This week, I found it very interesting how we went back to the concept of children helping and what it means for a child to show empathy. When we looked at the way schools are trying to institutionalize programs that assist with young children, developing emotional intelligence and understanding of empathy. It reminded me of my personal experiences working in a classroom with a similar concept. Back in 2012, in my graduating year of high school, I did a coop placement in a kindergarten classroom. My role was to supervise and assist with a young boy on the autism spectrum. Since this class had a fellow student with ASD, the teacher implemented several lessons and daily exercises to be inclusive and empathetic towards their fellow students regardless of ability and differences. What i find more fascinating is that within the lessons, the teacher never actually referenced the specific student that these exercises were meant to catered towards , so it ensured that the kids were learning to empathetic towards everyone not just the fellow student. I find this theory of developing emotional intelligence very important in young children and could prove greatly beneficial in a world where adolescence are growing up exposed to institutionalized prejudice.

This week in class we focused on language development in children; and to be honest, I've always been interested in learning about this process. I always found it fascinating how children have such an intuitive manner of learning these immensely complicated languages. I'm very fascinated by the sponge-like process where a child can just learn a language simply from being around these audible sounds. If you look at a child learning to speak, within a matter of months you can see their language skills improve dramatically, where as if I were to try to learn an entirely new language, it would be a much longer process. You would think that an adult with a prior understanding of language and communication would be able to learn a new language far more intuitively than an infant with no knowledge of anything what-so-ever but for example, suppose today I decided I wanted to learn French, and along side me there was a one year old who was just learning how to speak and being taught French, I can almost guarantee that the child would be speaking fluent French three years from now, but I would still be at an intermediate level at best. But what I am more curious about is if there is a risk of delay or any kind of complications that may come with an infant who is being taught to speak bilingually? For example: when my brother was two years old, he suffered a substantial delay in speech. The doctor told my mother that it was most likely due to the fact that he was learning to speak Spanish and English in a bilingual household, and told her to stop immediately and stick to English. Through my own personal research, I found this diagnosis from the doctor to have no factual evidence contributing to the theory. If anything I have only found documents indicating many benefits to raising your children in a bilingual household and that a delay is common.

Infants and learning through surprises

In class this week I was really pleased to hear prof Stuart talk about infants and learning through surprises.  Three years ago I came across an article referencing the very same concept and I was always very eager to learn more about this theory. I find it fascinating how infants learn a lot like we adults do just on an exaggerated level. To be honest, it is not uncommon for me to see something unusual or surprising and then have it engraved in my immediate memory for a long time, so when an infant is surprised by new critical information it makes sense how this could help form the understanding of this infants new world. Although the things that adults find surprising may comprise more trivial subject matter, such as a movie twist or a frightening sound/movement an infant who has no prior knowledge of the world to may feel surprised by almost everything. (ex: door opening and closing or a hot or cold object) So by this logic the infant  who a baby must be constantly surprised and continually learning

child development blog 2

Child developement blog 2

These recent classes revolving around the behaviour of infants has been really quite fascinating for myself personally. I live with my girlfriend and she is a doula so you can imagine how much I hear about babies on a regular basis. She's always talking about various forms of prenatal, early postnatal treatments and practices, one of which I heard her mention in the past was the concept of talking/reading to your baby while it's in the womb. To me I always kinda doubted the practical benefits of actually doing this, I understood the superficial benefits of speaking to the unborn infants such as bonding, comfort, or just satisfying that need to talk to somebody. Heck, I find myself having intellectual conversations with my dog on several occasions; but deep down I know she doesn't understand our thrilling debates, so why should I believe that an unborn baby can understand or gain anything more from hearing shakesphere than any dog would? I figured it was just propaganda meant to sell Dr. Seuss to eager parents forever fuelling the pockets of big publishing, but this week in class I had a moment where I finally understood why it could be important to read or talk to your unborn child. For me I always looked at it from a literal perspective "babies don't know anything, how could they understand English?", but this week I realized it's not the literal words being spoken, it's the sounds. The fact that the only thing the baby hears for approximately forty weeks is their mothers voice. It makes perfect sense that the baby can form relationships and connections with the sounds of its mothers voice if it's one of the only sensory stimuli it is experiencing. These relationships and connections being made are probably greatly beneficial for the overall brain development as well as the overall bond of the mother. I am even starting to actually hypothesize whether or not the mother's experience talking to her unborn baby throughout her pregnancy could be beneficial for her bond with the child, overall benefiting the production of oxytocin. After discussing this with my girlfriend I was curious about whether hearing the mothers voice postnatally would elisid a subconscious reaction or cause a sudden production of oxytocin in the babies brain.