Baby movements - building the brain | Integrated Learning Therapy

As young parents, we are all too aware of the movements our babies make. They are such wriggly, animated little beings from birth on – seeming to be seldom still unless they are asleep. Talk to them and arms and legs wave in response; hold them upright and they seem determined to try and walk; before long, true mobility begins with their learning how to roll over, then sit, crawl and finally walk.

These movements are what we call neurodevelopmental movements and are far more significant than we might think. They are the genetically determined, automatic movements that all healthy babies do while still in the womb and during the first year of life. We call them primary reflexes and they are precisely the mechanism that enables the staggering rate of brain growth during the early months of life.

At birth, our human babies’ brains are only about 21% developed. This is why they are so helpless and dependent on us. But the stimulation of brain neurons from the movements we feel and then see results in the gazillions of connections between brain cells that cause the baby to show such amazingly rapid development in the first year and beyond. In short, baby movements are going to be responsible for the child’s future learning and ultimately, her performance and happiness in school.

These days, our society and lifestyles can have a negative impact on these neurodevelopmental movements. For example, too much reliance on baby seats and limited tummy time can impede natural movements. When this happens, children can be left with underdeveloped brain areas that are needed to serve as a foundation for school learning. In other words, they may lack the maturity and connectivity that is needed for ease of learning, even though they show high intelligence.

The result is unexpected difficulties when they enter school or progress beyond the early grades. The good news is that the brain can be given a second chance to catch up – at virtually any age. Thanks to the plasticity of the brain, we can help individuals across the lifespan.

By replicating the early, brain-building movements we can help the brain mature and connect to sensory systems. This leads to less stressful learning as well as better social-emotional development.

Most parents (and teachers) believe that if a child is struggling with a learning area, they need remedial teaching, usually involving more engagement with the particular academic skill. For some children, extra work isn’t successful and can lead to even more stress because the reason for their difficulty isn’t their lack of ability – it’s due to lack of maturity of certain brain areas.

Once the foundations for learning are in place, the brain is able to function as nature and genetics intended.

If you feel your child needs this kind of help, visit our Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) website at www.ilt.co.za to read about our approach. You will also be able to find a practitioner near you to help and see that we offer training courses for parents and teachers to help gain more understanding of how the brain develops and functions and the many reasons that can underlie a child’s learning challenges.

You can also write to us at info@ilt.co.za

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.