A new generation of NSW children is being mollycoddled by their fearful parents, with many children reporting they can no longer ride their bikes.

NSW Commissioner for Children and Young People Gillian Calvert warned that fears over traffic and stranger danger have meant children are missing out on basic life skills and simple pleasures.

“Over the past 10 years we have seen a real reduction in the range at which children can leave their family home and move freely,” Ms Calvert told News Limited.

“Kids tell us they can’t ride their bikes around streets anymore.”

Basic skills such as climbing trees, bike riding and crossing the road are in danger of being lost.

Sports Medicine Unit director Dr Carolyn Broderick said fundamental motor skills were developed through play, as well as balance, co-ordination and strength.

“Children now have a fear that wasn’t there in the past,” she said.

The research showed a significant reduction in free playtime among children, Dr Broderick said.

She said a quarter of parents were actually discouraging their children from playing sport because they were worried about injury.

Source: The Australian, Australia
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23712382-12377,00.html

Check-out marketing is genius - strategically placed goodies at the point of purchase, designed to entice the wandering eyes of children. Add parents who are tired, running late or too scared of a public tantrum to say no, and you’ve got yourself a sale.

My three-year-old son recently weaselled his way into a toy mobile phone at the register, but it was tech talent, not pester power, that earned him the score.

With the ease of an expert, he flipped open the phone and began an imaginary phone call to his grandmother, announcing he had a new “mobo” and arranging a time to visit. It was hard not to reward such creativity.

The gadget now joins his already impressive tech collection - a toy laptop, portable DVD player, digital set-top box, walkie-talkie and a Nintendo Wii, which his father argued would be great exercise thanks to its motion-sensing remote.

Granted, our junior geek comes from a tech-savvy family, but he’s not uncommon among his generation. Tots of the 21st century have been wired from the womb, with the rise of interactive tech toys such as LeapFrog’s learning system, computer tuition that now begins at kindergarten and “switched on” parents role-modelling the digital age of computers, mobiles and portable media.

The question is: how good is that early tech exposure for our kids, and are the bytes and buttons holding them back from important development that can’t be gained on a machine?

Private tech educators such as Computer Gym and ComputerTots, which run weekly half-hour computer classes at pre-schools across the country, argue there are educational rewards from the preschool PC program where three and four-year-olds learn how to open a document, surf the net and navigate through software.

ComputerTots director Sheri Borman, a trained psychologist and mother of three, says their computer classes are preparing pre-schoolers for primary education, introducing them to the building blocks of mathematics and reading.”

The menu that they navigate through is a left-to-right progression like reading, and you can give a character like a robot a sequence of instructions, which is an important part of mathematics,” Mrs Borman says.

The former crisis counsellor refers to more than a dozen research studies that demonstrate pre-school children who are exposed to technology in a structured way have better schoolreadiness skills, better verbal skills and better cognitive skills. In one US study, four-year-olds with computer skills had IQs that were on average 12 points higher.

“Most of the time it’s working on a computer, but it could also be using a digital microscope or a video camera.

“It’s about submerging the children in a technological culture because we don’t want children to be intimidated by (software such as) Adobe Photoshop; we want them, even at kindergarten level, not to be fearful of trying technology.”

Computer Gym’s director Chris Bouwmeester says its pre-school computer classes reach 2000 children nationally, but demand has changed very little in the past 15 years.

What has shifted is parental expectation that early childhood education will include computers.

“One of the biggest restrictions facing parents is having appropriate software that remains engaging for children. Parents might have one or two such titles, but it’s hard to cover the range of topics that we do - that’s one of the reasons parents appreciate the service,” Mr Bouwmeester says.

What both kiddie computer groups agree on is that the ultimate benefit of the tech classes for tots lies not in the curriculum but in the personal interaction and social experience.

“Our teachers are with the children and can build on the learning experience they are getting - very different from plonking a child in front of a computer and letting them go for it,” Mr Bouwmeester says. “The lessons are valuable for children because they are in a group - having a great laugh and sharing discoveries and experiences.”

Leading pediatric researcher and author Professor Frank Oberklaid, who is the director of the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, says before the age of five a child needs one thing above all else to fully develop their brain - people.

“What children need more than anything in those early years is relationships so they can learn to socialise, take turns, deal with frustrations. That’s infinitely more important than anything else,” he says.

