what they hear and see. They observe what they are exposed to
and they learn through positive and negative reinforcement.
Take crying for example. A baby will cry when it is hungry.
This crying starts off as an outlet for the pain and discomfort
that the baby is experiencing by being hungry. The baby soon
associates that when it cries, milk arrives. Then the baby will
begin to cry as soon as it is hungry to bring on the milk. The
baby has learned that his or her cries are responded to. The
baby may also learn that the louder the cry or yell, the
quicker the response if this turns out to be the case.
This process of learning by association teaches the baby not
only how to get what it needs but also how communication can
take place through sound. At some point in its early life a
baby will learn that if no-one can hear the crying there is no
point in doing so to get the milk. It can still cry however as
an outlet for pain.
Babies will also mimic. Babies need to be extremely observant
because their survival depends on it. This is why they are much
more observant than adults. They need to learn how to have their
needs met so must pay close attention. It is through observing
that they will notice that some of their behaviors cause joy in
others and some cause anger.
They will also experiment as they learn and then learn even
more through trial and error. A baby's memory is far more agile
than an adult's. Many things are learned as the memory holds all
this newly gathered information.
BABIES LEARN THROUGH PLAY
What appears as simple play is often much more than that. As
babies play with different objects they are developing eye-hand
coordination, spatial awareness and registering various
sensations amongst other things. As long as they are playing,
something is being practiced.
As they get older, play continues to be hard work. In fact, one
could say that play is actually practice for adult life. When a
kitten pretends to chase a mouse or a young child pretends to
be taking care of an infant or driving a car, these are all
actions which are practiced over and over again until the age
nears when these actions must be done for real. As real life
changes, the way children play changes too.
A sight that would not have been seen 25 years ago is a young
toddler pushing her doll in a stroller while speaking into a
big plastic pretend mobile phone. Children seem to naturally
want to practice what adults are doing now.
Learning happens quite naturally. However, as more and more
research is done on how babies learn and magazines publish
findings like the fact that babies can learn language by
listening (who would've thought?) more and more parents buy
these magazines to have access to these latest research
findings. This is in the hope that they can give their child a
head start.
Mothers have been singing lullabies to their babies and telling
them stories since the beginning of time. Perhaps we always
instinctively knew that speaking to an infant helps the infant
acquire language. Research studies now prove that we were right
to think this.
While articles on these research topics help to promote a very
lucrative parental magazine industry, it is really debatable
whether or not babies will be smarter because parents now read
such material. While cultures in developing countries think it
is common sense to interact with your baby and speak clearly to
him or her as often as possible, other cultures in the developed
world are walking around with magazine articles about the latest
findings such as; talking to babies helps them to learn language
and toys help them become coordinated.
About The Author: Johnny Moon is a contributer to
http://www.MyBabyAd
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