If you’re looking for information about baby development, or looking for ideas about how to play with your baby to support development, Learn With Less (formerly Strength In Words) is where we discuss all things early parenthood and early childhood. We help families (expecting parents, new parents, and seasoned parents) navigate those early years in an inclusive, educational, and supportive space. Join Ayelet Marinovich, M.A., CCC-SLP, author, singer, imperfect mother of two and pediatric speech-language pathologist, for a podcast for parents, caregivers, and educators of infants and toddlers of all developmental levels. Learn With Less is the place for families to access high quality, evidence-based resources about how their infants and toddlers learn and develop; for regular sessions of music, play and developmental information for both you and your baby, subscribe on Apple Podcasts and visit https://learnwithless.com!
Find out how this woman is making libraries family-centered spaces. In this episode of Learn With Less, we speak with Suzanne Flint, child development specialist and principal architect of the California State Library’s early learning initiative, to discuss what public libraries are doing to promote library programs for families. Suzanne Flint is a child development specialist with a Masters in Health Education. Over the last 30+ years, she has worked directly with children and families and in leadership roles with nonprofit organizations & public agencies, helping families navigate information and educational needs. During her time at Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, she creat ed one of the nation’s first consumer health libraries and started California Reach Out And Read, a statewide pediatric early literacy program. Currently, she is the principal architect of the California State Library’s early learning initiative, Early Learning with Families @ the Library (ELF). As a part of this initiative and in collaboration with the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, Ms. Flint has helped to develop a professional development curriculum specifically for library staff based on the Touchpoints model of strengthening family-child relationships. The ultimate goal of the ELF initiative is to support the continued evolution and advancement of library services to young children and families – helping to create services that are developmentally appropriate and family inclusive. Great resources we mentioned in this podcast episode (in order they were mentioned): Early Learning with Families Brazelton Touchpoints Birth to Three Learn With Less: Music For Families Connect With Us: Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Suzanne Flint and Early Learning with Families: Facebook / Pinterest / YouTube / Twitter Text transcript of the episode Ayelet: I am so thrilled to share this conversation with you all – Suzanne is an absolute powerhouse, and is a wealth of knowledge about early literacy, early learning, infant and toddler education, and parent education. I was so happy to have the chance to sit down and speak with her about the ways libraries are changing – the movement she’s played a big part in is largely based in California, but is part of a national and international trend toward making libraries much more family-friendly places, in all senses of the word. I invite you to step into our conversation… Libraries, in general, are such an amazing resource, and I think undervalued by a lot of people… Suzanne: Well and also, I will say, you know, in the last 25 years, libraries have also significantly changed. I mean, 25 years ago, your little one would actually not have been welcome in a library… because he’s not yet reading, he would be making noise, and libraries were all about quiet and erudite study. I was originally trained as a “child life specialist,” which is a very unique subset of social work, and it was originally designed specifically to help children navigate the experience of being hospitalized. But I also have training in child development, and then, because I was in the hospital setting, I also went on to get trained in cognitive behavioral therapy. So I got a lot of training in massage, in hypnosis, in guided imagery, and it really opened up this whole world of… all of us who want to help support children and families, you know, we’re joining in at one very specific moment in time. There’s a whole skillset about how to do that in a way that’s honoring of that particular child and that particular family when we don’t have the luxury of knowing more about them. Strategies, of how we can be “less should” and less about us saying, “you have to figure out how to use our services” and more about how to join with families. So, that’s how I started in my profession. It was already fairly eclectic. And then there was a pediatric early literacy program that was started at Boston Children’s Hospital called “Reach Out And Read,” and by this point in my career, I was at Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. There were two interns there who wanted to start the program, and so I became responsible for starting this pediatric early literacy program. I began to help other clinics around the state grow it, and ended up creating “California Reach Out And Read,” and, the other thing that I did that was unique, even for the National Reach Out And Read program, was that we began to partner with public libraries to deliver this program – so medical clinics and public libraries. And then I got tapped by the State Librarian at the time to basically say, you know, libraries are already interested in changing the way they serve their communities, and we’re really beginning to appreciate that there are lots of emergent literacy skills that are happening long before little ones are actually reading, and that libraries have a stake in that game, and that we should be a part of that conversation. So, I shall hasten to say that Early Learning with Families in California – we did not singly and solely get this movement going nationally. There were other programs that had started to happen in public libraries. So, we just sort of began to highlight what was going on around the country to address this age group. And then, the more we worked with libraries in California, the deeper the dive we went. We went beyond, you know, it’s nice to have programs, but what are your spaces like, and have you even considered the fact that families are coming in with strollers, and, hey! You might have to rethink the Dewey Decimal System, because some harried parent bringing in a two-year old is probably never going to have a chance to make it over to the parenting section. Why don’t you move your parenting books into the children’s section? You know, all kinds of things about, you know, if you’re really thinking about servicing this group, what are their needs? Not “what do you think they need?” but, what do they say they need? So, that kept building, and then, just two years ago, after years and years of working on this, it also became really clear that we needed to change the way that library staff interacted with families. Because, for the most part, they start with that same bias – “oh, I can’t wait to work with kids, don’t particularly want to work with their adult caregivers or parents.” Don’t know how to talk to those adults, kind of am nervous about talking to those adults… So we’ve partnered with the Brazelton Touchpoint System from Harvard, and we are just now finishing a curriculum. We now have 20 library staff around the State of California who are trained to deliver the curriculum, and will be now delivering that training to about 25 more libraries this coming year. And it’s all about being strength-based, it’s all about doing a much better job of listening to families, and being responsive to them – because libraries love to just give you tons of information! – and sometimes, that’s almost worse than not giving you anything. Parents just get overwhelmed. So, in a nutshell, that’s what we’ve been working on and what we’re doing. Ayelet: I think in so many ways, we as parents and caregivers in this day and age feel so much that we’re caught in this overwhelming nature of information. And if there is a place that we can go to be provided with a free service, a free resource, and information – and, I mean, what is a library other than a house of information?! – with librarians who’ve been trained in some way to work with young children and their families (because, of course, we know that that is the key)! Suzanne: Yeah! Well, and it’s interesting, because we discovered that in California, public libraries are second only to public parks as the place most frequented by families with young children. And I think it’s partly because we’ve made the spaces more welcoming – not every library, let me hasten to say, but an awful lot of libraries in California are more welcoming. And you’re right – it’s free, there are all these other resources there. We also now have structured spaces, we have toys in libraries for kids, we have programs where they’re going to be noisy and making noise, all of that is, you know, very new, and so I think parents feel like it really is an option to go there. And, most importantly, I think, the opportunity to connect with other parents. Which is even more powerful than whatever books we might have on the shelves. Ayelet: Absolutely. So, what some of the things that parents and caregivers can expect to find, specifically. Suzanne: Well, as I say, I wish it was uniform in every single library, so I always have to be careful about what I promise, because I’ve gotten emails from