What concerns him about the rising interest in tech toys and tuition is the unfounded belief that parents are giving their children a head start in learning.

“Do children of today need to learn computer skills? Yes, of course. It’s the new literacy,” Professor Oberklaid says. “But there’s a real concern about “hothousing” - exposing two, three and four-year-olds to stimulating activities like Baby Einstein and flash cards that help teach your child to read by three. There’s no evidence that ‘hothousing’ makes any long-term difference (to education).”

He says the commercialism of “hothousing” is simply preying on the guilt of middle-class parents who want to give children the best of everything, with technology the latest arena in which to compete.

“I’m concerned about the pressure on parents,” Professor Oberklaid says. “Hugh Mackay calls it the ‘overscheduled’ child. I’ve seen it in my patients. Technology is one more pressure on guilty parents.”

Child psychologist Evelyn Field believes working parents and our culture of “busyness” has created a generation of passive parents, who often turn to “cyberia” for baby-sitting.

“Parents are scrambling towards technology. They’re busy and tired and under pressure and a lot of them don’t have the time or energy. They’re putting children in front of the screen, and you can’t blame them,” she says.

Ms Field says the problem with unsupervised tech time is that young children can miss out on wide-ranging experiences such as creative play, exercise and friendships.

“Life changes all the time. Even if you watch the fish pond or the clouds every day, it’s going to change, but you don’t have the same variety of combinations on a digital screen,” she says. “It’s so important that kids get sensory experience to build the brain in the first three to four years of life.”

Dr Joe Tucci, CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, says the latest research shows that excessive tech consumption by children can lead to depression, anxiety and aggression.

“Technology tends to be an isolating experience,” he says. “Some of the problems we’re seeing with aggression and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in kids can be traced back to socially limiting experiences that technology forces kids to have.”

Child psychiatrist Professor Philip Graham, of London’s Institute of Child Health, also notes an increase in children’s mental health problems over the last quarter of the 20th century - which coincides with the dawn of the computer age and rising consumerism.

He says a recent survey in Britain showed that adults are concerned about the negative impact of materialism on children, incuding devices such as iPods, computers and mobile phones.

“Children have always been acquisitive and always will be, but increasingly they are defined by what they own rather than what they are,” he told Livewire.

Dr Tucci says that while some of these tech toys offer important stimulation, they’re also priming toddlers to be consumers before their time. “Yes, it’s cute and it’s role-playing, but equally it’s also preparing children to be consumers, and that’s the rub.”

All the experts agree that the healthiest way to introduce young kids to technology is with supervision and limits - no more than two hours of technology time a day with a balance of activity both indoors and outdoors, alone and in a group, involving both structured and free play.

Dr Tucci warns that to combat ballooning rates of child obesity, brain games need to be curbed to allow for real life action. “Unlike activities like sport or reading, technology has the potential to swamp children because it is so exciting with all of the colour and movement,” he says.

“We have to ground children in the physical space to learn about their bodies. Otherwise we’ve got a job in front of us to make exercise as exciting and interesting as technology.”

Dubbed the “genius” in her play group, two-year old Annika displays the makings of an IT whizz, having already mastered redial on her mother’s mobile, the CD-ROM and the TV remote.

“If she wants to talk to her Nanny she just presses and holds number 3 on my mobile,” says her mum, Donna Evans.

“Yesterday she rang my mother-in-law. I have to put the mobile phone out of her reach now.”

While Annika’s parents are happy to foster the tech interest, they’re also wary of overexposure. “We make sure she’s not a drone in front of the TV. We also incorporate a lot of the imaginary toys, like the kitchen appliances, so that she’s role playing and not just pressing buttons.”

Ms Evans admits she likes the learning benefits of Annika’s tech talent - as long as it remains enjoyable.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m pushing her learning, but she has the potential to be bright quite young and the tech stuff really gives her an interest in learning. I just don’t want an expectation placed on her to perform.”

The couple are also considering the unstructured education of Montessori, which doesn’t introduce computers until primary level.

“The Montessori perspective is that young children before the age of six need to learn with their hands,” Montessori trainer Amy Kirkham says.

“Computers tend to be more abstract, which is why we don’t use them until primary school.” Young mum Sandra Griffin says her friends always joke that her three-year-old son, Matt, is going to be in IT when he grows up.

