Teaching Babies by Stephanie Lane,

ICAN Branch DirectorLiving Worship Ministries

Learning Foundations Child Development Programunlimitedlearningsuccess@yahoo.com

http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/livingworship

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I

lived in, how much I had in my bank account, nor what my clothes looked like. But the world may be a little better because I was important in the

life of a child.

History of child-brain development

● In the 1940’s, a team of specialists including educators, neurologists, physiatrists and so forth, explored the potential to improve function in brain-injured children.

● The result was the Doman-Delacato developmental profile. It looked at the inputs to the brain – tactile, auditory and visual, and the corresponding outputs – speech and language, manual function and mobility

Training Children

● “If you train your children carefully until they are seven years old, they are already three-quarters educated.”

● Babies are like little sponges just waiting to soak up all there is to know and do in their environment. Tiny children are “wired” to learn!

● Whether we realize it or not, we are stimulating our children – and even though we are not formally “schooling” them – they are learning every minute of every day.

Implications for Babies

Knowing the developmental steps used to evaluate individuals with problems helps us know which areas of the brain control different functions in the nervous system.

It has been well established that the first years are significant in the amount of learning and input that takes place. The activity and opportunities children experience affect the brain and the development of the central nervous system.

Those Wonderful First Years

● Babies learn to:– Hear and listen– See and observe– Feel and sense their bodies in space– Move and become mobile and coordinated– Make sounds and communicate

Little children love to learn!

● Very few understand the amazing rate and wonderful ability a baby has to absorb information.

● We can accelerate learning and function by creating opportunities to do activities which will develop the foundations in the brain for excellence in physical, emotional, mental and spiritual areas of life.

Inputs to the Brain - Tactility

● At birth the baby has little tactile sensation and therefore correspondingly, little organized motion.

● There are three major tactility sensors to be considered:– Deep sensors: Next to the bone– Skin sensors: Surface – Temperature sensors– Mouth tactility

Tactility Sensor: Deep Pressure

● Deep Sensors: – Next to the bone

● Responsible for:– Pain response– Muscle tone– Mobility

The first thing we want to teach our baby’s brain is to feel his/her body and to recognize where his/her body is in space. This is called proprioception.

Tactility Sensor: Skin Sensors

● Skin Sensors: – Surface

● Responsible for:– Ticklish sensation– Feeling of textures– Fine motor abilities

Temperature Sensors:

Should give accurate measurements of hot and cold messages to the brain

Mouth Tactility

Must be well developed for normal tongue control and speech

Effective Stimulation

In order to make stimulation effective and create proper development in the brain and nerve pathways, you must do it with sufficient:

Frequency (number of times a day)

Intensity (proper level of stimulation)

Duration - Once a child begins to perceive outside stimuli to his skin and deeper feelings like pressure and pain, you can work on the beginnings of fine motor skills and advance as rapidly as your child will go.

Fine Motor Skills

Once a child begins to perceive outside stimuli to his skin and deeper feelings like pressure and pain, you can work on the beginnings of fine motor skills and advance as rapidly as your child will go.

Begin with board books by turning the pages one at a time. Move on to magazines or books with paper pages.

Begin with large blocks and have them put into a large container, then smaller containers. Then move to smaller and smaller blocks.

Begin with large beads and have them string them on yarn, then use cereal or macaroni to string.

Spatial relationships

The major importance of helping our child’s brain interpret his body’s spatial relationships is that we want to get the body moving as soon as possible in meaningful ways.

Crawling on their tummies

This is the first significant movement of the whole body that we should teach. The “army crawl” is more easily facilitated on a smooth surface. He needs to move forward as he crawls, in a cross pattern.

Creeping

When he can crawl in a cross pattern, begin to teach him to creep on hands and knees.

Hold him under the tummy and move his hands and knees on the floor.

Encourage him to creep cross pattern with the left hand and right knee moving simultaneously.

Vestibular System

As their vestibular system (responsible for balance) is stimulated by movement at this stage, they will begin to “cruise” around the furniture.

The vestibular is part of the hearing system – the semicircular canals in the middle ear.

Sitting

About the time they accomplish creeping and pulling to stand, they often develop the muscle coordination to sit. Premature sitting is often achieved with a “rounded” rather than straight back.

Sitting is not a true developmental stage, but a learned skill.

Walking

Eventually the big moment arrives and they “walk.”

Encourage them to increase the number of independent steps – then with hands above waist.

Once they are walking, have them walk a lot. You can take them out two or three times a day for 10 or 15 minute walks. As they progress in stability, take them on different terrains. Also let them work out steps and curbs – it will help their vestibular system and vision.

Inputs to the Brain - VisionThe messages we want to send through the eye to the brain

have three requirements- large, clear and repeated.

Stages of development: pupillary response to light – reflex

outline perception/horizontal tracking

detail perception, vertical tracking

stereopsis/convergence of eyes

Picture Identification

Symbol Identification

Reading Dominance

Vision – Tracking

Next the child learns to track large objects horizontally and then vertically. Central detail vision starts to develop.