parents who’ve said, “hey! You said every library’s gonna be great, and we just went into a library, and they were really mean to us!” And it’s like, “oh my god.” I can’t promise that everyone is going to be this way. But. I think at the minimum, we have tried to make distinct spaces set aside where it is clear for a little person walking in the door or their adult caregiver, that this is a place for them. Things are down on the floor, there are chairs – a comfy chair – that both a parent and a child could sit in. We have changing tables (hopefully, in both the men and women’s restrooms). We have got, often times, lactation spaces, set aside for moms. There are toys. We have programming that’s focused on them – we have baby lap sits, we have music programs, we have a lot more play going on in libraries, we’re much less attached to the fact that you’ve got to come in and do something with a book. I think most librarians at this point really appreciate that there are all these skills that don’t look anything like reading, but are actually the building blocks to reading. So, that’s been pretty fully embraced. And, we’ve done things like, Folsom Public Library took all of their picture books, and rather than arranging them by Dewey, they put them in order by categories – so, pirates, princesses, transportation, insects. Once they had done it, they were blown away. Because what it meant was that children and their adult caregivers could find books easier. It also meant that their circulation went way up, because you may have come in for Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” but all the copies were checked out – but since it’s not next to a whole bunch of other books on insects, your other books on insects didn’t circulate! Now when you come in looking for Eric Carle and he’s gone, it’s like, “but hey! Here’s a thing on butterflies!” Or, “here’s another thing on caterpillars!” Or whatever. And then, the other funny thing that happened for staff, is within a week, they knew what parts of their collection they needed to beef up. Every book on transportation was checked out within the first week, and it was like, hey! We need more picture books on trucks and trains and automobiles and airplanes! Ayelet: Surprise! Suzanne: Yeah! Yeah! And then, as I say, there’s also the idea of, what about some adult material in the children’s section for parents who’ve got limited time. Many people have let go of the whole issue of bringing food in the library, because if you’ve got little ones, they’ve got to have a snack! You know, they can’t last long without little breaks of food! So all of those kinds of things are going on in the library. I hope – the true test for me about us being truly family-centric and friendly, and the final block, I think, we’re knocking over with this training curriculum, is the attitude of staff. Because an awful lot of library staff went into libraries with no real interest to work with the public. When you think historically about the tradition of librarianship, it was really about the stuff. It was about acquiring the collection, it was about curating the collection, it was about protecting and serving the collection. The public just came in and checked it out and left. You come and go. The real thing that has become clear, I think for libraries to remain relevant… it’s less about being sort of a gatekeeper around stuff, and it’s much more about “how can we become facilitators of individuals’ own self-discovery” wherever they are in their journey of learning: how do we help them become life-long learners, continue to stay curious and interested in the world? It’s more about you as the person coming into the library than it is about how our library works and how you need to know how to navigate it. We want to make that invisible. So, it’s intuitive, or it’s easy, or we’re much more approachable, if, for some reason, it’s not quite straightforward how the place works. But just really getting families much more comfortable with coming and being there and changing the attitudes of staff to being much more supportive about children and families. It means toddlers are going to have tantrums, and we don’t shame their parents about that happening – and you know, that’s been a big conversation about the fact that a two-year old tantruming is not a reflection of that parent’s parenting style. It’s also not a reflection of a misbehaving two-year old! Developmentally, it’s a child who has no resource left. You know, these are not children who are trying to get on your nerves – which is often times how it was reflected back to us by library stuff. You know, “this kid is just being manipulative, they’ve got their parents wrapped around their fingers, and they’re just, you know, throwing a tantrum to get us all to jump to their thing” and it’s like, actually, that’s not what’s happening. But of course, you can’t, that’s not how you teach people to appreciate that concept. So it’s that balance of walking them along through the developmental process and hopefully helping them be a little more… it just seems like we’ve all gotten more judgmental, and quicker to make assessments of others. I think especially in the United States, I find it quite ironic how we think about and support parents, because I think there’s an awful lot… we say we have family values… we do very little in this country. Once you have your child, it’s sort of like you’re on your own. Ayelet: Yeah, have fun. Suzanne: Good luck, have fun. Ayelet: From the moment it pops out, in fact. Suzanne: And once you’ve given birth, we could care less, it seems like. Which I find really sad. And I also think that’s the other sort of appreciation – which I also find just very interesting, because a lot of librarians are parents themselves – but being very understanding or tolerant of other parents is also very hard, and I think it’s a reflection of sort of our societal misunderstanding and intolerance of the parenting process. It’s sort of assumed that it comes naturally, and that if you’re a good parent it’s because you were just born to be a good parent. Nobody really talks about how hard it is to parent. One of the things that I love about the Touchpoints Approach to child development – Dr. Barry Brazelton was a pediatrician – and he was really one of the first developmentalists to scientifically show that human development doesn’t happen in this nice, smooth, linear path that (when you take Child Development 101, all those charts, you know that say, “should be walking by 18 months” and on and on and on) and he really codified that there are very specific times when essentially, children will fall apart, right before they make their next big developmental leap. And that when they fall apart, they usually lose a skill they’d acquired. And that can be very disconcerting to parents. And parents tend to go to one of two places – something’s wrong with my kid, or something’s wrong with me as a parent. And that will happen over and over and over throughout the cycle of raising a child. And so, the whole point of Touchpoints is, as a society that surrounds a child and their parents, it’s at those moments when a family is actually most vulnerable. At those moments of crisis when a…
Tips For Talking To Your Baby
Nov 11, 2016
Show notes
Ever wondered why you change your voice when you talk to babies?
In this episode, Ayelet discusses this phenomenon (known as “infant-directed speech,” “motherese,” or “parentese”).
She covers tips on ways to communicate with babies, the innate reasons we modify our voices when we talk to babies, and the research that supports those changes!
Below is the transcript of this week’s “Developmental Thought,” an excerpt from the full episode. For additional information, music, play ideas and the complete interactive family experience, please listen to the entire episode.
So, what does the research say – why do we use infant-directed speech? If we all do it, in practically every language, it must serve some function, right? Researchers believe that there are many reasons for this.
It is likely that infant-directed speech helps infants to determine a caregiver’s intentions – the “prosody” or the natural melody of speech (inflection, intonation) is something that infants pay attention to, and pay attention to for a longer period of time than typical adult speech patterns, suggesting that infant-directed speech actually aids in their cognitive development.
In other words, infants are focusing in on the parts of our communication that add to our meaning – things like the way we use melody in our speech patterns – so when we use slightly exaggerated intonations or repeat the last part of our sentence, for instance, “here’s what we’re going to do next… we take off your shirt so we can put a clean one on! Yes, we need to put a cleaaan one on!” – we are allowing them to infer meaning and we are also making it more interesting to them because they hear patterns.
Even though the content of our communication may vary each time, we might actually use the same inflections without knowing we’re doing it, each time we perform a dressing and undressing routine with our little one.
Preference and Responsiveness
Research has actually shown that infants prefer to listen to infant-directed speech when compared to what we can refer to as “adult-directed speech,” or, normal speech patterns in adults.
They’re also more responsive – they look longer and focus more (again, this is shown also with deaf infants who are seeing infant-directed signing!
Even when infants are sleeping, their brains respond more to hearing infant-directed speech (than to typical adult speech patterns).
