Understanding
how the brain functions and develops is important to you, as the parent.
If you want your baby to become smart and super smart, you need to know and
understand how your baby’s brain works and functions.
Brain
cells develop and function as soon as they receive data from the surrounding
through the five sensory organs—ears, eyes, mouth, nose, and skin; that is,
hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, and touching. The development and sharpness
of these organs depend a great deal on the amount as well as the intensity of
stimuli that they receive.
There
are billions of brain cells, and they are like blank sheets of paper to be
filled up with data obtained from the five sensory organs. They gradually
become the brain, the physical organ of the body, which is responsible for
thinking, often referred to as the mind.
The
mind serves to control and coordinate mental and physical actions, including
thoughts and feelings, as well as beliefs and attitudes. Over time, thinking
will continue to develop and shape the mind, turning it into two major
components—the conscious mind, and the subconscious mind. The former selectively
controls the data input; the latter involuntarily and indiscriminately
takes in all the data received. The truth of the matter is that the
subconscious mind dominates the conscious mind. In other words, one’s conscious
mind may want to do one thing, but one’s subconscious mind may instruct one to
do another thing, and one may end up doing the other thing, which may be quite
different from what one originally intended. Therefore, it is important to
provide the right and appropriate data to the baby, because the mind of the baby
is not mature enough to separate the truths from the half-truths or untruths.
In other words, a baby’s perceptions are permanently stored in his subconscious
mind.
Remember,
in the beginning, the baby’s brain is not fully developed. Speed up its
development through enhancing its five senses.
UNDERSTANDING
YOUR BABY’S VISION
Even before birth, babies can see: they can tell what is light and what
is dark. After birth, their vision improves significantly when they see shapes
by following their lines. At first, they can see only within 8 to 12 inches,
and they see only black, white, and gray. When they are several weeks old, they
may begin to perceive their first primary color—red. Progressively, they learn
how to use their eyes to see what they want to see by following moving objects.
Then, they begin to learn their “binocular vision,” which is coordinating and
seeing with both eyes. Babies should develop their normal vision, which
includes eye-hand coordination, within the first several weeks and months.
UNDERSTANDING
YOUR BABY’S HEARING
Hearing is the 1st step towards
language learning. Therefore, it is important to identify and address any
hearing problem by having a hearing screening test right after birth.
Babies have different responses to sounds,
depending on their own temperament; more sensitive babies are more reactive to
sounds; calmer babies are less reactive.
Around two months, babies begin to respond to
familiar voices by making vowel sounds like ohh. At about four
months, babies start to look for the source of a sound, and by six months they
try to imitate sounds. By eight months, they babble and respond to changes in
the tone of
The baby’s brain continues to respond to
complex sounds and attach different meanings to different sounds heard. Your
baby will continue to use hearing to make sense of the world and to learn to
communicate with sounds.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
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