By the fact that we have spent more pages on developmental stimulation and language than anything else, you might guess that we believe these areas are very important. You would be right. Everyone knows what language is, but what exactly is developmental stimulation?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives several definitions of "develop". These include:
- "to make active or promote the growth of,"
- "to go through a process of natural growth"
- "to cause to unfold gradually" and, my favorite,
- "to work out the possibilities"
So, what exactly is it that is growing or unfolding in early childhood? Here are just a few examples...
- Large and small muscle skills. Hand control, such as used in pouring juice or using a fork. Large muscle movements involved in crawling, walking, running and jumping.
- The understanding of relationships, that some things are bigger or smaller, softer or harder. That qualities can be understood as an absolute idea, "soft" but also in relation to something else, e.g., that feathers are softer than blankets.
- The ability to experiment and learn about cause and effect -- when you push your bowl to the edge of the table, it falls off. When you stack bigger blocks on top of smaller blocks, they fall over, when you put a toy car on a slanted surface, it rolls. When you pull your sister's hair, she screams.
- Symbols - one object can represent another. A toy horse represents a real horse. A cereal bowl can be used as a hat.
- Planning - using different colors of playdough, a child can make the head of an animal, then the body, then the legs and, finally, stick these all together to make the animal. This involves four steps, which the child has to have planned out ahead of time.
- Vocabulary - the number of words a child knows grows dramatically during early childhood.
"Stimulate" is defined in the same dictionary as :
"to excite to greater growth or activity"
So, how do you stimulate development? Through all of the examples reviewed in the past several pages and many more. Use your creativity. Assessment of your child can give you information on what your child can do and what he should be learning next. Trust your own observations. If you see that your child is confused about the names of colors, if, when you say, "Hand me that red bowl," he hands you a green one, then you know one of the areas where you need to stimulate development. Of course, there is a great deal more to learn about developmental stimulation and we applaud you for taking the effort to help your child . The next page provides a few links to help you continue the effort.
Next page: links on developmental stimulation