Elements of Speech and Language
Research also suggests that Infant-directed speech helps infants piece apart syllables and discriminate between syllables as well as categorize different vowels in their native language.
In addition, it may help them to recognize when one word ends and another begins, as well as recognize words, helping them to process speech and language.
They’re Paying Attention!
So, we see that the use of infant-directed speech likely has an effect on almost all major areas of development, including social/emotional, cognitive, and communicative development. Now, again, I’m not saying that you have to be gushy-gushy with your little one to stimulate his brain.
But when you speak to your infant or young toddler, and you sing to your infant or toddler, remember that when you repeat what you say, when you ask them a question (even when they can’t answer), when you point at something and look back at your little one, when you speak a bit more slowly or with slightly more inflection than you would with another adult, you don’t sound ridiculous to them – in fact, you sound more interesting!
References:
Fernald, A. (1992). Human Maternal vocalizations to infants as biologically relevant signals: An evolutionary perspective. In J. H. Barkow & L. Cosmides (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 391-428). London: Oxford University Press.
Saint-Georges, C., Chetouani, M., Cassel, R., Apicella, F., Mahdhaoui, A., Muratori, F., … Cohen, D. (2013). Motherese in Interaction: At the Cross-Road of Emotion and Cognition (A Systematic Review). PLoS ONE, 8(10), e78103. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078103https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3800080/pdf/pone.0078103.pdf
(formerly known as The Heart of It Curriculum), which is a week-by-week development and activity guide for playing with your baby from birth to three years.
Outline of this week’s episode. Your experience with this episode can be enhanced by watching the complementary video, linked below.
If you are interested in watching specific portions, please scroll down for time signatures to help you navigate the video.
0:00 – 0:46 Introduction to today’s discussion, which will focus on outlining exactly what Learn With Less™ is, and what you can expect. I’ve already given you the background about what it is and what its intended purpose is I’ve given you an opportunity to hear from a few different recipients of the curriculum about their experiences here and here. I’ve told you about why I created it.
0:47 – 3:08 our parent education curriculum enriches babies with simple activities, but also enriches parent experience. Basic outline of what you receive with Learn With Less™, describes each aspect, including the “Monthly Consultation” add-on
3:09 – 5:29 Summary of one mother’s experience both before and after having access to Learn With Less™ – when we have access to high quality information, it encourages confidence in us, and encourages us to continue to engage with our babies
5:30 – 6:46 What is the basis for the Learn With Less™curriculum? What kind of information will I be receiving? The “science” and the “art” of parenting.
6:47 – 8:02 Curriculum examples: here’s what we’re going to look at today – one module from each age range and one module from each developmental domain
8:03 – 11:52: 0 – 3 month baby enrichment module example and accompanying family activity example featured in video
We know infants learn holistically, so although each module might focus on one developmental area, the learning involved also influences other developmental domains
11:53 – 14:27: 3 – 6 month baby enrichment module example and accompanying family activity example featured in video
14:28 – 19:10: 6 – 12 month baby enrichment module example and accompanying family activity example featured in video
19:11 – 22:05: 6 – 12 month enrichment module example and accompanying family activity example featured in video
23:16 – 24:3 Music is such a wonderful way to support your baby’s learning and to enhance the interaction between you and your baby!
This episode of Learn With Less features the journey of author Ayelet Marinovich into parenthood.
Her creation of the baby and toddler enrichment curriculum, “Learn With Less™” focuses on infant and toddler development week by week along with simple activities to support your baby’s development through the first three years of life.
The Learn With Less Story
I’ve told parts of the story of how Learn With Less came to be, but today I want to focus on my story a bit more, because, now, 34 episodes deep, you’ve come to know what you can expect from me. I have been alluding (in the last couple of episodes) to a new resource I’m adding to the collection of Learn With Less resources and services.
You know that I believe it’s possible to provide distilled, palatable information to parents of young children – and I think you’ve heard me do that, to an extent, on this podcast with each new episode! You know that I think the beginning of our journey into parenthood (whether as a first-time parent or a seasoned one) should be supported with knowledge about our littlest family members that is timely (as in, we’re presented with it as it happens), and that is actionable (as in, not only the information, but also easily implementable ideas).
So, this is not only the story of Learn With Less, but also the story of Learn With Less™, my new infant enrichment curriculum, and why I felt compelled to create it. I was ten weeks pregnant with my first baby when my husband and I moved across the world. Surrounded by new people, new customs, new systems, and struck by the newness of the journey toward parenthood, I was very focused on creating connections.
When my baby was born, I decided to combine my skills and my desire to create a safe, social learning space for myself and my baby, along with other caregiver-baby pairs. I started to devise a curriculum that was based on my own developmental knowledge, that of my friends and colleagues in early learning, a ton of developmental research, as well as information and experiences I integrated as a mother along the way.
Through this process of development and dissemination, I learned to become more confident as a mother, I learned to listen to myself, to my baby, and to other caregivers. I learned to distill information that was pertinent to me and to the other caregivers around me. Most importantly, I learned just how powerful knowledge is…
“I learned to become more confident as a mother, I learned to listen to myself, to my baby, and to other caregivers. I learned to distill information that was pertinent to me and to the other caregivers around me. Most importantly, I learned just how powerful knowledge is…”
Uniting through parenthood
There are so many divisive topics in the world of parenthood. In the beginning of my experience of motherhood, I really fixated on these issues, because, of course, the choices we make about how to nourish and support our babies matters. I searched for information – and often, I was met with “experts” and “solutions…” when really, what I needed was knowledge. When I stepped back and remembered how much I understood about how babies learn, I began to feel more connected to my baby – and more empowered as a mother.
And, you know, when I shared that information with other caregivers, they felt the same way. The whole idea of Learn With Less was born out of this – but as my son grew out of infancy and through toddlerhood, I felt there was more I could do for families going through those early days.
Although there is no way to gauge exactly when our babies will move through specific milestones, there are certain aspects of all areas of development – cognitive, communicative, motor, and social/emotional development – that move through a typical progression.
Whether or not our babies are “meeting milestones” or “following typical patterns” of development, there are pieces of information about the way infants learn that can help us manage our expectations, understand more about our babies, and allow us to relate to our most vulnerable days, weeks and months with more confidence and with a proverbial “bag of tricks.” Learn With Less™, a baby and toddler enrichment curriculum for families, follows the same ethos as the Learn With Less podcast and DIY Blog, so they complement each other wonderfully.
The main difference is that I wanted to create something that followed a timeline, and that (in our strange digital world) resembled a support system for parents, to help us feel less alone and more empowered. From the first weeks of our babies lives, there are aspects of their development that we can nurture.
When we are aware of how they learn – to think, to communicate, to move, to bond – we become more empowered to allow them to do that, and we feel more confident that we are providing the best start for our babies.
I also think that it’s essential that we as parents understand not only the basis for the ways our babies develop, but that we also have access to really simple, practical things we can do to support that development (so called, “pearls of interaction”).
Sometimes, these interactive and supportive activities might involve the use of our bodies or voices, and sometimes they might involve simple materials that we can find in our homes – and organize in inventive ways.
