Transcript (Powerpoint) Slideshow class - Teaching Babies

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.
Teaching Babies
by Stephanie Lane,
ICAN Branch Director
Living Worship Ministries
Learning Foundations Child Development Program
[email protected]
http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/livingworship
History of child-brain development
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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
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“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
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Babies learn to:
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Hear and listen
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See and observe
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Feel and sense their bodies in space
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Move and become mobile and coordinated
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Make sounds and communicate
Little children love to learn!
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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
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At birth the baby has little tactile sensation and
therefore correspondingly, little organized
motion.
There are three major tactility sensors to be
considered:
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Deep sensors: Next to the bone
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Skin sensors: Surface
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Temperature sensors
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Mouth tactility
Tactility Sensor: Deep Pressure
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Deep Sensors:
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Next to the bone
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Responsible for:
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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
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Skin Sensors:
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Surface
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Responsible for:
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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 - Vision
The 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 – Convergence
Convergence 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 Input
Once 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
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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
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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
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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 Workshop
Contact Stephanie Lane for more information at
[email protected]
God Bless you,
Stephanie Lane
Administrator, Living Worship Ministries
Learning Foundations Education