start to crawl earlier compared to those born between June and November (“summer” babies – although November is bit a bit winter-ish if you ask me, but hey-ho). The study involved motor observations at home when babies were 7 months old, and following the babies up when they started crawling. Parents were also asked to record the stages in their babies’ development.

The average age at which the babies started crawling was 31 weeks. But while the babies born in the winter (who started to crawl in the summer) started to crawl at an average 30 weeks, those born in the summer (who started to crawl in the winter) began crawling at an average of 35 weeks, with no differences noted between the boys or the girls or in the initial style of crawling (belly crawling or using hands and knees).

They also used a measure that assessed 4 different positions: Prone (on the stomach), supine (on the back), sitting, and standing – the overall scores the babies got on this assessment was higher for winter babies, but, there were no significant differences in scores between the winter and summer babies on the scores for the supine position, sitting, or standing.

So what do the researchers conclude?

According to the researchers, the findings strengthen the assumption that there is a window of opportunity for starting to crawl and stress the effect of the season on the start of crawling.

The current study took place in Israel. They talk about the seasonal effect because other studies where there is quite a difference between seasons have found similiar results, e.g. in Denver, Colorado and Osaka, Japan. But, but a study that took place in Alberta, Canada, didn’t find any seasonal effect. Despite winters being “long and cold” there, the researchers write that the environment in the house is very similar all year round because of winter heating.

They write:

“Although the winter in Israel is comparatively mild…. it turns out that it nonetheless influences the motor development of babies because of the differences between summer and winter in Israel,”

⇒ So why does season and seasonal effects seem to be relevant to when babies start to crawl?

The study notes that:

“The season influences the babies’ experiences in a number of ways, including

  • layers of clothing that are worn

  • the opportunities babies are given to spend on the floor on their stomachs, and,

  • the hours of activity and daylight

Awareness of the seasonal effect is important so that parents will give their babies proper movement and development opportunities in the winter as well,” 

Ooooh I see, so it’s not necessarily anything inherent about winter vs summer children, but about environmental factors and what is going on in the baby’s home and environment when they are developing and reaching the age that they might start to develop crawling skills.

Those born in winter will approach crawling ready age in spring/summer where there might be more opportunities to go out, have more hours of day light in which in play, less restrictive or thick clothing on so that they can practice movement more freely, etc.

psychological research: Do babies understand speech?

Date: September 6, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 3-6 months, Age: 6-9 months, Age: General Baby/Infant, Development, Psychological Research, Talking & Speech
Comments: Leave a reply
Do babies understand speech? What does the psychological research say - yes! Infant verbal understanding

Do babies understand speech?

I saw this interesting research paper today (1) about whether babies as young as 6 months understand that speech is used to communicate information (rather than random, interesting sounds that come out of our mouths).

 

→ Babies at 6 months appear to understand that speech transfers information between people

Some people might think – but of course! Others might think, wow, that’s early to understand such a thing.

 

 

 

The study also mentioned that:
  • Previous research (2, 3) has shown that 12 month old children can understand that speech transfers information, even when the speech is unknown or a new experience for them.
  • By 6 months, babies prefer speech over other sounds (4)
  • They also associate speech as coming from people, rather than other animals, for example (5)

 

What the experiment did:

The researchers looked at:

  • Whether 6 month olds could recognise that speech can communicate something about an object.
  • In the experiment the baby watched an actor reach for one of two different objects. There was also a second person present. Next, the actor could no longer reach the objects, but the second person could
    • so they either “spoke” to the person (they actually spoke a nonsense word, not a real conversation)
    • or made a non-speech communication (a cough).
  • The second person would then pick up one of the objects (there was a “target” object and a “non-preferred” object)
  • The results showed that babies looked at the actor for longer when they reached for the non-preferred object than the target object when they made the nonsense word, but not when when they coughed.

The study concludes that at 6 months, even though babies have a very small receptive vocabulary, infants have some abstract understanding of the communicative function of speech. This understanding may help with their development of language and knowledge.

Conclusion
Six-month olds infer that a vocalization that takes the
form of speech, even without any previously established
meaning, can communicate information about an object…….

 

…… even before knowing many words, infants can already use their understanding of the abstract role of speech in communication to evaluate the outcome of communicative interactions. (pg7)

The main points:
  • babies understand that speech is used to communicate and has a communicative function before they build their vocabularies and start to speak.
  • understanding that speech is used to communicate may happen before the child develops language, and this understanding may also provide a mechanism for early language acquisition:
  •  Babies start to learn quite early on that speech transfers information and may use this abstract understanding to learn about the meaning of individual words (6)

 

interesting!

 

References:
  1. Vouloumanos, A., Martin, A., & Onishi, K. H. (2014). Do 6-month-olds understand that speech can communicate? Developmental Science, pp 1–8
  2. Martin, A., Onishi, K.H., & Vouloumanos, A. (2012). Understanding the abstract role of speech in communication at 12 months. Cognition, 123 (1), 50 – 60. 
  3. Vouloumanos, A., Onishi, K .H., & Pogue, A. (2012). Twelve-month-old infants recognize that speech can communicate unobservable intentions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 109 (32),12933 – 12937.
  4. Vouloumanos, A., & Werker, J.F. (2004). Tuned to the signal:the privileged status of speech for young infants. Develop-mental Science.  7 (3), 270-276
  5. Vouloumanos, A., Druhen, M. J., Hauser, M.D., & Huizink, A.T. (2009). Five-month-old infants’ identification of thesources of vocalizations.  Proceedings of the National Acad-emy of Sciences of the United States of America,106 (44),18867-18872.
  6. Waxman, S.R., & Leddon, E.M. (2002). Early word learning and conceptual development: everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. In U. Goswami(Ed.),The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitivedevelopment (pp. 102-126). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell
For further references in relation to infant cognition and communication see this page here from the infant cognition and communication lab