“From the first weeks of our babies lives, there are aspects of their development that we can nurture. When we are aware of how they learn – to think, to communicate, to move, to bond – we become more empowered to allow them to do that, and we feel more confident that we are providing the best start for our babies.”
A developmental curriculum
I created the Learn With Less™ curriculum based on my own professional background as a pediatric speech-language pathologist and my experience of becoming a parent myself – and I’m actually launching it just as I go though that experience for the second time, with my second baby due in January 2017.
I’ve been beta testing the curriculum with families for the last year, integrating feedback and streamlining content, and recently saw my first beta-tester families through, from week one through their first birthdays. These families are first-time, second-time, and third-time parents, from all across the United States and Europe, and come from many different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
The most common, consistent response I have received from each of them is how much they appreciate the combination of bite-sized, rich content and easy-to-implement ideas that help enrich the experience of becoming a family, for both parent and baby.
The content of the Learn With Less™ curriculum is based on developmental research and guidelines for early learning. I’ve spent lots of time and energy reviewing texts on child development, speaking and collaborating with practitioners in related fields, and breaking it down week by week, from birth through the first year of life.
I want it to be easily digestible. I want it to empower caregivers and promote interaction within families.
How To Learn How Your Baby Learns
Oct 14, 2016
Show notes
This episode is all about The Heart Of It curriculum, which is now known as the Learn With Less™ Curriculum
Transcript of this week’s interview with mother of two young children (and founder of Lil’ollo), Alexandra Nicoletti.
Our discussion focuses on Alexandra’s experience becoming a mother, and how her access to the Learn With Less Curriculum as a beta tester has changed that experience the second time around, on both an emotional and practical level.
Ayelet: I’d like to welcome, Alexandra Nicoletti, who is a good friend of mine. We met when I was pregnant with my first child, and she was also pregnant with her first child at that time. Since, she has become the mother of a beautiful baby girl who is now just over 3 months old.
Alex, thanks so much for being here with us on Learn With Less today. I just want to talk to you because you’ve been beta testing the Learn With Less™curriculum for the last 3 months or so, since Nel was born. [baby coos in background]… And there she is!
As a parent of young children, you’ve had the experience now of going through infancy, both your “first time parenting experience” and then, now, with this added curriculum access.
So, what was it like for you to become a parent, what are some of the feelings that went around becoming a mum for the first time?
Alexandra: Well, I… there’s so many different emotions, and I approached motherhood, the first time, a bit like a research project. And I thought that… I like to research, I like to be prepared, and I like to understand everything.
And I thought that if I read all the books and all the internet articles, and I prepared, and I was fit and I was strong and I did the yoga, I would follow my birth plan, and Marco would just be really happy and there’d be no problems, and he’d obviously sleep through the night from three weeks and be doing headstands by five weeks, because, you know, I’d done all of my preparation! And obviously, as you know, it doesn’t work out like that!
These amazing little people are born as they are, they’re not blank slates, and it was a huge shock to the system because Marco, poor thing, had the colic and the reflux and the cow’s milk protein allergy, and all these things you can’t prepare for really, and research and it’ll all be ok.
They’re things you have to move through with them as best you can, and I found it an incredibly tough experience to start off… with this huge amount of love for this little man, and I wanted to just do the absolute best I could, but I felt completely at sea.
“I found it an incredibly tough experience to start off… with this huge amount of love for this little man, and I wanted to just do the absolute best I could, but I felt completely at sea. ”
— Alexandra Nicoletti
Alexandra Nicoletti, mother and small business owner
There’s no manual for parenthood, although people do try very hard to claim that they’ve written one. There’s no manual, there’s no one-size-fits-all, these people are individuals, and the early days were really challenging. And of, I think, the delights in Marco’s first year, was meeting you, being with you on this starting journey of Learn With Less – and just wishing that we could do the classes every day, because they were so helpful!
It provided a tool kit, and it provided an ethos. It wasn’t… what I love about the Learn With Less™ curriculum and also Learn With Less and your podcasts is that you don’t say, “this is what you must do.” It’s general guidelines and ideas, which are so helpful because our children are all so different!
At no point do you ever say, “your child should be helping themselves to their breakfast, standing on their head…” there’s no… they’re general guidelines about development, which are so helpful.
There’s an awful lot on the internet, lots of information, I found, especially when Marco was little, of saying, “this is what should be happening at this point,” and often, it doesn’t! And, you’re going through this the first time, and you think, “what am I doing wrong? What’s wrong with my baby? They’re not doing this!”
I honestly felt anxious about moving through infancy again, because this first six months with Marco, I found incredibly challenging. And I was worried. It’s so fantastic to have the Learn With Less™ curriculum with us, every week, every day. It’s been incredibly reassuring. And what I’ve learned is that it’s… when we have these guidelines, and this knowledge, it’s so supportive.
A lot of the things, and other parents will find this as well, is it’s those things that you already have within you, what you already know, you sort of need that to be brought out of you, and you need that reassurance… you think, “oh, I’ve got this! It’s ok, we’re fine.” But having that every week is great.
And I think it is… [baby shouts in the background] – yes! It’s an amazing time, chatty one. It’s an amazing time and it’s also, it is, it can be really tough! You know, some babies sleep better than others, but a lot don’t for quite some time, and that can add to the feeling of being a little lost when you’re really tired. So having these emails and having this information is incredibly helpful!
Ayelet: So, what are some of the things that you feel specifically have changed for you, especially with your experience with Marco, your first, and now with Nell?
Alexandra: I feel… more confidence, and more calmed this time around. And I know part of that is that I’ve done it before, and Marco’s turned out ok, I think, I hope! He seems happy! And, it’s also having that confidence to have fun and be creative. And, I remember, when Marco was this age, thinking, “I don’t know what to do,” because you do get lovely feedback in the form of smiles, but not the kind of feedback that you get with a slightly older child.
Like, Marco can very clearly say what he’s enjoying and what he’s not, or what he’d like to do now, but at Nell’s age, you know, it’s not… I remember thinking with Marco at 3 months, I didn’t know what activities would be helpful. And with your guidance – and I think that’s so helpful that you say what’s going on developmentally, and also some ideas of things to do and it’s… once you’ve had them, once you’re, say, 3 months into the curriculum, you think, “oh, well, these are some ideas that Ayelet suggested, and I can think of some others that we can do.”
And singing this time around – I’m singing a lot more – probably not very well, but she seems to enjoy it! And having the Learn With Less podcast at the same time, having access to that is fantastic, because they fit so well with the curriculum. I
’m so excited about your album that’s coming out, that’s going to be brilliant! So, reaaaaally looking forward to that! And, I know that people who sign up early can get access to that can get access to that, too, which is fantastic.
Ayelet: That’s right, that’s a, sort of, special incentive for that first week of the cart, as it were, opening up! I mean, so much of what Learn With Less was born out of was that interactive musical experience because they can be so rich.
So, I’m happy that the Learn With Less™ Curriculum will be supplemented with the podcast, and then also, of course, the transportable album for those who get into that!