In patterns/black marker on white poster cards 12” x 12” - use large lines or angles that will contrast sharply against a background.

Vision – ConvergenceConvergence develops in the early stages of mobility.

Once the child is starting to move, the eyes start learning to work together and convergence and depth perception are developed; the brain learns to control the eyes.

Creeping is important in mobility but is also terribly important in a child’s visual development.

When a child creeps on hands and knees there is development in: near point vision, depth perception, and convergence

Vision – Visual InputOnce central detail vision and convergence are established, your child is ready to take off with large amounts of visual input and receptive language.

Lots of large pictures of single objects

family members

things in his immediate environment

ball, rattle, doll

Then move to brightly colored, large pictures of objects around the house and then the neighborhood and his world.

Vision – Sequential processing

Show him/her two things – car, truck.

Point at them and identify them and then cover them up/take them away and ask the child to tell you what they were.

When they can identify two, give them three. He/she can tell you that he saw a ball, hammer and clock.

Do this for very short periods of time, but frequently through the day.

Vision – Reading

Once the child is identifying many pictures, it is time to introduce visual language: that is sight words.

Children can learn to read and speak at the same time because the brain of the little child is “wired” to learn language and cares little whether that language is visual or auditory.

Start with flashcards of words of things they know. Large 5” letters (red) on white poster board. In sets of ten you will present them – showing them less than a second at a time with the total reading “game” taking less than a minute with lots of enthusiasm at the end.

The purpose is for input only – clear and bold.

Inputs to the Brain - Hearing

Auditory function will have a tremendous affect on auditory processing skills, intellectual function, social skills and maturity level achieved by our children.

The brain “learns” to interpret different tones and environmental sounds and to hear information of interest and block out background noise. In other words, your child begins life with very little “functional” hearing. They haven’t learned how to process a lot of sound yet.

The auditory pathways to the brain are laid down in those critical first two years by hearing a wide variety of clear sounds. One of the keys to good language development is in providing a great deal of high quality auditory input.

Hearing and Learning Problems

A child with learning problems, low auditory processing or even one with no language can test OK on an audiogram, which simply tests threshold hearing using pure tones. An audiogram does not test the quality of hearing.

A child can be hypersensitive to certain sounds and not be able to concentrate on the sound of interest, be very auditorily distractible and still test well on an audiogram.

The distortion can occur because of injury to the auditory pathways to the brain (or any part of the hearing system) or simply because of constant and chronic ear infections.

Language and Learning

Help your child process the language by talking face to face with your child so he can see what you are doing with your mouth and tongue.

As your child is hearing and seeing you produce the sounds, you will see him zero in on your mouth and pay close attention to how you are using your lips and tongue to produce those sounds. He may even investigate further by touching your face and mouth as you speak to him and then trying to imitate you.

Auditory Sequential Processing

Your child’s ability to use language to communicate is largely reflected in his ability to process things sequentially. If he is only producing random sounds, he is not yet processing one piece of information.

As he begins to speak in a few spontaneous words, he is probably processing one piece. Continue to imitate (with correct pronunciation) his initial words and add another to it. If he says “ball”, demonstrate “red ball”. If he says “truck”, demonstrate “big truck”.

Auditory Input

Classical music with lots of high frequencies (like those of violins) and very little bass is one good source of stimulating input. (We also process more tones in communication that are in the high/mid range, than low)

This exposes your baby to a variety of tones needed to learn to process meaningfully.

Play a variety of cassette tapes:

familiar sounds from his environment like soft sounds of voices

sounds around the house

outdoor sounds, street sounds

rain, wind, nature, storms, birds

Unlocking Your Child's Learning Potential

● It is very exciting to watch and participate in the development of a young child. It can bring great joy as we see them fulfil God’s design. You can take an active role in providing what your child needs to reach the potential the Lord has given him.

Observation

Take 10 minutes to observe how much time your tiny children are utilizing the floor for learning and development. Make sure they get plenty!

30 minutes of feedback – Use a tape recorder during dinner time or other very active time to get the voices of everyone.

International Christian Association of Neurodevelopmentalists

● www.ican-do.net is the website for the International Christian Association of Neurodevelopmentalists.

● ICAN offers consulting services to families with children or adults who want to improve or accelerate their current level of learning or function.

The ICAN Neurodevelopmental Profile

● Neurodevelopmental evaluations look at how the brain receives, processes, stores and utilizes input and information.

● When they see an area where output appears fragmented or underdeveloped (behaviors and skills) they develop an individualized program for stimulation in the areas needed.

● Neurodevelopment is stimulating the brain at the proper levels to increase function.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have

for you, plans to prosper you

and not to harm you, plans to

give you hope and a future.

Schedule a WorkshopContact Stephanie Lane for more information at

unlimitedlearningsuccess@yahoo.com

God Bless you,

Stephanie Lane

Administrator, Living Worship Ministries

Learning Foundations Education