He’s already mastered the computer, he has a list of his favourite websites and performs regular virus checks on the PC.

Thanks to the online games he plays he knows his colours, the alphabet, patterns and some basic maths, including counting to 20.

“I honestly believe that computers are a valuable tool in teaching kids,” Ms Griffin explains.

“Not only has it helped with Mattie’s knowledge and brain development but it also helped his fine motor skills and increased his attention span to the point where at just three years of age he can concentrate on one activity for an hour.”

The only downside is what it’s costing the family in gadgets - including a Nintendo DS for the next birthday - and $70 for each game after that.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/3p7a7s

A study of a research team of the State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), demonstrated for the first time that brains of dyslexics differ in readers of different languages.

The study, which compared dyslexic children who are readers of Chinese to those of English, indicated structural and functional differences between both groups. The findings implied that dyslexia may be different neurological conditions in readers of different languages. This research may help tailor-making therapies for children who grow up in different cultures.

The work “A structural-functional basis for dyslexia in the cortex of Chinese readers” by Dr Siok Wai Ting and her colleagues in HKU was published in April 2008 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the United States of America, a prestigious international multi-disciplinary scientific journal. Dr Siok is Principal Investigator of the State Key Laboratory and Assistant Professor of Linguistics.

Developmental dyslexia affects 7% to 9% of children in Hong Kong, and up to 17% throughout the world. It results in a severe learning disability in acquiring reading skills.

Previous neuroimaging studies have revealed that dyslexic readers of alphabetic languages like English have decreased gray-matter volume in posterior brain systems, and have weak reading-related activity in the left temporoparietal and occipitotemporal regions of the brain.

In order to assess whether these abnormalities were universal, or culture-dependent, Dr Siok said her team had been studying dyslexic Chinese children. She explained that while alphabetic languages like English were learnt using letter-to-sound conversion rules, pronunciations in a non-alphabetic language like written Chinese, which is composed of square-shaped or picture-like characters, must be memorized by rote.

In this latest study, the team used two brain imaging techniques.

Firstly, voxel-based morphometry, an established whole-brain gray-matter assessment technique, was used to analyze the high-resolution 3D anatomical images acquired with magnetic resonance images (MRIs) from 16 Chinese dyslexic subjects and 16 age-matched normal children as controls. The children, who were studying in Beijing primary schools, were all native speakers of Putonghua, on average aged 11, and all strongly right-handed.

It was found that the gray-matter volume in the left middle frontal gyrus region, which is important for the coordination of cognitive resources in working memory and previously has been shown to play a role in Chinese reading and writing, was significantly smaller in dyslexic children than in normal subjects. But at the same time, their more posterior brain systems remained unaffected. Previous studies have revealed that dyslexic English readers have decreased gray-matter volume in their posterior regions.

Secondly, a functional MRI experiment was conducted on a subset of 12 of each of the dyslexics and control groups. They were asked to decide whether two Chinese characters viewed simultaneously rhymed with each other. The rhyme judgment task involves phonological processing which would reflect in activation of some regions in the brain. It was found that the normal subjects had much stronger activation of the left middle frontal gyrus region during the task than the dyslexic group. The dyslexic Chinese readers demonstrated little activation in the posterior brain regions related to reading-related activity in English readers.

The fact that Chinese and Western dyslexics show structural abnormalities in different brain regions suggests that dyslexia may even be two different brain disorders in the two streams of culture.

“What causes brain structure abnormalities for dyslexia is currently unknown. Previous genetic studies suggest that malformations of brain development are associated with mutations of several genes and that developmental dyslexia has a genetic basis. Our brain imaging findings may well provide useful clues for further genetic studies in dyslexia,” said HKU’s Professor of Linguistics Tan Li-Hai, who is also Principal Investigator of the State Key Laboratory.

Dr Siok, lead author of the study, said the study would certainly help in the development of more efficient tests for early identification of Chinese children with reading disabilities, and more effective strategies to remediate dyslexia, tailored made for Chinese.

