babytalk2Baby Talk: Resources to Support the People Who Work With Infants and Toddlers

Issue No. 27, August 2013

Resources from the Center on Everyday Child Language Learning (CECLL)

This center, based at the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, is developing resources to promote the development of language and communication skills of young children with disabilities and delays. Their tools are great resources for supporting collaboration with any family or child. Several examples are listed below; more are available at the CECLL website (http://cecll.org/).

 

Supporting Outdoor Play and Exploration for Infants and Toddlers

This technical assistance paper from Early Head Start discusses the benefits of outdoor time for infants and toddlers. It offers tips for creating outdoor play spaces, safety considerations, and strategies and policies to support this part of quality programming.

http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/ehsnrc/docs/ehs-ta-paper-14-outdoor-play.pdf

 

Babies Get a Jump on Face Recognition

Babies recognize faces long before other objects, says Stanford psychology research professor Anthony Norcia. “When you see a face, you’re looking at your mom, you’re interacting. It’s associated with a reward.” New research suggests a physical basis for infants’ ogling. At as early as four months, babies’ brains already process faces at nearly adult levels, even while other images are still being analyzed in lower levels of the visual system. For more information, go to  http://www.futurity.org/top-stories/babies-get-a-jump-on-face-recognition/

 

Infant Brain Activity Flags Autism Risk

Children who develop autism already show signs of different brain responses in their first year of life, according to a study that may in the future help doctors diagnose the disorder earlier. British researchers studied 104 babies at six to ten months and then again at three years old, and found that those who went on to develop autism had unusual patterns of brain activity in response to eye contact with another person. The findings suggest direct brain measures might help predict the future risk of autism in babies as young as six months old, said Mark Johnson of Birkbeck at the University of London, who led the study. To learn more, go to http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/infant-brain-activity-flags-autism-risk

Baby Talk is a free, one-way listserv that is distributed each month. Each issue features one or more resources, the majority of which are available to download at no cost.  To join the listserv, send an email with no message to subscribe-babytalk@listserv.unc.eduTo suggest resources, please contact Camille Catlett at camille.catlett@unc.edu or (919) 966-6635.