How infants and toddlers learn

INFANTS and toddlers are learning all the time. In emotional terms, they are learning that the world is either a caring, responsive, and interesting place or an unloving, neglectful, and frightening one.

They are beginning to respond in ways to fit their perceptions or how they feel. The foundations of emotional development begin at birth and gradually become less intense after age two.

In the physical and cognitive domains, infants and toddlers are highly efficient little ‘learning machines’ designed to absorb and classify or sort information. Their brain cells are undergoing an amazing process of wiring. As they make the connections, they identify voices, faces, colours and shapes, long before they can say a word. A toddler can sort objects by colour or shape or size before being able to say what these are.

The foundations of language development become active at birth and gradually diminish by age six. As young as these children are, they are powerfully

self-motivated to explore and learn at their own pace and through their own means.

Learning takes place through their intrinsically motivated activity. No one has to tell them to learn, nor prod them into action. Their own choices and desire for autonomy and initiative take care of that. They learn because they want to. Even the youngest infants make simple choices and decisions all day long. They make choices about what they must look at, whether to reach for an object or whether to continue looking at a book or go for a ball.

In practical terms this means that group-care settings will support young children’s development if they provide a variety of safe, supportive, challenging and accessible materials for children to explore and manipulate. In such settings the caregivers must support children’s preferences and attend to their language development.

Toddlers need language to communicate what they know

The desire to explore and to advance their own learning can only be achieved within the context of a trusting relationship with the primary caregiver.

It is very important that children be encouraged to form attachments in group settings. Work rosters can be organised to allow children to interact more frequently with one or two special caregivers consistently throughout the week. Each caregiver will need to work at helping children to form these attachments with them by the loving and nurturing ways that they communicate and interact with the children. Caregivers should use appropriate language to communicate with children at all times, for example to explain what is being done at a particular time, or to describe things or events using language that can be understood by the child. “Baby talk” should be avoided at all times.

Routines provide the best opportunity for individualised interaction between caregiver and child

Routines such as diapering, bathing, and feeding should be much more than a quick task to get out of the way. These periods provide opportunities for caregivers to talk and smile with the children. No child should be made to feel ashamed when accidents occur (example,, wetting him or herself.)

An infant’s bath time should not be rushed. Sensory water plays and floating playthings are mainstays of an infant and toddler programme.

Water is soothing; water stimulates play; and the splashing and slapping of water produce interesting reactions. There should be floating toys that the infant can manipulate while the caregiver holds a pleasant conversation with the child. Similarly, feeding time should be pleasant as the caregiver sits with the children and talks about the different food items. Playing, singing, music (percussion instruments), movement, jingles and rhymes, are the hallmark of a good infant and toddler care programme, following the mantra ‘learning must be fun’.

Group activity does not work well for young children

A curriculum for infants and toddlers will naturally take on a unique style, simply because caregiving routines form much of the day’s activities.

Simply put, every activity throughout the day forms part of the curriculum. The daily schedule should be flexible and organised around the children’s physiological schedule. It should focus on the basic activities of sleeping, feeding, toileting and playing. Day care centres tend to organise the daily schedule like schools with short time blocks. This fragments the young children’s day, and is not appropriate for infants and toddlers. Young children need simple schedules with large time blocks which fit their developmental needs. In addition each child will have his or her own needs, which will require that the schedule be individualised as far as possible.

Whole group activities should be minimised or planned for a few brief minutes only.

Very young children learn best by exploring and manipulating things

Young children have the need to fully explore whatever objects they encounter in their environment. As they focus on a particular object of interest they will “try it out” in a variety of ways — pushing it, feeling it, pulling it, banging it, turning it upside down, tasting it, stacking it.

Infants and toddlers learn with their whole body and with all their senses. Children learn through play, repetition and trying out new things, which may be described as risk-taking. Piaget, in his learning theory of child development, describes this as sensory motor activities.

Caregivers and teachers of young children must have the patience and wisdom to listen, to watch and wait until the children’s thoughts unfold and become apparent.

— From the Jamaica Early Childhood Curriculum Guide