 Infant Stimulation - Dr (Mrs) Reeta Sonawat
“A one year old child consistently goes close to the hot vessel despite repeated warnings. At one point, he touches the hot vessel and instantly withdraws his hand back on experiencing the heat being careful to not go near the hot vessel again.”
There are two ways to look at this incident, one is that experience is the best teacher and the other is that any stimulus is followed by a response of some kind, which forms the crux of the experience facilitating learning in the child. The basic aim of citing the above example was to highlight the impact and importance of stimulus or stimulation from an early age. We can say that ‘stimulation is a stepping stone to development’.
Research says that maximum and the most rapid development occurs during the first three years of life. Brain research shows that at birth only 15% of the brain is formed, while the remaining 85% is formed in the first three years. Early experiences are critical for brain development. Right stimulation provided at the right time to the child can aid brain development. Sensory stimulation plays a role in creating stronger connections between the neurons in the brain. During the first six years of life the number of synapses increases in response to environmental stimuli and sensory experiences.
It is important to understand and comprehend the fact that stimulation is not related only to the brain and cognitive development. In fact stimulation can be directed towards holistic and all round development from an early age. Each of the domains of development i.e. physical, cognitive, language and psychosocial development is intertwined. All through life each affects the others, and each domain is integral. When the infants are exposed to the world around them, they are trying to absorb and assimilate as much as they can obtain from their environment. At first, most infants might be overwhelmed by their exposure to the environment but soon, this very environment and the stimulation from the environment is an enriching process for the infant.
Some interesting and relatively unknown facts about stimulation:
- Foetuses respond to their mother’s heartbeat and voice while still in the womb.
- Up to six weeks before birth, foetuses actively use their senses of taste, touch, sight, hearing and movement, as documented by changes in foetal brain-wave patterns.
- In the first two hours after birth, newborns maintain alertness longer than they will for the next two months.
- Infant Stimulation can help babies sounds and facial movements like tongue thrusts when only four days old, recognize a simple word at only nine months, and construct complete sentences before eighteen months.
- Babies have a biological need to learn
- Any stimulation provided during the first twelve months has more impact on the brain’s growth than at any other time in baby’s future life. By six months of age, a full 50 percent of baby’s brain growth has occurred.
Brown and Donovan (1977) proposed that the “general teaching strategy used to implement the stimulation program with the young child be fourfold:
- An adult introduces the child to the activity, showing her materials, demonstrating how to use them, and verbalizing the actions involved. The child may explore by touching, mouthing and holding the materials.
- The adult physically moves the child through the activity while verbalizing each action involved. A gradual reduction in the amount of assistance may lead to a stimulus-response behaviour in which the child completes and activity because it creates an interesting effect.
- The adult demonstrates and describes the activity and waits for the child to imitate. Physical assistance is only given when the child does not complete the activity after several demonstrations.
- The adult creates a situation and waits for the child to act. The child experiments and may initiate her own way of completing the activity. If she does not complete it, a verbal cue can be given (i.e., a request, a command, or a description).”
For the youngest learners, newborns to six months, learning comes in the form of sensory and stimuli toys for the five senses – touch, taste, sight, smell, and sound. Playing to stimulate senses has shown to help infants learn and develop quicker, as well as improving curiosity, attention span, memory, and the nervous system. Infant stimulation can also help with reaching developmental milestones faster later in childhood and improving muscle coordination. Stimulation should be made a part of the baby’s routine right from the hospital. Being hospitalised is stressful for infants. The hospital can be both under-stimulating and over-stimulating. It’s important to pay attention to the baby’s special needs in the hospital, so one can continue providing appropriate stimulation.
Babies begin to tell the difference between light and dark before their born. At birth, an infant can clearly see an object 10–13 inches from her face. For the first three months, babies enjoy contrasting colours and patterns, especially black and white. Older infants like bright, bold colours — red, blue, green, and yellow. Touching is one of the best ways to stimulate your baby. It provides contact, reassurance, relaxation, and comfort. Babies like firm and gentle stroking. Touching a variety of textures will fascinate the baby. Babies notice different tastes and smells. Let the baby taste and smell different things — one at a time in case of allergies. Check with the doctor to see if one can feed your baby new kinds of foods. A newborn’s most highly developed sense is hearing — babies can hear and remember familiar sounds months before they’re born. One of the easiest ways to calm a newborn is to hold him next to his mother’s chest so he can hear her heartbeats. Infants seem to prefer soft and high-pitched sounds, especially a female’s voice.
By having mobiles around the cradle or the cot, the infant is allowed to explore his or her surroundings independently. Often, infants play on their own, trying to kick the mobile, thereby learning the association that kicking the mobile leads to movement which is colourful and pleasurable to the eye along with creating some kind of a noise. Thus, stimulation provided contributes to physical- motor, visual and auditory and cognitive development. Similarly, interacting with the infant while breast-feeding, is one of the best ways to form an emotional bond of security and trust. More often than not, caregivers interact with infants using babbling and high pitched, exaggerated tones, facial expressions and more of sounds rather than words. However it is important to interact with the infant using words as well. The infant’s ability to use language may not have developed but that does not deter them from grasping and learning to comprehend words and language. Another effective way of engaging the child’s senses is to interact using various facial expressions and gestures, like the smile, a frown, playing peek-a-boo etc. Mirrors also can be placed inside of a crib for visual stimulation. All this helps in exposing the child to newer things that have a novelty factor for the child.
