Everything we do is about movement. Without movement, we couldn’t express our feelings, take care of ourselves, have relationships, or go anywhere. Can you sit absolutely still? If you are still reading this, your eyes are moving.

Much of our movement is affected by the proprioceptive system. The proprioceptive system works in partnership with our vestibular system (head movement and gravity). Proprioception is the unconscious sensation of movement in the muscles, joints, ligaments and tendons in our bodies. Input from this system tells us when and how our muscles are contracting or stretching, and when and how our joints are bending, extending or being compressed.  These sensations occur when we are moving and when we are still.

I’ll bet you never think about it. For most of us, we rarely notice the sensations of muscles and joints unless we deliberately pay attention. That is as it should be. Proprioception provides the “connection” between the brain and muscles, and produces smooth and controlled movements. 

If the proprioceptive sense is not working well, a child will find it difficult to move with smooth and coordinated movements. He might have a difficult time going up and down stairs with ease. She’ll make a movement too “hard” or too “soft”. He will have difficulty with both gross and fine motor tasks such as riding a bike, writing, walking, crawling, buttoning a shirt, screwing a lid on a jar or playing sports. These children usually have a lot of trouble doing something when they cannot see it with their eyes.

The proprioceptive system also assists in organizing the body and in “motor planning” – a person’s ability to think through, (plan) and then physically carry out a task. How to climb up on the counter to reach something. How to get from point A to point B with an obstacle in the middle. How to tie shoes; how to skip or gallop.

Most of the time, “motor planning” to learn new tasks occurs naturally, and when a child has performed the task so many times it becomes automatic, the task has become a skill, and planning is no longer required. (Adults motor plan, too – think about rock climbing.)

As parents, we can help our children with motor planning. You already do it. Think about how you talk your children through swinging a bat, or throwing a ball.

Here are some ways to stimulate your child’s proprioceptive system:
• Activities that involve: climbing over, under, through or around
• Activities that involve imitation, such as Follow the Leader
• Games that involve simple verbal directions to plan actions, like Simon Says
• Hugging!
• Rolling over
• Balancing on one foot or kicking alternate feet
• Lots of variation in types of body movement – stomping, twisting, swaying, swinging
• Vacuuming
• Piggy back or horsey rides
• Jumping on a trampoline
• Bean bag chairs
• Rolling your child up in a blanket (Like a pig-in-a-blanket!)
• Wheel barrow walks
• Tug of war

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who has a HUGE appreciation for the proprioceptive system, having had a child with motor planning difficulties.

I did promise this information a couple of weeks ago on a Tuesday, but then I got completely sideswiped with the start of the Spring Mini Session. Sorry about that, and thanks for your email reminders for me to finish! Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog on the right hand side of the page, so you can get new blogs as they come out.

The visual system takes in information from the environment and interprets it. Vision works with other sensory systems and provides the information needed to have accurate motor responses.

When a baby is born, they have all the necessary pieces of the visual system in place, but they haven’t learned to use them yet. An infant’s vision begins to develop at birth, and they spend much of their early months of life learning how to see.

Birth to Four Months
Four to Six Months
Six to Eight Months

By 8 months, babies begin to see more like adults. Near vision is still better than far, but as they can judge distances well, they can see a toy across the room and crawl to it. Color vision is fully developed. They can track objects in all directions, and will look around when they hear a noise. Fear of heights may occur because of their new awareness of vertical space.

Babies can notice which direction your eyes are gazing, and find the object you are looking at. They will also begin to look for a familiar object or person in response to a spoken label. (You say, “Daddy’s home!”, and your little one looks around to try and find Daddy.)

Sometime during this stage, they will begin to react to a new situation based on the expression of your face. (Like when you give a horrified expression as a child reaches for something they shouldn’t have, or when you are totally excited and encouraging when they are about to take their first step.)

Integration of their vision and fine motor skills allow them to grasp and throw objects fairly accurately. This is the age where small, easy to grip balls are a great toy. (Much better than getting bonked in the head will a small hard toy, thrown shockingly well by your little one!)

