Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Feeding Ani's mind and development...
I need to try and come up with my own strategy of keeping Ani's mind vibrant and active, because I know it's working to some higher level than just responding to funny sounds. She seems to really react well to humor, so maybe I'll try and mix some teaching (keep up with the ABCs and numbers) with humor. I'm also going to try and mix up some stuff that she can just think about in her head, without the need for physicality. She used to love to realize that things rhymed, maybe I'll try and teach her to compose poetry in her head? Stuff like that.
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4 comments:
Helpful activity surrounds a core of quiet space. The quiet space allows the activity to flow and not bunch, don't forget to make room for nothing.
Good point, Joe. (Hi, I'm new here. ;-) I work with Jerry.) Rest is important too; it will give her time to process what she has learned, and recover from any over-stimulation.
Feeding the mind is important, especially in children, but extra-hard when you can't tell what's sticking and what's not. But she's undoubtedly absorbing much more than she can let on. I remember my brother Bjorn went from near-total silence to complete sentences very abruptly around age 4. (He was 4 months when he had his brain damage due to anoxia.) Obviously, though he hadn't been interacting much until then, he'd been listening to the world around him all along. The poetry idea is cool. Studies have shown that infants learn language more readily if presented with poetry and songs -- the sound patterns help cue them in to crucial things like where one word ends and another begins, and how to form various sounds. That's more about learning to understand language, but it probably helps with producing language too. Plus, it's fun!
my i google quote of the day:
Winston Churchill, "if your're going through hell, keep on going"
Repetition, they say, is the basis for brain development. In fact, habits are actually well formed pathways that fire often. Habits that intermingle, infact strengthen those connections as well, cascading into more and more complex 'habits' such as walking, eye movement, and speech.
Consider repetition in the things you do to stimulate her, then after a pattern has been established, change something in it. It can be as simple as counting to 3 while showing/touching the same 3 things over and over, then one day using 3 different things. Or perhaps counting to 3, then one day counting to four. Repeat that change for a while, then change it again in the future. Even simple things like bedtime routines, or other daily activities can be used.
Also, we've been told that when people learn new things, it can actually cause them to unlearn other things for a while. The old saying "there isn't room for any more information in my head" is partially true. For our girls, we've been told by our neuro-team that pre-adolecent children are especially susceptable to this. For example, after our daughter learned to grasp things with her other hand, she stopped using sign language for 'milk'. At the time it seemed like just a fluke, but after a month or so, she starting signing again as if she never stopped. Don't be disheartened by small steps back when helping her. Sometimes you can do such a good job that her brain needs to drop a few things just to process the new things she picks up. In time they will return again.
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