Throughout the year we have talked about communication in most of my classes - how we communicate, with whom, why, etc. I have been most interested in our discussions on how infants and children learn to communicate. I have been fortunate to spend time every week with 17 month-old twin boys. I started sitting for them in September, and it has been incredible watching their development. It seemed that each week they had some new trick or facial expression or word. Interestingly, one of their first words was shoe. And they love putting on and taking off their shoes and others' too. They have had this fascination for almost 5 months. I happen to love shoes, so this has been something I have really enjoyed seeing happen, and have spent lots of time putting on and taking off their and my shoes. It has now gotten to the point that as soon as I come in the door, they come right up and put their hands on my shoes, and say "shoe?" over and over. It has been a really interesting experience because they have made some association between me and shoes; I would love to see the neural net involved with that! So, I am posting a video I took of them playing with my shoes. I apologize for the quality - it was taken with my cell phone in a dark room. **Note - most people (myself DEFINITELY included) sound ridiculous when talking to babies on a video...
The second and third videos are of my niece, and were taken when she was 4 months old. Talk about communication! I am so amazed at her ability, at such a young age, to be aware of and actually be able to engage in communication both verbally and through eye contact. Most incredible to me is her "singing" - is she trying to soothe herself? Is she thinking about a song she's heard? Has she, somehow, learned about vocal intonations and that different pitches suggest different feelings? (And, I know it could just be an infant doing baby things.) Yes, she's my niece, so I am certainly not objective, but I still think it's a pretty amazing thing to see. : )
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3 comments:
This is a great start to your blog! I like the way that you have used different videos to illustrate communication of children of different ages. I was just reading a paper about how pitch of infants' cooing may be related to shaping of the oral cavity for vowel articulation, but after reading your posting I am interested in finding out more about pitch and feelings. After seeing those videos it certainly seemed like there was a message there with those changes in pitch(in addition to maybe some high "ee" vowel practice).
Rachel
Jordan, I love this post! If you decide you want some more observation time, my son is just now starting to verbalize a lot and we're always looking for experienced sitters!
Love the videos! That's one vocal baby!
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