Babies And Sensory Experiences

Young children learn about the world through exposure, interaction and experience. On this episode of Learn With Less, Ayelet explores the notion of experiential learning and how we can most effectively provide those experiences. Below is the transcript of this week’s “Developmental Thought,” an excerpt from the full episode. For additional information, music, play ideas and the complete interactive family experience, please listen to the entire episode. So much of what we discuss in Learn With Less episodes is related to the notion of exposing young children to many different types of experiences – those that they can learn from through touch, sound, vision, movement, taste, and those that can combine those different sensory elements. Psychologist Jean Piaget defined several stages of cognitive development that children move through – now, over the years, the specifics of certain details have met with some contention when new research comes out, but Piaget’s stages of development remain a basic model for our understanding of development – especially in the early years. >>Don’t Miss Our Corresponding Blog Post<< Integration and Overlap Remember, this is a model for cognitive development – but, as we’ve talked about in previous episodes, such as “Holistic Learning,” so much of early development is interrelated – it is impossible to completely separate an infant or toddler’s cognitive development from her motor, social/emotional, or even communication development. This is because infants and toddlers experience the senses and integrate information in a very different way than adults – they are constantly being stimulated – if not bombarded – by all their senses, and to ensure that life is not a completely overwhelming experience, their brains and bodies must learn to make sense of the world through patterns – of behavior, of movement, etc. Music and Literary Experiences I want to touch upon the first two of Piaget’s stages to give you a better sense of how all this is related to experiential learning, but first, as you might have guessed, I want to remind you that musical and literary experiences are the perfect vehicle for movement, auditory, visual, tactile, and emotional experiences, and can focus a young child’s attention as well as engage the senses to help solidify experiences – with vocabulary, with movement patterns, and with bonding between child and caregiver. The first stage, which lasts from the newborn stage through about two years old, is known as the “Sensorimotor” stage. Within this stage, infants and younger toddlers explore the world by coming into direct contact with it, primarily through sensory and motor experiences. What this means is that young children learn primarily through movement, touch, and other sensory experiences, as my lovely guest, Ania Witkowska, reiterated in our episode, “Understanding Babies Through Movement.” What these little ones are doing by touching, listening, looking, moving through space, and tasting or mouthing, is learning. They are constantly processing this world through their experiences. Symbols and Pretend Play So,