Dr Siok explained that the left middle frontal gyrus is responsible for working memory and is spatially close to the motor cortex, whereas the left posterior brain areas are involved in letter-to-sound mappings and are spatially close to the auditory cortex. “Our findings suggest that educational intervention for Chinese dyslexia may involve working memory and sensorimotor tasks. Current treatments of English dyslexia already use the aspects of letter-sound conversions and phonological awareness“, she said. (…)

Source: ScienceBlog.com, CA
http://tinyurl.com/5v8wpr

Dyslexia affects different parts of children’s brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese. That finding, reported in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, means that therapists may need to seek different methods of assisting dyslexic children from different cultures.

“This finding was very surprising to us. We had not ever thought that dyslexics’ brains are different for children who read in English and Chinese,” said lead author Li-Hai Tan, a professor of linguistics and brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Hong Kong. “Our finding yields neurobiological clues to the cause of dyslexia.”

Millions of children worldwide are affected by dyslexia, a language-based learning disability that can include problems in reading, spelling, writing and pronouncing words. The International Dyslexia Association says there is no consensus on the exact number because not all children are screened, but estimates range from 8 percent to 15 percent of students.

Reading an alphabetic language like English requires different skills than reading Chinese, which relies less on sound representation, instead using symbols to represent words.

Past studies have suggested that the brain may use different networks of neurons in different languages, but none has suggested a difference in the structural parts of the brain involved, Tan explained.

Tan’s research group studied the brains of students raised reading Chinese, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. They then compared those findings with similar studies of the brains of students raised reading English.

Guinevere F. Eden, director of the Center for the Study of Learning at Georgetown University in Washington, said the process of becoming a skilled reader changes the brain.

“Becoming a reader is a fairly dramatic process for the brain,” explained Eden, who was not part of Tan’s research team on this paper.

For children, learning to read is culturally important but is not really natural, Eden said, so when the brain orients toward a different writing system it copes with it differently.

For example, English-speaking children learn the sounds of letters and how to combine them into words, while Chinese youngsters memorize hundreds of symbols which represent words.

“The implication here is that when we see a reading disability, we see it in different parts of the brain depending on the writing system that the child is born into,” Eden said.

That means, “we cannot just assume that any dyslexic child is going to be helped by the same kind of intervention,” she said in a telephone interview.

Tan said the new findings suggest that treating Chinese speakers with dyslexia may use working memory tasks and tests relating to sensor-motor skills, while current treatments of English dyslexia focus on letter-sound conversions and sound awareness.

He said the underlying cause of brain structure abnormalities in dyslexia is currently unknown.

“Previous genetic studies suggest that malformations of brain development are associated with mutations of several genes and that developmental dyslexia has a genetic basis,” he said in an interview via e-mail.

“We speculate that different genes may be involved in dyslexia in Chinese and English readers. In this respect, our brain-mapping findings can assist in the search for candidate genes that cause dyslexia,” Tan said.

In their paper, the researchers noted that imaging studies of the brains of dyslexic children using alphabetic languages like English have identified unusual function and structure in the left temporo-parietal areas, thought to be involved in letter-to-sound conversions in reading; left middle-superior temporal cortex, thought to be involved in speech sound analysis, and the left inferior temporo-occipital gyrus, which may function as a quick word-form recognition system.

When they performed similar imaging studies on dyslexic Chinese youngsters, on the other hand, they found disruption in a different area, the left middle frontal gyrus region.

The study was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and the University of Hong Kong.

In a separate paper, published two years ago, University of Michigan researchers reported that Asians and North Americans see the world differently.

Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene.

Source: The Associated Press
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hobiJ-tiOnp79R-0onuBx8oMn2CwD8VT8R1G1

Parents as First Teachers (Paft) is a nationwide free home-visiting programme funded by Ministry of Education. It’s based on the philosophy that parents are their children’s first and most important teachers.

The eight parent educators in the Manawatu/Tararua/Rangitikei region visit 343 families between them once a month, co-ordinator Celia Thomas says.

Paft is for babies to three-year- olds with educators sharing with parents information and practical ideas on how ways to provide exciting, inexpensive educational experiences for their children and develop a love of books.

Educators show parents how to use toys to support and check on their child’s development.

For example, hearing is a big focus at four months so educators take toys that make sounds. At 17 months, when children want to be mum and dad’s helper, paint and play dough are used.

Activities that encourage peek-a- boo are good to help children deal with separation anxiety and help them learn about object permanence, Mrs Thomas says.

That software comes when parents develop attachment with their baby, nurture them and learn to understand how they communicate with their parents. The emotional support babies get from that attachment survives them for life.

