Sensory systems and psycho-emotional environment
The environment in which a child grows and the psychological state of the mother lay the foundation for the harmonious development of the personality in both mental and somatic aspects. An adequate response to the infant's needs forms a basic sense of security in them.
Features of sensory development:
- Vision. Direct visual contact with the mother is a proven stimulus for the proper formation of the brain's visual cortex.
- Hearing and voice. The auditory analyzer is critically important for communication. The mother's voice has a powerful effect on the cortical areas responsible for speech and emotions. At the same time, live lullaby singing has a scientifically proven advantage over any audio recordings.
Care organization: The nursery should be bright, warm, decorated in calm tones, and the furniture must strictly correspond to the age. All routine processes (feeding, putting to sleep, hygiene) should take place in a friendly atmosphere with obligatory affectionate verbal accompaniment. This forms positive emotions in the infant. The success of establishing the mother-child bond depends on the child's individual sensitivity and the mother's ability to read their needs. Intra-family conflicts or the mother's psychological problems are risk factors: they can lead to overprotection or imposing inadequate behavioral patterns on the child.
Impact of physical factors (noise): The permissible noise limit is no more than 75 dB. Chronic exceeding of this threshold disrupts sleep patterns and threatens hearing loss in the future. Acute reactions to loud noise are especially dangerous for premature infants: they can provoke hypoxemic crises, bronchospasm, and central hemodynamics instability.
Motor development and play (6–9 months)
The second half of the year is characterized by a sharp leap in motor activity and a shift in play interests.
Basic motor skills:
- The first form of independent movement in space is crawling.
- By 7–8 months, the infant already crawls confidently and masters the skill of standing up at a barrier (with support).
Play activity: Toys at this age are aimed at practicing elementary object-manipulation actions. The child learns to roll balls and string rings. Interest in narrative toys gradually awakens. To additionally stimulate crawling, it is extremely effective to use wind-up toys and balls that the child has to reach for and move towards.
Speech development and socialization (up to 1 year)
The basis of speech development is constant contact. Adults should repeat sounds after the child and clearly pronounce the names of objects and actions during play.
The main goal of this stage is the development of impressive speech (comprehension), stimulation of the urge to imitate, and the formation of generalizations. By 9–10 months, the child:
- understands the meaning of words;
- reacts clearly to their own name;
- is able to follow simple instructions (e.g., a request to "clap your hands").
Close to one year of age, the infant understands the meaning of certain abstract phenomena, knows the names of household items, and vividly imitates adult actions. For the proper organization of wakefulness, regular changes in location and visual impressions (bringing the child to the window, mirror) are necessary, with obligatory verbal commentary on everything happening.
Life skills: feeding and toilet training
Feeding and potty training processes require patience, unhurriedness, and constant verbal accompaniment from adults.
Organization of feeding:
- Transition to a special high chair is carried out when the child sits confidently and knows how to eat with a spoon.
- At 7–9 months, the skill of independently holding a cup is formed.
- By 11–12 months (the end of the first year), the child is already trying to eat and drink completely without outside help. The adult's task is to help gently, accustoming the child to neatness (using napkins, serving food in small portions).
- Physiological role of chewing: active chewing trains the musculature, which is a basic prerequisite for the proper development of the articulatory apparatus and the future formation of expressive speech.
Potty training: The criterion of readiness is considered to be only confident independent sitting (on average from 8–9 months).
- Optimal time: 20–30 minutes after feeding or immediately after sleep (if the child woke up dry).
- Rules: the potty should be warm, and the atmosphere should be calm. Prolonged waiting for results is unacceptable.
- Mistakes: planting the child too often, putting them on the potty after physiological elimination, as well as nighttime pottying (they are impractical and disrupt sleep architecture).
It is important to remember that by 1 year of age, cortical control of urination and defecation is not yet formed. The habit of neatness remains extremely unstable, and only a few children at this age begin to consciously ask for the potty.
What else to study on this topic
- Stages of impressive and expressive speech formation
- Physiological significance of chewing for the articulatory apparatus
- Child sleep architecture and negative consequences of nighttime pottying
- Criteria for the successful establishment of the psychological mother-child dyad
- Impact of overprotection and intra-family conflicts on infant development
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Other topics in "Chapter 1. General Issues"
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