Your baby’s neurological wiring is divided in basically two sections, the back and front. The back half of the brain and spinal cord is devoted to the incoming pathways carrying information from the senses into the brain. The five senses are smell, taste and especially hearing, and feeling. Since these are pathways into the brain, their development can be reinforced and enhanced by means of more stimulation. Sensory stimulation can help improve your baby’s attention span, memory, curiosity, and nervous system development. In addition, stimulating your baby’s senses will enable him/her to reach developmental milestones faster, as well as aid in the development of motor skills (Doman & Doman 2005:57). The front half of the brain and spinal cord forms the motor pathways, including mobility or movement, the ability to speak and manual competence. Since these are one-way pathways out of the brain, it is impossible to grow them by stimulation. To grow these pathways, we can only provide babies with the maximum opportunity to discover by themselves how to move, make sounds or use their hands. Babies come into the world with a determination to accomplish a long list of developmental tasks. The more opportunities they have to do this on their own, the more physically capable they will become (Porter 2017:53).
REFERENCES
Doman, G. & Doman, J., 2005, How smart is your baby? Develop and nurture your newborn’s full potential, Square One Publishers, New York.
Porter, K., 2017, Healthy posture for babies and children: tools for helping children to sit, stand and walk naturally, Healing Arts Press, Toronto, Canada.