As they move toward 12 months and official “toddlerhood”, they can hold toys and small object in a “pincer position”, between thumb and forefinger, and even reach behind their back to grab a toy without looking.

Turning pages becomes a total delight to babies at this age. To help with this skill, read board books with your baby on your lap. Hold all but the page to be turned firmly in your hands. At first, your baby will paw the page to flip it, but soon that little pincer grasp will begin to develop.

Between 9 and 12 months, babies begin to understand that objects and people exist, even when they are no longer visible. This is called object permanency, and is often an age of the first separation anxiety. Lift the flap books, pop up toys and games like peek-a-boo are sources of great fun.

Here are some ideas to help stimulate your 9 to 12 month old’s visual development:
• give your baby stacking and take-apart toys
• provide objects that your baby can see, touch and hold all at the same time
• don’t push early walking; crawling is vital in developing eye-hand-foot-body coordination
• provide small easily-gripped balls for throwing Gerties work great, and we carry them ($4.75) at the studio.
• little cereal O’s (I like Barbara’s Organic O’s because they are wheat-free and sweetened with fruit juice) They provide lots of fine motor/eye coordination, and kept my babies entertained in their highchair  for a long time while I was making dinner.
• have a nice supply of board books in a basket or container where baby can easily reach them. Here’s some of the favorites at our house: (Favorites meaning some of the ones I’m keeping, even though all three of my own children have grown out of board books.)
Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Touch and Feel books by DK Publishing
Is Your Mama a Llama by Maria Guarino and Stephen Kellogg
Jamberry by Bruce Degen

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who wishes she had known these things when her babies were little.

The visual system takes in information from the environment and interprets it. Vision works with other sensory systems and provides the information needed to have accurate motor responses.

When a baby is born, they have all the necessary pieces of the visual system in place, but they haven’t learned to use them yet. An infant’s vision begins to develop at birth, and they spend much of their early months of life learning how to see.

Birth to Four Months
Four to Six Months

Six to Eight Months
With sitting mastered, a baby’s territory begins to expand rapidly. Many babies begin crawling (scooting, creeping, commando crawling, or other sorts of movement) during this stage. Crawling further develops coordination between vision and body movement. By six months a baby’s eyes should move together all of the time. At this age, babies tend to show a preference for reds and yellows.

Your baby is developing a better awareness of his body, and how to make it do what he wants. (Though not always successfully…I remember my frustrated babies who were trying to move towards a toy, but their little bodies kept scooting backwards instead!)

Babies learn to judge distances by seeing something, and then making the necessary movements to reach it. Your baby is getting much more accurate at grasping and throwing objects. This is the stage where babies love to sit in a high chair with toys on the tray, and then drop them over the side and look for them. Cheerio-type cereal is a popular highchair activity, because babies are thrilled that they can pick up small objects with a “raking motion”. (The pincer grasp comes later.)

Seeing how objects occupy space is fascinating to babies at this age. Objects that fit inside each other (like stacking cups), things that can be transferred from one hand to the other (a small toy), turning over items to see what is underneath, finding hidden objects (like a small ball hidden in a pot that has its lid on), and the beginning of stacking (blocks are great for this activity), are all intriguing actions. Emptying and filling containers becomes a fascinating pastime.
 
Here are some ideas to help stimulate your 6 to 8 month old’s visual development:
• Play peek-a-boo with a chiffon scarf. Take turns hiding yourself and baby.
• Hide small objects under the scarf and practice “finding” them.
• Get down on the floor and encourage your baby to crawl to objects. Place a favorite toy on the floor just out of reach and cheer her on!
• Provide lots of toys and objects that he can take apart and put together.
• Babies love mirrors, so an unbreakable mirror is tons of fun. With your baby in your lap, make faces at her in the mirror and see what happens. Your little one will be fascinated with his own face, as well.
• Read, read, read to your baby. Books at this age are fun to read and chew, so be sure to have cloth and/or board books handy!

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who is reminded by all this “vision” talk that it is time to change her contacts! More 8-12 month vision development to come on Tuesday.

The visual system takes in information from the environment and interprets it. Vision works with other sensory systems and provides the information needed to have accurate motor responses.

