Baby Talk: Resources to Support the People Who Work With Infants and Toddlers
Issue No. 57, February 2016
Free Video Resources to Support Early Brain Development: Daily Vroom
Interested in free, high-quality, evidence-based videos that provide ideas for how to support early brain development on a daily basis? You can learn more about the science of early brain development, discover tools and activities, access an app that will bring you daily tips about how to build young brains through daily routines and activities, or watch cool videos. Go to http://www.joinvroom.org/tools-and-activities to learn more about free options or go to https://www.youtube.com/user/joinvroom to preview free videos in English and Spanish. To upload the free Vroom app, go to www.joinvroom.org
Touch, Play and Support in Childhood Vital to Well-Being as an Adult
Did you receive affection, play freely and feel supported in childhood? Childhood experiences like these appear to have a lot to do with well-being and moral capacities in adulthood according to a study that shows that childhood experiences that match with evolved needs lead to better outcomes in adulthood. http://news.nd.edu/news/63375-parent-touch-play-and-support-in-childhood-vital-to-well-being-as-an-adult/
Babies Use Their Tongues to Understand Speech
A new study from the University of British Columbia established the first direct link between babies’ oral motor skills—the movement of the tongue, lips, and other parts of the mouth—and their ability to understand speech. Read more to learn that when infants can’t move their mouths to mimic sounds, they have a harder time processing them.
Video Parent Feedback Program Improves School Readiness of Children in Poverty
The Video Interaction Project (VIP) involves videoing parents as they read and play with their children during routine checkups, reviewing the videos with parents, highlighting positive interactions, and giving parents a book or toy and a copy of the video to take home. A recent study involving 675 parents and their newborn babies found that the children of VIP participants had better attention and play skills and reduced hyper-activity and aggression at age 3 than children in the control group. For children in the highest risk families, hyperactivity was reduced by more than half. The authors suggest that reducing aggression and hyperactivity in young children is extremely important, because the ability to behave in school is crucial for learning and educational achievement.
When It Comes to Infant Language Development, Not All Toys Are Created Equal
What role do toys play in language learning? Can something as simple as the type of toy an infant plays with affect language development? The answer appears to be yes. At least, that’s the conclusion of a new study (http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2478386) published in JAMA Pediatrics examining the type of toy used by infants during play and the quantity and quality of parent-child communication the toys encourage.
http://www.edcentral.org/toystudy/
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.edu. To suggest resources, please contact Camille Catlett at camille.catlett@unc.edu or (919) 966-6635.