Paft educators encourage learning based around a child’s strengths. For example, if little Zac can’t stop moving a door or pushing his toy car, he’s learning about force and motion or cause and effect, and parents can provide extra activities to support that.

A child’s interests move quickly from one activity to another so educators encourage parents to recognise this.

Educators find their work rewarding because they see parents making connections with their children and progress in recognising development, Mrs Thomas says.

Paft is part of the Team-Up campaign fronted by former All Blacks captain Tana Umaga; the campaign aims to get parents more involved in their children’s education. Umaga told the March issue of Rise magazine, published by the Ministry of Social Development, that every child has talent and the way to realise potential is to work hard and be committed.

“Parents need to help kids develop commitment,” Umaga says. “Kids can go a long way with a bit of help from mum and dad every day.” Paft, which has been operating in New Zealand since 1992, also offers group meetings and outings, plus developmental milestone checks. (…)

Source: Manawatu Standard, New Zealand
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/eveningstandard/4449200a20378.html

Undiagnosed eye problems in babies and young children can affect early learning as well as physical and emotional development.

That’s why experts, including the American Optometric Association, recommend that children receive their first eye screening at 6 months and their first formal eye exam at the age of 3-1/2.

“They don’t need to verbalize or know the alphabet,” said Merrimack optometrist Kevin Chauvette, who specializes in children’s vision therapy, a subspecialty of optometry.

Chauvette, who owns and operates Merrimack Vision Care, said a trained practitioner can identify nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism in an infant or young child, information that can be used to treat and prevent future problems.

“We’re trying to get the word out about the six-month screening,” Chauvette said. “A lot of parents just don’t know, and they depend on the school or the pediatrician to tell them what to do.”

Chauvette isn’t faulting anyone for the gap.

Screening recommendations for children are relatively new, he said, having been established about a decade ago.

Like other preventive health-care measures, he added, vision screening has been slow to catch on.

“The problem with vision is a lot of things can go wrong with the eyes that don’t cause pain,” the optometrist said. “If they don’t have pain or blurriness, people assume everything is OK.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

For example, adults who have glaucoma, a disease that causes blindness, must undergo eye-pressure testing to confirm the condition. Otherwise, they will have no idea they are losing peripheral vision a little at a time.

By contrast, eye screening for children can identify eye problems that, left untreated, can lead to amblyopia or lazy eye, learning disabilities, behavior problems and other consequences, Chauvette said.

He said children who rub their eyes excessively, skip over short words, lose their place or cover one eye when reading may have vision problems. The same goes for the child whose handwriting is sloppy and disorganized.

During a baseline exam, Chauvette said he looks for symptoms such as a crossed eye or an eye that drifts outward, conditions that can be treated and corrected using a patch, eyeglasses or vision therapy.

“Children’s eyes change rapidly, and studies show that 80 percent of what is learned in the classroom is through the sense of vision,” he said, explaining why experts recommend annual eye exams for children after they start school.

Children’s eye exams are different from those given to adults.

“We look for factors that lead to lazy eye, the ability to learn at school,” Chauvette said, linking vision to both academic and social success. “Of kids having difficulties, a dramatically high percentage has underlying eye problems.”

He said experts believe that an increasingly sedentary lifestyle is to blame.

“Children are not outside playing. They’re looking at a computer, a flat world. They have more visual problems because they’re not interacting with a world in three dimensions, which is a necessary part of vision development,” Chauvette said.

In treatment, children are asked to accomplish complex tasks that require peripheral and central vision, as well as balance and motor skills. For example, a child might be asked to balance on a rail while tossing a ball.

“There’s almost nowhere in the brain where, if you make an incision, it doesn’t affect some part of vision,” Chauvette said, adding that vision influences balance, posture, memory and emotion.

Furthermore, a child identified with a learning disability has a 50-50 chance of having an undiagnosed vision problem, he added.

“If you intervene early, it’s fixable, treatable. It can be reversed,” Chauvette said of conditions that left untreated, can lead to failure in school and a constellation of social and personal problems.

Only about a third of all children have had an eye examination or vision screening prior to entering school, according to the American Optometric Association.

Nashua optometrist Ann Irwin, for example, said she has referred children for vision therapy and is pleased that state officials are talking about requiring an annual eye exam for all children before they begin school, similar to mandates for vaccinations and medical and dental exams.