It is said, that too much of anything is also harmful. So it is important to guard against and be cautious about over-stimulation. Appropriate and timely stimulation is the key to healthy development and an active and healthy child. Over-stimulation can rob stimulation of all the benefits. It can lead to chaos, confusion and at times disinterest in the child. Infants cannot hold their interest on a particular thing for a long time. If exposed to many things at a time, they may not know where to respond and may overlook them altogether.
JUST A SMALL REMINDER….
- Infants feel more secure when they can feel boundaries around them — like blankets rolled up and placed close to their sides and feet.
- Let the baby sit-up on the caregiver’s lap so she can look around.
- Change toys so your baby doesn’t get bored.
- It’s best to touch the non-threatening parts of your infant’s body first (arms and legs).
- Stimulation will work best when an infant is alert, active and paying attention.
- Keep the baby warm.
- If the baby is being stimulated properly, he/she will smile, coo, babble, make eye contact, have alert facial expression and will interact with people or toys.
- If the baby gets tired or loses interest, it may mean she’s had enough stimulation and is tired. Let her rest.
About the Author: Dr Reeta Sonawat did her Masters and then Doctorate in 'Child Development' and is currently a Professor and Head of Department, the Department of Human Development, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai.. Her contribution to the field of Education has been acknowledged through many National and International awards. Her post doctoral research, was on 'Integrated Kindergarten and Primary Schools' at the University of Bremen, Germany. She underwent training in 'Early Childhood Education: Children with Reading Difficulties' at Golda Meir Mount Carmel Institute and Training Center, Haifa, Israel.
She was selected as one of the Global Leaders in Early Childhood Education at the World Forum 2005, Montreal. She is a prolific writer, has presented her work at various National and International conferences, seminars, symposia, and authored/co-authored several research articles. She has been invited as a speaker in many countries like Philippines, Indonesia, Athens, Brazil and New Zealand and conducted various workshops on Quality in Early Childhood Education, Whole Language Approach. Dr Sonawat has more than 75 publications to her credit.
Role of Parents
Parent’s role must be that of a conscious nurturer in a Child’s development. Every baby comes with a blueprint for their adult self’s hence in the process of child’s development the parents should be his fellow travelers, childhood is the most impressionable stage as we know that the maximum development of the brain takes place in first five years of life. By stimulating a child’s brain during this stage parents are in fact adding in “MAKING OF CHILDS MIND”. Parents exist not only to teach a child but they must also learn to listen to a child, for a child has a lot to tell them, if this two way interaction takes place it helps in developing a positive relationship between child and parents which helps in all round development of a child.
While bringing up children parents need to provide strokes for the development of the self concept of the child. In the early years this self concept is of prime importance because it is ….how a child looks at himself perceives and understands his abilities ,innate capacities which are very important for his life long learning .
Through their manner of speaking, their body language parents communicate a lot of things to their child. Children are observing parents behavior and listening carefully to their words and even feel the feelings of their parents. How the parents look at a particular situation, express themselves the child learns the same things by looking at the parent. When parents appreciate Childs efforts even if it is with a smile, words of praise they are providing encouragement to a child. This helps a child to learn acceptable behavior and promotes the feeling of self worth. This is a positive stroke for a child. Childs self esteem is greatly influenced by the quality of time the parent spends with him rather than the amount of time spent.
Similarly a child learns about what is wrong and right, unacceptable manners, behaviors when a parent provides a negative stroke. This happens when parents specifically comment to the child about his wrong behavior, explaining about why it is so, what was not being liked by them and what is unacceptable, in many situations parents’ actions rather than words speak a lot. Parent should help their children to understand, comprehend and draw inferences for their actions this is in fact the first step in disciplining. Simple every day activities have a great learning value for the child .Even play activities are in fact self education for child. So important that parents help in this self education by giving him either the positive or negative stroke. When no stroke is provided child feels miserable and neglected and creates confusion in a Childs mind this happens when parents don’t communicate well with the child or explain to him about his behavior. A balance should be maintained when one praises Childs efforts and rewards him for his accomplishment, praise is to deal specifically with Childs efforts rather than commenting on Childs personality. Most important be consistent in both praise and when disciplining children.
 Mrs. Neelakshi Naolekar is a School Psychologist with 10 yrs of experience in the field of child Development with special interest in MI theory in Indian Context. She did her graduation in Child development from SNDT Pune and Post Graduation in School psychology from Jnana Prabhodhini institute of psychology Pune. She has a vast experience of working at Pre primary level in reputed schools in Pune.
She was running a MI Based Child development Centre at Pune, Was faculty for Teachers training course of SNDT at Indian Woman Scientist Association, Mumbai. Presently running her own Child development centre at Indore .She is also involved in guidance and counseling of children’s and parents and remedial teaching for children with learning disabilities.
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