Tools of the Mind: Supporting Infant Development – 6 to 12 Months
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This article is written as my interpretation of the Tools of the Mind program. If you wish to read the words from the horse’s mouth, you should purchase your own copy of “Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education” by Elena Bodrova and Deborah J. Leong.
Vygotsky’s view of child development from 6-12 months:
In the first six months, the adult introduces objects to the baby. In the second half of a baby’s first year of life, he begins to become interested in the manipulation of those objects. Adults are still a very important part of an infant’s development as they can help the child manipulate these objects and draw their attention to different things. From the infant’s perspective, adults are an extension of their arms and legs, and the provider of knowledge regarding things they do not yet understand or know about in the world. Adults carry them around, assist them with difficult manipulations of objects and share information about the world.
Facilitating your child’s development:
- Introduce more complex objects
- Model new operations
- Provide your child the opportunity to practice these new operations and apply them to new objects
- Make sure you choose appropriate toys and everyday objects for this age and model how they are used
- Be aware of what your child can do and proceed with activities that are just ahead of what your child can achieve alone
- Be sensitive to what your child can do and assist with what your child is on the verge of achieving
- In the later part of infancy, provide toys and objects that have different characteristics that can be experienced differently, e.g. different sizes, weights, colours, textures, different methods of holding
Again Vygotsky emphasises the importance of having an adult facilitate the child’s learning because only another human being can vary her actions in response to the baby and engage him by changing objects and varying the distance of the object from his grasp. “Objects alone, no matter how colourful or technically sophisticated, do not engender the same development as an adult… Only another human being can make the small, subtle adjustments necessary to increase engagement as a child learns to manipulate objects.”
Although it may appear that babies learn simple behaviours through self-discovery, Vygotsky believed that such developments are not independent. It is the adult who teaches a child to shake a rattle by holding his hand around the rattle and causing the baby to shake it.
Through these interactions between adult and child, the baby will learn language. As the baby begins to make gestures towards objects, the adult provides the necessary language. For instance, in response to a gesture towards an object, the adult might say, “You want your teddy?” Eventually, the child will come to associate the word “teddy” with the soft toy.
Here’s where it gets interesting (especially since I have used a number of these programs on Gavin myself):
“The importance of the contingency, or connection, of language to the child’s own actions cannot be overstressed in this age of baby media programs and interactive toys and videos. Listening to adults talking or to the radio or television where the speech is not interactive does not have the same positive effect on development as direct, face-to-face communication. For this reason, even videos and toys that are specifically designed for babies with slowed-down action and with interactions where the toy or chracter seems to be responding or talking to the child can never substitute for the real thing. The verbal interactions that are required are those that are truly responsive to a particular child’s specific vocalisations. These very personal interactions extend the baby’s own initiations and are relevant to the object that the baby is touching or seeing at that very second. General words from a video or toy that occur at the same time an image appears or the toy moves do not have the same impact, because the baby might be looking at another part of the screen or something else. The toy or video’s words are not contingent on the baby’s actions but are contingent on what appears visually.”
In other words, these electronic media and toys with their mechanised dialogue can never be as valuable as the true interaction between a baby and a loving adult.
Okay, so such videos and toys are definitely secondary when compared to the full attention of a loving adult, but does that mean they are completely useless? Although I offered a lot of these programs to Gavin – Tweedlewink, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, Your Baby Can Read, Signing Time – I also spent a lot of time playing with him. I’ve always attributed his early and advanced speech development to these programs because that is what they promised and that is what Gavin achieved.
Would Gavin still have developed his speech as early and with the level of complexity that he has now without these programs? Honestly, I couldn’t say. Would I omit them in Gareth’s learning program? Probably not. At the end of the day, I guess the take home message is: if you can only implement one program with your baby – play with your baby as much as possible.
Additionally, based on the paragraph above taken verbatim from Tools of the Mind, it would seem that of many of the early childhood education programs I’ve written about so far, Glenn Doman would be the best bet to begin with for the following reasons:
- materials are presented by an attentive and loving adult
- baby faces the adult who can modify the program based on baby’s responses
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Toddler Discipline: The Magic Word
What’s the magic word?
Nope, it isn’t “please”.
Lately, I’ve discovered a couple of new words that can help my toddler to behave on command. Well, it was quite effective initially.
Towards the latter part of my pregnancy, my ILs would take it in turns to take Gavin out with them from time to time to give me a chance to rest. Whenever my SIL2 took him out, she would remind him that he has to “cooperate” with her or he would had to come home. Gavin learned fairly quickly that he had to “cooperate” to get what he wanted.
Now I know it isn’t recommended to withhold the breast as a method of discipline and I would never have dreamed of doing so a year ago. However, given how effective it is (breast milk is rated higher than chocolate, ice cream and trains on Gavin’s “need to have” list) and Gavin being much older now, I have relented – for better or worse.
Some time back, I linked the word “cooperate” to the privilege of nursing and it had a magical effect on Gavin. One morning, when he was being particularly difficult, all I said was, “Gavin! Please cooperate!”
Almost instantaneously, Gavin fell into line. Then he said, “If I don’t cooperate, I won’t get nen.” (Just in case you’re wondering, “nen” is our word for breast milk).
When I began the journey as a parent, I had a lot of “dos” and “don’ts” that I would absolutely swear by. Three years down the track, in the wake of my toddler’s destruction, nothing is as certain as it once seemed. I still believe in reading whatever I can and absorbing whatever makes sense. I implement whatever works and the rest is made up on the fly.
What about you? What magical disciplinary tactics have you stumbled on during your experience as a parent? Please share them with the rest of us in the comments section below so that we may all benefit from the knowledge database.
