HOW BABIES DEVELOP SENSORY AWARENESS

Both parents and teachers can heighten children's awareness of the world around them by stimulating the senses.

At birth, babies' sensory systems are functioning at a basic level, but become more complex, coordinated and sophisticated during the early months of their life. In the first six months, your baby’s eyesight develops rapidly, since vision is closely linked to brain development. So as your baby’s brain matures in leaps and bounds, so does his/her eyesight.

Babies’ Eyesight

Young babies can see, but see best when something is 30-45 centimetres from their eyes, such as when you hold them in your arms for feeding. They are adept at discerning colours when they’re only a few months old, which is why you might catch them staring at a coloured wall, or article of clothing you’re wearing. Imagine seeing colours for the first time - it’s fascinating to them! By 4 months, you wave an object, like a toy or your hand back and forth in front of their eyes and see them follow it with their eyes.

Very young toddlers who can handle three-dimensional blocks and toys with dexterity need to learn to decode two-dimensional visual images. Colourful pictures in storybooks are perfect to hold your toddlers' visual interests, so it’s a great idea to start early with books that have lots of colourful pictures. Engage them fully - for example, if you have a picture in a book of children playing with a ball and a dog outside, alternate between pointing out where the ball, tree, girl, (etc.) is, and then asking them: ‘Where is the ball? Where is the tree? Where is the girl?’ If they can’t point the objects out immediately, gently guide their finger to the object and say: ‘There it is!’ they’ll soon be doing it for themselves!