June 2018 Blog

Baby Babble

Baby Babble - 8 months Motion, Speech and Laughter!

Baby is growing and changing, baby can see the details now!  Facial expressions and small details in pictures, and colors are being discovered.  Baby understands happy and sad voice inflection, you may notice that baby starts to cry when he hears a rough-sounding voice.  Baby imitates vocal sounds – with happy and sad sounds of his own.  His sounds have more meaning.  Baby laughs when tickled.  He is able to crawl on his tummy and is starting to rock on all fours.  Creeping on hands and knees may soon become his quickest mode of transportation!  He can grasp a rattle, without dropping it immediately, and he enjoys holding toys. 

Play ideas: 

• While baby is lying on her tummy, pull her bottom over her feet, and tuck her knees under her.  Gently rock baby forward and back while supporting baby in this position.  Encourage baby to hold up her head and look around while rocking.

• Give baby opportunity to crawl for his toys.  Place him on the floor a few feet from his toys, and let him crawl on his tummy to get to them.  Crawling organizes the brain for choosing a hand to write with and prepares them for right-left association.

• Language- when baby makes a noise; you can listen, imitate and add one sound to baby’s sounds.  Also, say the alphabet letters with a word that starts with that letter as baby watches your face. Variation: both look into a mirror. (Example: A, aaa, apple, B, bbb, bear etc). 

• Stroke baby on the head, face, neck and arms and legs with a dry washcloth, and give baby squeezes on his arms and legs, cheeks and chin.  This lets baby grow in body-awareness needed for balance for walking and coordination of tongue and lips for talking.

• Get on the floor and play beside baby.  Let him move and you follow him.  Then encourage him to come to you, and you laugh and cheer when he makes it to you.  Crawling commando style is a foundation development for neuro-organization related to speech and reading success.  Make it fun!

Developmental Discovery – The emotional student   

School age children who manifest symptoms of reading struggles, poor long-term memory, stress during tests, or emotional problems (such as depression or anxiety).  These students may become emotional – even angry – as they work on program activities that stimulate the pons area of the brain.  That is the area that is developing at 8 months of age – as a child creeps and develops vertical tracking.  This is seen as level III on the Neurodevelopmental Profile.  I hope this article won’t be confusing, as I condense an article and a training course on this topic.

Does your student seem especially resistant to creeping on the hands and knees?  Does he resist doing the eye tracking activities, and pleoptics?  Does she wriggle and screech when you use the tactile glove?  These activities all stimulate the pons area of the brain.  The area could be classified as part of the midbrain, and is responsible for the ‘unconscious’ actions of breathing, heart rate, and perceiving hot and cold  and pain of the body. 

It is developing from 6-12 months, usually influenced by the ‘bonding’ between mother and child at this age too.  So, as a child goes back and does the activities that stimulate the pons area of the brain, if they have been influenced in a negative way (known or unknown to the child), by poor parent-child bonding at that young age, the child may respond to the activities with resistance, grief or anger.  This area can be strengthened at any age.

The best thing to do is to encourage your child, and maintain structure of daily time to do the activities (creeping, visual tracking, and light touch input).  As the child organizes that part of the brain through consistently doing the activities, the grief and resistance will subside.  Sustain a positive learning environment by encouraging your child and reminding them of their end goals.

Sensory Overload- Unloaded  – Reactions and responses to hot, cold and hunger

From the child with dyslexia to the child with severe physical limitations, the primary responses to hot, cold and hunger can be ineffective, and in some cases, distract from learning.  One child steps into his boots and darts out the door, he doesn’t seem to mind the cold without his coat.  Another child has to have his bathwater nearly cold because the idea of warm water means hot water to him.  Some children appear to be picky eaters, but they are really just letting their food cool to room temperature before they eat. 
 
These tendencies can point to a general neurological disorganization in a child with a reading problem.  Their room is typically messy and they don’t know where to start to organize or clean.  They are forgetful and lose things easily too.  The child with a physical disability simply has fewer activities they can participate in because of their reactions to hot and cold and hunger.  They may need someone else to portion their food, or they may eat way after everyone finishes because they were waiting for their food to cool.  How can we address these areas if inefficiency and let each child participate more fully in their environment?
 
A misfiring or disorganized hypothalamus can be the culprit of this developmental issue.  The hypothalamus is the regulator of temperature and hunger, heart rate and stress.  When the symptoms point to these areas, there are specific activities that can be done to enforce proper pathways to the hypothalamus; it can begin to respond more appropriately.  Hot and cold rubbed on the arms and legs, (and face and neck when affecting eating issues), wakes up the nerve receptors that transmit the messages to the brain about temperature. 

By giving the nerve receptors opportunity to work and carry organized messages to the brain, the hypothalamus can be strengthened.  Rub arms and legs with hot first (a hot washcloth), then follow with cold, (a bag of frozen veggies is my favorite), begin at the hands and move toward the body, covering all the skin area, then from the feet, up to the thighs.  Do this for 3 minutes once a day. 

For the hunger issue, it is a regulation of blood sugar the hypothalamus is not participating in.  So, as a parent, it is important to maintain rules for a healthy plate of food, and snacks that do not spike the blood sugar.  A chart on low-glycemic index foods, the South Beach Diet or the Paleo diet are good sources of whole-food, low-sugar foods, servings, and snacks.  As the hypothalamus is influenced in all these ways at the same time, neuro-organization can be stimulated, changing the activities in four months will keep the intensity up for influencing change.
Enjoy the journey!
 

 
Notes:
Baby Babble: 
Sasse, Margaret, (2010), “active baby, healthy brain, 135 fun exercises and activities to maximize your child’s brain development from birth through age 5 ½”.

Developmental Discovery:
Scott, Susan, (2003), “The Brain, Fact, Function, Fantasy” 5th ed. article “Bonding and Attachment” p.59-63
Nyland, Carol, (2009), Rhythmic Movement Training, I-III.
Schwartz, David J. PhD. (1965) “The Magic of Thinking Big”

Sensory Overload-Unloaded
Scott, Susan, (2003), “The Brain, Fact, Function, Fantasy” 5th ed. article “Hypothalamus, the body’s regulator” p.135-140
http://brainmadesimple.com/pons.html

Summer!  Time to be outside, gardening, and playing with our family and friends.  Enjoy the break from your routines.