Whether a child has vision problems, or is suspected of having them, Irwin said, she reminds parents to protect their child’s eyes.

“Children need sports goggles and sunglasses,” she said.

Source: Nashua Telegraph, NH
http://tinyurl.com/2adtyo

The development of fine motor skills is an important aspect of your child’s growth. One which you as a parent can help develop with a few simple and easy steps.

Fine motor skills refers to your child’s ability to use their hands. It encompasses writing, handling utensils and other tools, tying shoelaces, undoing buttons and closing zips. Children begin to develop fine motor skills from around three months of age.

In the first instance a baby’s hand and arm movements appear free of control, however as they age and the skill develops their movements show purpose and controls is established. Even at this tender age it is possible to help with the development of fine motor skills as a toddler.

By setting foundations early in life development milestones may be easily attained. Here are some helpful tips from around three months to early childhood.

Babies

- Provide babies with a range of rattles and objects to hold. They should be light and easy to clasp. Two handles are great as they allow baby to benefit from pass the object from hand to hand.

- From about six months provide the baby with Cradle gyms and activity boards. These have a variety of parts for baby to hold, push, twist, spin and a range of other things. It may take a while before baby can deliberately activate these but in the meantime they will get great pleasure from wildly waving their arms about in attempt. Not only do these activities assisting hand-eye co-ordination, a fundamental fine motor skill, but they also teach about cause and effect.

- Allow baby’s hands to be free. Free from mittens, and free to roam where ever they want, obviously with in reason though.

- Provide a range of objects like blocks, balls, dolls, in different materials and fabrics. This will encourage the child to want to touch them.

- Play clapping and finger games. There are a range of songs and games that involve the hands. Your child learns from watching you, so show them all the things your hands and fingers can do.

- Point to pictures in books and point things out for your child to look at as you travel. Get your child to point to pictures as well.

Toddlers and beyond

- Continue with similar ideas as to babies just add complexity and smaller objects may be increased. Smaller object for your child to handle will increase dexterity.

- Water play. Tipping water between bowls or cups and jugs is a wonderful way to develop fine motor skills and teaches again about cause and effect. (…)

Source: American Chronicle, CA
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/49726

Remember when a toy was just something to play with? We knew children learned by playing but we weren’t hung up on it. Now the competition among toy manufacturers seems designed to encourage competition among parents to make sure their toddlers have a big edge on other toddlers before they reach the competitive world of kindergarten.

Nothing is just a toy anymore. “Encourages sensory explorations, develops fine motor skills, encourages gross motor activity, helps develop eye-hand co-ordination, visually stimulating” and that’s only a teether! Granted, it seems like a very nice and interesting teether, but I shudder a bit at the thought of Christmas future.

A toy to hang on the crib says “contributes to baby’s understanding of cause and effect, the link between baby’s actions and the resulting reaction: when she kicks the kick-pad with her feet (cause), she causes interesting activity in the aquarium (effect). An action that begins quite randomly gradually becomes intentional as she learns about her ability to make things happen. With practice, she learns that there is a link between the force of her kick and the motion she creates, so that when she kicks harder, the movement is stronger, causing the creatures in the water to bounce about more, and vice versa.” All true I’m sure, but by this time, I instinctively pledge to resist being sucked into over-analyzing toys and play.

(…) They have the most wonderful wooden blocks on-line (just Google wooden blocks for kids) but the block manufacturers don’t say “encourages sensory explorations, develops fine motor skills, encourages gross motor activity, helps develop eye-hand co-ordination, visually stimulating” even though blocks do all of that. They also stimulate the imagination (nobody tells you what to build); teach patience in dealing with life’s frustrations (when they all fall down); and provide opportunity for lessons in sharing and co-operation (helping build it again) and pacifism (it’s not nice to throw them at your sister). Block manufacturers need to get with the times. Grandmothers know about blocks, but a young mother might think she was not a good mother if she chose blocks instead of a laptop computer for her three-year-old.

Yes, they have laptop computers for three year olds, brightly coloured learning toys that I’d say are the very best thing if you want your children to get a head start on entertaining themselves while sitting down and moving nothing except their fingers. (…)

Source: ChronicleHerald.ca, Canada
http://thechronicleherald.ca/AtHome/998493.html

Want to boost your baby’s brainpower?