But let’s get back to you for a second. How has the Learn With Less™ Curriculum changed your experience of parenting?
Alexandra: I know this is going to sound awful, because I did feel joy with Marco when he was first born, as well, but it was intermixed with so much anxiety. So, I’m just feeling so much more of the joy without the anxiety this time around, which is great.
Ayelet: And as you said, I mean, I’m sure it’s not all the curriculum – I mean, I’d love to take credit for that but so much of it is you as well, because you’ve been through it and because you have the knowledge that you can do it and, you know, Nell’s not going to break.
But, it sounds like you feel that it’s nice to have access to something that’s just leading you through the experience of parenting an early developing person.
Alexandra: Absolutely. Yes.
Ayelet: I wonder, you also have sort of a unique story as well, and we won’t get into it too much, but I know that your experience with Learn With Less has led you to create something of your very own, and if there’s anything that you wanted to share about that, I’d love to just hear a bit about that story. We’ll get into it a bit more after you launch your fantastic new business, Lil’ollo, but…
Alexandra: Oh, thank you. Yes, and I just wanted to say thank you so much for all your help and support, because, everybody, Ayelet’s been with me on this journey right from the very beginning. She’s one of the first people I told about this idea when it was in its very early infancy, when Marco was… I think he was probably about 4 months old when I first started thinking about it.
Just to go into it briefly, my husband GianLuca is Italian – hence the names Marco and Ornella. We speak Italian and English and now Spanish, as well, at home, and I couldn’t find any products in both languages that were… I could find a few books, a few bilingual books, but really, I struggled to find posters, and toys, and games, and things that we could really start creating a world at home to really enjoy learning languages together, and not for it to be a process of “Now we are going to learn English,” or “now we are going to learn Italian,” which, I quickly learned from you, Ayelet, that early learning doesn’t work that way… it needs to be fun and engaging, and part of everyday life.
So, I started creating a series of simple products, with a family of animal characters that can be used in any number of different ways, to play games with and to have on the wall, and to just have around the home and take out and about with you – and to learn two or more languages. Or just one! If you are just speaking one language at home, and like the idea of saying a few words in another language, it’s for the whole spectrum of language learning!
So, from learning one to learning as many as you like! Apparently, children can pick up up to five up to the age of five, which is absolutely incredible. I’m constantly amazed by how these little brains develop and work. As you say, we’ll talk more about that closer to the launch, but everyone can hear more from Ayelet on our website – because we’ve got you on film, which is very exciting! And I really look forward to working with you more in the future as our resident speech-language pathologist!
Ayelet: I’m so happy to be involved in that project, it’s very exciting. So, again, we’ll chat more about that once it’s officially coming, but just as a little teaser! How nice! Thank you so much, Alex, it’s a really nice thing to hear about your experience and I think it will resonate with a lot of people. That’s great.
Alexandra: Oh, thank you so much for having us today. Thank you so much for having us involved in beta testing such a wonderful program. It’s really exciting, and I know that some of my friends who are expecting, or who have babies who are within their first year will be getting lovely presents, because I really am, I’m so excited about sharing this with everybody.
There Is Such A Thing As Good Parenting Advice
Oct 07, 2016
Show notes
The Heart Of It curriculum has been folded into the Learn With Less™ Curriculum, which serves families with babies birth to three years of age.
I always like to give to friends or family who are expecting their first child the following piece of my mind:
If anyone tells you ‘this is the only way to do it’ (when referring to pretty much anything baby-related), tell them ‘thanks,’ and then run the other way.
The adventure of becoming a parent is a personal experience
We live in a different world from the one in which our parents and grandparents grew up.
Ours is a fast-paced, digital-based society… and we have so much access to information that it can feel overwhelming and stifling.
Babies don’t come with a manual
Often, the ways they grow and change are mysterious to us. Most of us don’t have a degree in an area like Early Childhood Education…
And those of us who do know something about the way infants develop are often so overwhelmed in those early days that any knowledge we thought we had goes out the window while we try to sort out the chaos.
In those early days (especially), we feel SO vulnerable!
We are all looking for answers. We want to learn how to relate to and read our babies, and we want to do it in a way that feels comfortable for us. So we seek out resources.
There are plenty of websites / books / blogs out there that singularly focus on either one specific topic (like “sleep” or “feeding”) or that over-extensively serve as your “one-stop-shop” for all things baby.
There are self-proclaimed experts who offer one-size-fits-all “solutions”
There are (often well-meaning) family and friends in our lives who’ve had infants and love to share what worked for them and what you MUST do, too!
There is so much opposing advice out there, and so many “one-size-fits-all” solutions. There are so many philosophies, theories, methods… and every parent, at some time or another, has the fear that they’re ‘doing it wrong.’
We are all winging it. Books are great, but what new parent has the time to sit down and read more than a few pages?
So, we end up wondering to ourselves, “what does child development research say?
If only we could download – almost directly to our brains – time-sensitive, relevant information about the universal ways that infants across the globe develop, and evidence-based strategies and ideas to support their development as it’s happening!
What if I told you that…
You can.
You can have quick access to distilled, research-based, palatable information and practical ideas about how to support your infant’s development.
You can empower yourself with knowledge and you can anticipate the ways your baby will change.
The Learn With Less Curriculumis the newest addition to the wonderful resources available here at Learn With Less. It is an infant enrichment curriculum that gently guides you through your baby’s first year of life, from the first week to the first birthday.
As parents, we want access to high-quality information that is supportive, and that complements our own abilities and innate knowledge. We want to feel empowered, especially when we’re feeling vulnerable. We want someone to boost our confidence – both in ourselves and our ability to be the best parents we can be, and in the knowledge that we are supporting our littlest ones.
We also want to feel more connected to this new identity and experience of parenthood… and in so doing, we want to feel connected to our babies. Over the next few weeks, you’ll learn more about the Learn With Less Curriculum, and what others are saying.