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Naforye Multi-Function Baby Bibs Give Away
Mummys Reviews is hosting a Naforye Multi-Function Baby Bibs Give Away. Click on the link to find out how you can enter it and with a free Naforye Multi-Function Baby Bib.
When Gavin was little, he hated his bibs. As soon as he had any kind of motor coordination, he started to tug at them. He could easily pull off the bibs that were attached at the side of the neck with velcro but not the ones that were fastened from behind. As a result, we never kept a bib on him for very long and it wasn’t long before we gave up the bibs altogether. Perhaps if we had had those Naforye Multi-Function Baby Bibs with the attached toy/teether, he might have allowed us to keep the bib on for longer.
Gareth’s only two and a half months old and hasn’t started drooling yet, but I suspect we’ll have to dig out the bibs pretty soon because he’s been making a lot of noise of late and it is only a matter of time before he begins to drool as he attempts to learn how to speak. Let’s see how Gareth takes to the bib…
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Pre-School Developments
As mentioned in an earlier post, it was my intention to switch Gavin back to the half-day school program after this term is over until I spoke to the headmaster.
Gavin started pre-school last year in August – about three months before I delivered Gareth. I was initially planning to home school him until he was ready for kindergarten until I got pregnant and found that I could barely stay awake, let alone interact with him with an appropriate level of stimulation to facilitate his development. After that, I conceded the need for assistance and agreed to send him to school early.
When he started pre-school, he was two years and seven months old. Because he was talking so much more than his peers, the headmaster felt it would be more appropriate to send him to the three year old class rather than keep him in the two year old class. Gavin, on the other hand, had other plans. He decided he preferred the teacher of the two year old class, plus his god-brother was in the two year old class, so he switched classes on his own.
Feeling guilty for flaking out on him and sending him to school early in the first place, I didn’t want to force him to do anything he wasn’t happy with at school so I allowed him to stay in the two year old class. I figured that as long as he was enjoying school, I wasn’t about to complain. Unfortunately, the teacher had something to complain because he was disrupting class. Because he was already familiar with much of the content she was teaching the class, he would get bored and wander off on his own. And when he wandered off, the other children would follow him.
When it was recommended that Gavin enter the four year old class for this year, I consented. They felt that he was intellectually ready for the four year old class but needed more time to develop his social skills. For that, they recommended that I send him for the flexi-hour program which would allow him more time to interact with his peers. Unfortunately, Gavin and his god-brother had become the dynamic duo in school and Gavin wasn’t about to be parted. Again he decided to switch classes back to the three year old class.
Once again, I was content to let him be until the headmaster told me that he was too advanced for the three year old class and was getting bored in there. She felt he should be in the four year old class and wanted to move him there. The only problem was that he had not sufficiently developed the fine motor skills required for the four year old class since he spent last year in the two year old class. Had he remained in the three year old class, he would have spent more time developing his fine motor skills in readiness for the four year old class.
The recommendation was to place Gavin in the four year old class and keep him on the flexi-hour plan so he could attend a special class that would help him develop his fine motor skills. At home, we would work together to develop his skills with play dough and bead sorting. The aim is to help him practice his pincer grasp so he could hold a pencil well enough to start learning to write.
When Gavin was younger, I bought him Kumon books that were designed to train children to learn how to write numbers and the alphabets. We worked on them together but I eventually put them aside because Gavin would only practice if I held his hand. If I asked him to try it on his own, he would claim he couldn’t do it and refuse to put pen to paper. It seemed pointless to make him practice writing when it was really my hand that did the work.
So although I wanted to switch him back to the half-day program, it looks like he needs to take the additional class from the flexi-hour program to help him cope with the four year old class. It feels like I’m pushing him too hard with extra classes so he can cope in a class that is technically a year ahead of him. However, the headmaster reckons because he was born at the start of the year, he is better suited for the four year old class.
The last thing I want to do is to make him hate school, but then again, I don’t want him to lose interest because he’s bored of the material being taught because it doesn’t stimulate him. According to the headmaster, he is enjoying the extra class in the flexi-hour program and since he’s learning something that I seem incapable of teaching him, perhaps I ought to keep him in the program. That class ends at 2pm so I figured I could take him home straight after rather than leave him at school until 3pm which is when the flexi-hour program officially ends.
What’s my dilemma? I don’t want to be an aggressive, pushy mother wanting her child to be ahead of the pack, however, neither do I want him to be underwhelmed by school so much so that he has to find his own activities to keep himself occupied. That would defeat the purpose of having him there in the first place.
So what do you think? Stay in the three year old class and cut back to half day or move him to the four year old class with the additional class to help him catch up on his fine motor skills?
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Toddler Development: The Lovey
When Gavin was little, we tried unsuccessfully to get him to pick up a lovey. Finally we gave up and thought no more about it.
For his three year old birthday, my SIL decided to buy him the “Thomas Saves the Day” Play-a-Sound book with plush toy.
Suddenly, Gavin’s carrying around the Thomas plush toy with him everywhere – well, almost everywhere. I’m sure he’d take it out with him but we’ve tried to discourage that since we only have the one toy and if it’s lost, it’s gone forever. Additionally, he’s been taking Thomas to sleep every night so we don’t really want him to take a grubby Thomas covered with the remnants of meat sauce to bed. This morning, Gavin left Thomas on the bed while he went to get some water. Before he left, he said, “Don’t be scared Thomas, I’ll be right back.”
I’ve read somewhere that loveys are a transition step for young children learning to develop their own independence and learning to separate from their parents. Perhaps Gavin is making the transition to greater independence with Thomas?
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