Archive for December 7th, 2009
Electronic media is not the answer to childhood learning. There are so many toys and videos offered today that claim to be educational toys or educational videos, but studies have shown that the previous methods of baby learning are just as good today as they were in the “old days.”.
Talking to your children and offering them open-ended materials to play with are still worthy activities. If you are having trouble with a subject for conversation with your child, you might try item identification. Not only the items that you find of interest, but watch what your child is looking at and give them information about that item.
Dr. Barry Lester, Ph.D., director of the Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk, has led a team which has developed a newborn exam called the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS). School readiness and behavior at age 4 could be identified with this exam to show if there is a developmental delay. Early intervention to prevent these problems is a possibility.
This new tool could be very beneficial to children throughout their lifetime and give parents an opportunity to make a difference by providing the proper intervention efforts. The NNNS exam is already being used around the world, as well as in the U.S., for both research and intervention.