Listen to one new mother’s experience with The Learn With Less™ Curriculum:
Baby Sign Language: Tips and Research
Sep 30, 2016
Show notes
Why Use Sign Language with Infants and Toddlers? In this episode, we speak with pediatric speech-language pathologist Adrienne, of “Learn With Adrienne.” Our discussion focuses on: Adrienne’s special interest in using gestures and Sign Language with young children as a tool to support the development of verbal languageThe evidence that supports this practiceGreat tips and resources for parents, caregivers and professionals interested in using Sign Language with infants and toddlers. Adrienne teaches Sign Language to beginners. She has created videos on Youtube, and an online Sign Language Online Course for beginners. Her passion is to teach Sign Language by simplifying signs into bite-sized, step-by-step directions, while giving memory strategies. Adrienne is dedicated to helping beginners learn Sign Language so that they can begin to communicate with family members, friends, classmates, or customers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Adrienne’s mission: Sign to Connect. Sign up for her Sign Language Online Course here (I consider this course such a great resource, I became an affiliate!) Looking for the full transcript of the interview? Keep scrolling down! >>Don’t Miss Our Corresponding Blog Post!<< Great resources we mentioned in this podcast episode (in order they were mentioned): Laura Mize “Teach Me To Talk” The Babblers and the Bangers Get the first lesson of her online course for free here Assume Intentionality Learn With Less podcast episode Sign up for Adrienne’s Sign Language Online Course here (I consider this course such a great resource, I became an affiliate!) Get the first lesson of her online course for free here Watch Adrienne’s Facebook Live videos here Hand Gestures Boost Spoken and Signed Language Learning Early Sign Language Vocabulary Connect With Us: Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Adrienne: Website / Facebook / YouTube Text transcript of the episode: Ayelet: Today, I am very pleased to welcome a special guest to the Learn With Less podcast, a fellow speech and language pathologist who has also dedicated her work to the education of families with young children, Adrienne (of “Learn With Adrienne”) has so many helpful videos on YouTube and Facebook featuring great ideas for language stimulation, and offers loads of helpful resources for parents, caregivers, educators and fellow therapists – so, thanks so much for being here with us, Adrienne! Adrienne: Thanks so much! I’ve been a long-time listener of your podcast, and it’s such a joy to talk with you today. Ayelet: Great! So I know that one of your areas of interest and expertise is the use of sign language as a tool to help young children acquire language. So, can you tell us, what are some of the reasons why sign language is useful for early communicators? Adrienne: There are many ways that sign language boosts language development. Using signs with young children can reduce frustration. So, signing gives children a symbolic way to communicate before they’re able to speak verbally. This reduces stress for everyone involved because now, there’s a way for your child to let you know what he or she needs instead of crying, pointing, and grunting to communicate. So, when children’s family and caregivers use signs when they speak, the children get the chance to experience the word in a multi-sensory way. So that means that you get to hear the word as you say it, they get to see it as you sign it, they feel it as they sign it, and then finally, they’ll say it, eventually. And there’s also good evidence that producing a motor movement makes it easier for some children to produce the word, which is really incredible. Since children can learn signs as early as 6 months of age, sign language training may contribute to the prevention of prevention problems for young children who are at risk of developmental delays and language delays, because it can get their needs met, and they don’t have to resort to behaviors that aren’t as effective. Not very much learning can happen when kids are crying, and so, continuing to support their communication attempts through signing is something that can really build a great foundation for them. It also increases their confidence. When children are given an alternative form of communication, they become more confident knowing that they can communicate by using something other than whining, grunting and crying. Signing with children gives them a gross motor form of communication that they can be successful with at an earlier age while their fine motor system continues to develop so they can eventually start talking. Speaking uses a lot of energy, and a lot of different fine motor systems such as breath support, vocal cord control, using your tongue and lips and mouth, and even your nasal passage to say different sounds, and so that’s a lot of different things going on at once. So, signing is more of a gross motor skill that kids can use, you know they use their hands and arms, and wrists and fingers, so they’re able to be more successful coordinating those movements earlier than they can when they’re trying to talk with all those fine motor, really intricate skills. Ayelet: I think that the idea of signing with young children can often be seen as sort of a confusing subject. Obviously, parents want to help their children communicate – that’s a given, right? So, since Sign Languages were born out of Deaf communities all over the world, the idea that Sign can also be used for hearing children is, I guess, relatively new. So, what does the research say about whether using Sign Language can hinder speech development? Because I think this is a common misconception. Can you bust this myth right open for us, Adrienne? Adrienne: Yes! I can! That is a great question, and it is one that I get a lot. People who are listening to this podcast may have heard somewhere along the myth that teaching a child to sign will “cause them not to talk,” or it will “make them lazy.” This is actually the opposite of what research says. So, I wrote my entire thesis on this very topic, and I actually titled it, “To Sign or Not To Sign,” because it is such a popular question and topic. So, what the research and studies reveal is a resounding conclusion that signing does not hinder verbal development. To the contrary, the studies prove that gesturing facilitates verbal skill acquisition. This means that Sign Language helps children when they’re learning to speak. So, another study reveals that Sign Language can help parents decode their babies’ verbal sounds once they do start talking. So, if they start talking and their pronunciation is unclear, signing can help parents understand what their child wants because it’s more of a concrete visual representation of communication. The use of signing eases communication and clarifies the pronunciation of words, so parents can understand their baby’s first attempts at producing words, and it really decreases frustration. Once a child can talk clearly, their voice will replace their signing, because talking is quicker than signing – and as humans, we love to do things the quick and easy way to do them. When we have the ability to talk, we do; once kids are able to speak, they will. So, that is a very common misconception. And, actually, last week, it broke my heart, because I was working with a toddler and his mother, and his mother told me that she had started signing with her child, and her pediatrician told her to stop, because her child would not talk if he only signed. And I was so sad to hear that – because she was doing the right thing! And so that was incorrect advice based on the research. Signing gives your child language, well before he or she is able to talk verbally, and language is power. It equips your children with a skill that they’ll need for their whole life. It sets them up for success in all areas, like reading, speaking, Math, English, Science, following directions, and learning new skills and being able to understand language. So, if you’ve been told by someone not to sign with your child for some reason, please know that the person may not know what the research says, and they’re advising you based on their own assumptions, and not on facts. Also, I have this quote from Laura Mize. She’s a pediatric speech-language pathologist, and she has this article about using Sign Language, and she says, “Some parents are afraid that signing makes a baby lazy about using words. This is absolutely false. When babies can talk, they do talk. Not signing because you’re scared your baby would prefer signs instead of words is as crazy as saying you won’t let your baby crawl because you’re afraid he won’t learn to walk! Or, not teaching your baby to wave ‘bye-bye’ because you think he won’t learn to say ‘bye-bye.’ Signing is an extension of using gestures to communicate. As long as you keep emphasizing the spoken word as you sign, your baby will associate the word with the sign, and drop the sign when he or she can consistently say the word.” So, I love that quote from Laura Mize, because I think it breaks it down very clearly. Ayelet: Yes. And we know that all of us use the most efficient way to communicate, right? If the most efficient way to communicate in a certain moment is to point, then that’s what we’re going to do, and sometimes we use multi-modal communication, we point and we say, “it’s over there!” to heighten the understanding. And like you said, and like Laura Mize said, it’s that extension of a gesture. And we do have to remember that infants and toddlers especially are learning, it’s a progression. I think I mentioned this in a previous podcast episode, The Babblers & Bangers, where we talked about how around the time that children are starting to babble, they’re also often using this sort of rhythmic arm movement, and that that is a way to look at very early emerging gestural use, and when we play vocally with our children, and we play gesturally with our children and we interact, we’re teaching them how to communicate. And all of these things go into verbal and non-verbal communication. So, thank you, that’s really great to break it down for us, Adrienne. So you work with primarily with families who have delayed verbal skills, but in recent years, the popularity of using Sign Language with infants and toddlers who are following a typical progression of development has actually grown a lot, I think. So, what’s the consensus here, does signing boost language development for children who are developing along a typical progression of development? Adrienne: Mmm, I love this question, because yes, it does help boost language development, and, this is really cool – the children who learn to sign are actually considered partially bilingual, because they have learned two distinct ways to express and concepts and, like you mentioned earlier, different modalities. Signing stimulates intellectual development and emotional growth. There’s a study that’s proven that when typically-developing children entered kindergarten, the kids who learned Sign Language had higher language scores, used more sophisticated play, and it makes sense that babies learning Sign Language perform better because they’re constantly reinforced verbally when they make a sign. So their parents are like, “yes! That’s right, more juice, more toy, more song.” Ayelet: They get, like, double-time reinforcement Adrienne: Yes, exactly. Because they’re able to sign earlier than they can talk, and so their parents aren’t only talking to them when they can talk back to them. It’s definitely a way to enrich their communication skills. And it is likely that parents who teach their babies to sign actually talk to their babies more, because their babies can communicate earlier, so it gives the child a head start in that critical period of language development, when they’re really soaking in everything. So the child has more practice with language skills because their parents engage way more often and use more words earlier. Using more words is a predictor of language success later in life. And so, the more times children hear words, the more quickly they learn to say them. And so, I love that research, because it really shows the difference that learning language early – Sign Language, or talking, or in your case, using songs as a form of communication and boosting those social and communication skills… I just love how it all works together, and plays an important role in development. Ayelet: I think it’s important, though, maybe to distinguish between… there are people who are actually teaching their children “Sign Language,” who may, maybe they come from a family who has actually a person within the Deaf community within the family who uses Sign Language, and then there are people who are using a few signs to help their babies communicate. And I think those are, sometimes, two distinct groups of people. So, I think, when we say that children who learn Sign Language are partially bilingual, they’ve learned two distinct ways to express themselves, yes – but I think that a lot of the research that I’ve seen does state that, yes, children who even just learn a few signs… because of what you said, they’re being reinforced more and more and more by those caregivers, they’re getting multi-modal communication, they’re getting the word in sign, they’re getting the word as they can hear it (because they are hearing children) so, often times, they are sort of predisposed to be within an environment that’s getting more language stimulation. So yeah, that’s really interesting. Adrienne: Yes, it really provides a language-rich environment for kids. And also, research has shown that learning Sign Language increases the number of positive interactions and decreases the number of negative interactions between parents and children. And so that further establishes that point that they’ll be able to have a more consistently positive social experience with caregivers and family members because they’re getting their needs met sooner than they’re able to talk. This story’s pretty cool – I came across this in my research – where, a 16-month old child woke up crying in the middle of the night, and he was able to use the sign for “afraid” and then point to a clown doll on his dresser that was casting a shadow and kind of creepy. And so he let his mom know that he was afraid of it, so his mom removed the doll from the room, and the child was able to go back to sleep. Without the sign for “afraid” though, the baby would have just pointed to the clown, and the mom would have been like, “oh, he wants the clown in his crib!” and he would have been terrified, and that would have caused him even more distress! So using signs in this way, helps a child form that stable attachment to his parents, and it really builds a trusting relationship – you know what I’m trying to tell you, and you are acting on what I’m telling you. So, it provides a child with a sense of control. When babies know their parents will reliably and consistently meet their needs, they definitely form that positive, social attachment to their parents that’s really supportive for language development. Ayelet: So what are some of the most important techniques that you’d recommend to parents and caregivers when they are introducing sign to an infant or toddler? Adrienne: I would recommend the same strategies that I use for teaching words – verbal words. So, first thing I would say is repetition. They’re not going to learn it the first time you sign it to them, and I would recommend picking one, maybe two words that you’d like to focus on first, and really repeat those throughout their day, in different contexts, they need to see it over and over, and definitely, when you’re signing, you need to be saying the word out loud, too. So they can hear it and see it, so they can begin to pair the word with the sign. Repetition is so important, repetition is so importan…
Emotional Regulation in Young Children
Sep 16, 2016
Show notes
What is self-regulation? What is emotional regulation?
On this episode of Learn With Less, Ayelet explores these terms and how to support this sometimes tricky part of your infant and/or toddler’s development.
Below is the transcript of this week’s “Developmental Thought,” an excerpt from the full episode.
For additional information, music, play ideas and the complete interactive family experience, please listen to the entire episode.
Self-regulation. Most of us have heard the term, but what does it really mean? We know it has to do with emotions, how we respond to situations, and whether we have the tools in place to do so effectively.
Most of us struggle with it to some degree (let’s face it, especially when challenged by sleep deprivation or a grumpy toddler)… but something for all parents and caregivers of young children to remember is that all infants and toddlers struggle with it!
I want to speak specifically about the emotional component of self-regulation, or “emotional regulation.”
Our emotional responses are, most basically, physical, neurological and biochemical reactions to situations and stimuli presented from outside our bodies. This includes bodily processes like heart rate, blood flow, respiration, and more. Our ability to self-regulate has to do with the maturation of our brains – for instance, throughout infancy, the frontal lobe is developing rapidly.
This is an area we know is involved in the ability to regulate emotions and perform what’s known as “executive functioning” skills (think here about the skills an “executive” needs to perform – like the ability to plan, behave appropriately, solve problems, etc).
We also know that emotional responses are part of temperament and behavior. We can think of the way emotions are expressed through actions – when a young child cries, laughs, or withdraws from an activity, she is communicating a behavioral response of sorts.
Finally, emotional responses are linked to our cognitive abilities. For a young child to be able to participate in or complete a task – whether that is in the context of play, eating, or other routines – she must be able to attend to what she’s doing.
She needs to be able to problem-solve a way to get what she wants if she is feeling hungry, tired, frustrated, or dissatisfied, and she needs the language to express that feeling to those around her.
Responsive Teaching
So, these three areas (physical, behavioral, and cognitive) are all involved in the development of emotional regulation. And we’re not born with the ability to regulate our emotions, just like we’re not born able to walk or speak. We have to learn, through imitation, practice, and observation, how to get our needs met.
This is absolutely related to the area of self-regulation, as we have to apply the same level of expectation to our child’s ability to use appropriate emotional responses [according to early childhood educator Dr. Ida Rose Florez, quoted in above link].
When we calm our little ones when they’re frustrated, when we recognize that they’re no longer able to attend to an activity and therefore end it or make it easier – we respond and allow them to understand that they can rely on us to provide what’s necessary for them to succeed and feel supported.
When we give them the tools to express themselves through language, when we react to their emotional responses with patience and grace, we allow them to build confidence and, eventually, build the skills necessary to independently begin to regulate their emotions. Remember, many adults have difficulty with emotional regulation, so the key here is to give our little ones plenty of opportunities to imitate, practice, and observe others.
Emotional Language
We spoke a lot about what emotional regulation is, but what are some of the ways that we can support its development in our young children? One way is through the use of emotional language – this includes talking about one’s own feelings, the feelings and emotions we witness, and the words we use to reflect back what we witness our children feeling.
This also includes the acceptance of our children’s emotions – and the recognition that not all emotional responses are pretty… so, what does that look like in practice?
Develop Coping Skills
One of the most obvious ways is a reaction many of us use as a default. When our toddler falls and scrapes her knee and then starts to cry, we want her to feel better. We want to move her to a place where she feels emotionally regulated again. So our tendency is often to direct our little one’s feelings, saying, “don’t be sad,” or “you’re ok, you don’t need to cry about that.”