When a baby is born, they have all the necessary pieces of the visual system in place, but they haven’t learned to use them yet. An infant’s vision begins to develop at birth, and they spend much of their early months of life learning how to see.

Birth to 4 Months

Four to Six Months
During this stage, babies become quite skillful with their eye-hand and eye-body coordination. They are learning to roll over, push themselves up, sit and scoot. They reach for almost everything they see. Babies learn to aim accurately when reaching for objects of interest, grasp them, and begin to direct the objects to their mouths. Babies’ brains have finished learning how to fuse the pictures coming in from both their right and left eyes into a single image. Both eyes should focus equally, and babies learn to focus quickly and accurately when switching between near and far distances.

Smooth visual tracking (eyes following a moving object) continues to develop. Swishing a scarf or other interesting object from side to side and up and down across babies’ field of vision helps strengthen this skill.

This is also the time they start to work on remembering things they see. They love the “magic” of peek-a-boo, when a beloved face disappears and reappears behind a set of hands.

And speaking of beloved faces, Researchers at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s found that newborn infants will tend to look at the borders of objects, especially high-contrast borders. Thus, when looking at a human face, a newborn will look at the hairline or edge of the face. By 2 months of age, infants begin to pay more attention to internal features of the face such as eyes, and mouth, and by 4 to 5 months of age they can and do recognize your face from all others in the world.

Here are some ideas to help stimulate your 4 to 6 month old’s visual development:
• Allow your baby to explore different shapes and textures with his fingers and mouth
• Give your baby lots of freedom to crawl, roll, move and explore.
• Hang objects across the stroller or above the crib.
• Place bright and interesting artwork across the room from the crib. Change it every few weeks.
• Play patty cake and peek-a-boo with your baby.
• Tape your baby’s Village art banners on the wall next to the changing table. Point and talk about them with changing diapers or getting dressed.
• Read, read, read colorful books to your baby!

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who not only thinks babies have a lot to get coordinated by 6 months, but is going to post about the visual development of a 6 to 8 month old tomorrow.

This is the next in series of blogs about the 8 sensory systems: Tactile, Visual, Auditory, Vestibular, Gustatory, Proprioceptive, Olfactory, and Inner Senses.

The visual system takes in information from the environment and interprets it. Vision works with other sensory systems and provides the information needed to have accurate motor responses.

When a baby is born, they have all the necessary pieces of the visual system in place, but they haven’t learned to use them yet. An infant’s vision begins to develop at birth, and they spend much of their early months of life learning how to see.

Birth to Four Months
At birth, babies see in black and white and shades of gray, but they very quickly develop the ability to see in color. At one week after birth, they can see red, orange, yellow and green. Blue and violet become visible between 4 and 6 months.  (For you brain development geeks – the light waves of blue and violet are shorter, and fewer color receptor exist in the human retina for blue light.)

Babies’ eyes are not very sensitive to light in the first month of life. The amount of light required for a one month old to be aware that light is present is 50 times higher than that of an adult. So go ahead and leave a light on in the nursery. You won’t have to stumble around in the dark, and the light won’t affect their ability to sleep. By three months, light detection threshold is only ten times that of an adult.

Newborns can only focus eight to twelve inches. (A breastfeeding baby can see mom’s face.) At first, infants have to move their whole head to move their eyes. But around 2 to 3 months, infants learn how to shift their gaze from one object to another without having to move their head. When infants start to follow moving objects with their eyes they begin to develop tracking and eye teaming skills. Until they learn to coordinate eye movements by 4 or 5 months, crossed eyes are common, but not a cause for alarm.

Here are some ideas to help stimulate your newborn’s visual development:
• Decorate the nursery with bright, cheerful colors.
• Frequently change the location of their crib or existing items in the room.
• Change your baby’s position in the crib.
• Talk to your baby as you walk around the room.
• Keep a night light on to provide visual stimulation when they are awake in their crib.
• Place reach-and-touch toys within your baby’s focus, about eight to twelve inches.
• Hang a brightly colored mobile above or near the crib. Make sure it has a variety of colors and shapes.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who will post all about a 4 to 6 month old tomorrow.