Then you’d better get started early!

With recent news that breast milk can improve a baby’s IQ, it seems the little’uns’ intelligence rests partly in the parents’ hands.

So what can you do to create teeny boffins in waiting?

“Parents know instinctively that the early years are the foundation for their child’s future learning,” says child development expert Dr Carol Cooper.

“In fact, 75 per cent of brain development happens in the first few years.

“There are many early influences that can have a profound effect on a child’s success in later life.”

Here’s Dr Carol Cooper’s top five tips for brainy tots…

1) Rock and roll

“Singing will stimulate your baby’s brain and help set the foundation for language skills.

“Learning the rhythm of music is also linked to good mathematics skills later on in life.”

2) Nutrients are key

“Good nutrition is essential,” says Carol. “And Omega-3 provides natural building blocks for brain development.” …

3) Make your baby giggle

“Unlike adults, babies love it when you tell a joke over and over and this helps them learn to pay attention, and to develop their memory,” says Carol…

4) Science class

“All infants are eager to learn, so give your child simple activities and toys that involve building – like stickle bricks or building blocks,” advises Carol.

“It develops creativity in the brain, and helps them grasp the basic concepts of maths and physics.” …

5) Cuddle time

“Infants have a huge number of sensory receptors,” explains Carol, “And touch is the first tool they use to learn about the world…

Source: The Sun, UK
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/article433676.ece

DVDs that claim to make babies brighter are not only ineffectual, they take away vital development time with loving care-givers

A few years ago I was asked to help to launch Baby Einstein in this country. I was put off by the name – images of overzealous parents hot-housing their small children in the vain hope of growing their IQs – and became more dubious when I looked at the content, which was mainly coloured patterns and music reminiscent of Fantasia, but nowhere near as attractive. I couldn’t see what this was doing for babies, so I declined.

There are now a number of similar ranges, many having names that contain the same questionable promise – Brainy Baby, Baby Bright, which claims a scientific approach, and Baby IQ which has harnessed no less a mentor than the London Symphony Orchestra. Most of these titles consist of live action or simple animation and show bright patterns, other babies and basic scenes involving animals, nature, abstracts etc.

Overall, the content of these DVDs promotes passive viewing by a baby rather than using the DVD platform as an opportunity for interactive play with a parent or carer. The majority suggest that the baby will benefit intellectually from absorbing the visual and aural content. I’m aware of no credible scientific data to back up these claims and there’s no supporting material to help to guide or reassure parents. In short, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that these are products with no real benefit to babies and give parents a false notion that watching television can improve a child’s intelligence.

All parents have a fervent desire to ensure that their children are given the best possible chance to realise their full potential. Most parents, however, are unaware that babies start to develop their brain-power from the moment that they are born. They’re wired to communicate and, moments after birth, will poke out their tongues at you if you talk animatedly while making eye-contact. They’re already developing learning skills, memory and understanding…

Brain connections grow every time that babies think and every time they move their bodies, particularly when a parent or carer is playing, talking or singing. In this nourishing environment babies’ learning opportunities are unlimited. So a baby’s brain starts to sift, sort, analyse, assess and memorise at a breath-taking pace all through the first year and nearly as rapidly during the second and third years…

In babies, the prefrontal cortex grows massively in the first 12 months because it’s used for learning, thinking, memorising, expressing personality and fine-tuning social behaviour. This, in turn, cannot happen without a loving, caring, interested adult. What parents should know is that it isn’t hearing Mozart or seeing coloured images that promotes brain development, it’s hearing a care-giver’s voice, seeing the face and interacting lovingly that makes all the difference.

As it happens, in the experiments of Dr Kawashima, of Nintendo DS Brain Training fame, the prefrontal cortex lights up like a Christmas tree by reading aloud. Yes, all that early book-reading with you is what your baby really needs…

Emotional development is much neglected but crucially important in the first 18 months. Acquiring emotional control and balance will make a baby friendly, generous, outgoing and loving, but only if a parent patiently coaches her.

And what about relationships? The relationship a child forms with her parents, and in the first instance with her mother, is the blueprint for all other relationships. Babies become social by imitating. They first imitate facial expressions, then movements, then speech, then whole patterns of behaviour…

Source: Times Online, UK
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article2778730.ece