When we think about what we’re actually communicating with that response, we’re essentially discouraging them to recognize how they feel, and we’re telling them that these responses are the wrong way to feel. But… we all feel sad sometimes, right? We all just need to have a good cry or feel sorry for ourselves for a minute.
And actually, what we are trying to do is to give them coping skills so that they can move through those moments effectively… so that they can take a situation in which they have a disregulated emotional response, and then independently move back into a place where they feel able and confident and capable.
So a more effective way to do that is to reflect back to them what you think they’re feeling: “you’re feeling really sad. That hurt! Ouch! I saw you fall down. Let’s see, when I feel sad I sometimes need to take a break or get a hug. Do you think either of those things would help?”
Guiding Through Empathy
When you do that, you give them the word for the emotion, you model empathy, you provide some possible solutions, and you guide your little one through towards the other side. Once you’ve done that, then distraction through a preferred activity, a change in the environment (a quiet, less busy, more dimly lit environment, perhaps) or a simple redirection of topic might do the trick.
Giving our young children the tools to regulate their emotions effectively helps them build independence in the long run. I’m not encouraging over-indulgence, over-reactive responses, or the “spoiling” of young children. I’m encouraging the following, which is based on guidelines from the National Association for The Education of Young Families and Developmental & Educational Psychologist Dr. Martha Bronson’s research, for strategies to help young children to self-regulate.
Observe your infant and toddler closely, looking for cues that tell you how they’re feeling
Respond to your young child, and make attempts to be interactive and attentive to signals in your little one’s routine that help her make sense of routines and transitions
Provide structure and predictability
Arrange developmentally appropriate environments so young children can access appropriate play materials as independently as possible
Define age-appropriate limits, helping your little one feel safe by providing the rules for engagement and the understanding of what’s expected
Show empathy and caring, allowing your little one to feel confident that you understand what it is she’s trying to express, and that you are there to support her so that she can, in time, better handle those big feelings on her own
No Quick Fix
What’s perhaps most important, and something we can apply to nearly all aspects of infant and toddler learning, is that these kinds of social/emotional and cognitive skills take time to develop, and often require heavy lifting from us in order to effectively support our children toward independence.
What Is Sensory Processing?
Sep 02, 2016
Show notes
Most of us have heard the term – “sensory processing” – but do you really know what it means? In this episode, we are joined by Christie Kiley, a pediatric occupational therapist (OT and creator of the blog MamaOt. Our discussion focuses on Christie’s background as both an OT and a mother of two, as well as some really helpful definitions and tips about sensory processing (also known as sensory integration). This episode and our focus on sensory development is applicable for families and educators of all children, including those with sensory processing difficulties. Christie is a mama to two precious kiddos and a pediatric occupational therapist (OT) to many. Her mission with Mama OT is to encourage, educate, and empower those who care for children by sharing helpful insights and fun activities. You can learn more about Christie and the story of how she became an OT on her blog. >>Don’t Miss Our Corresponding Blog Post!<< Additional Resources: STAR Institute: https://www.spdstar.org/ UCSF 1st study investigating biological basis for SPD (2013): https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/07/107316/breakthrough-study-reveals-biological-basis-sensory-processing-disorders-kidsi UCSF 2nd study on SPD (2016): https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2016/01/401461/brains-wiring-connected-sensory-processing-disorder UCSF sensory research website: http://anp.ucsf.edu/overview/spd Connect With Us: Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Christie: Website / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text transcript for this episode Today, I have a very special guest, Christie Kiley, pediatric occupational therapist and creator of MamaOT, or www.mamaot.com, one of my own go-to blogs for activities and information about infant and toddler development. Christie, I’m so happy to have you on Learn With Less, welcome! Christie: Thank you! Thank you for having me. Ayelet: Why don’t you give us just a little bit of background about what your focus has been as an occupational therapist… and, I think you bring sort of a unique perspective because you started practicing in your field right around when you became a mother. Christie: Yeah, sure. So I graduated from OT school, took the boards, I was 7 ½ or 8 months pregnant when I took my board exams, had my first little baby a couple of weeks after that, did kind of a traditional maternity leave for three months, and then started my first job as an OT when he was 3 months and 1-day old. So… I was very sleep-deprived and I was a new therapist, I was a new mom, I would not recommend starting both those things at the same time! Yeah… I tend to do things kind of non-traditional ways, so it works for me! So I started out in my first job working in pediatrics (I became an OT because I wanted to be in pediatrics, that’s always what I wanted to do)… so my first job – I would say my caseload was about 80% in-home with birth to three and 20% in the clinic with toddlers and preschoolers and school-aged kids. So that’s how I got started. And as I was learning to become a mom and an early intervention OT at the same time, it was really interesting being able to apply what I was learning as a mom into my work as an OT and what I was learning as an early intervention OT into my time with my baby. But then also, I was only working 3 days a week, so I was with him the majority of the week – while playing with him at home, I tend to be kind of a creative and resourceful person, and I would find things that were fun for him to do. I had several babies on my caseload and I was able to apply that in a therapeutic manner to the babies I was working with, and that seemed to go over really well. So that was the perfect combination and crossover at that point. Once I started to get my feet under me, my little boy was about 6 or 7 months old, and I was sharing this information with people I was working with, I was sharing things on Facebook, and I was like, “man, I need to get this information out to new people – like, every new parent needs to know about these things!” These tips and these tricks that come from an OT perspective, but are, like, “mom-tested!” Yeah! And they actually work! People really need to know about it! You get all your problems solved! Not really, not all of them… Ayelet: A lot of really good information! Christie: Yeah, and I think a lot of the families I worked with appreciated the fact that this was my true, real honest perspective. They all knew that I had a newborn also, and so that helped build rapport and trust… but, they were able to understand, “I’m actually going through this with you and actually trying this, and I’m learning about these things with you, but I have a different perspective that I’m able to share to determine whether it’s actually a good thing or a bad thing or a gimmick. Ayelet: Because of your OT training. Christie: Exactly. Even though I was new. It’s still just a different perspective than what your typical new parent would have. Not that I had all the answers as a new parent! You know, I’ve made my own mistakes! And so, it just kind of made sense, you know, oh, I need to start a blog, this is what I need to do! The first real post that I published was “Seven Tips for Tummy Time” for making it less miserable, and to this day, 4 ½ years later, it’s still one of my top ten posts – because it’s a real problem that people experience and they want help with it! And the information in that post has helped real people, and they share it. And that’s awesome. That was the whole point. Ayelet: Yes! So can you give our listeners some basic information about the role of an occupational therapist who works with infants and toddlers. Because, I think in general, a lot of people have difficulty understanding the term “Occupational Therapist” and they can’t imagine what an OT does with a baby, right? A baby’s occupation is to be a baby. So, what is an OT in the early years? Christie: So, when you think of occupational therapy, you’re thinking of the term “occupation,” which can be interpreted as a job, or what you do for work. And so you think of, well, what are the jobs of daily living that a baby has to do? Or a toddler has to do? Sometimes they involve developmental milestones, sometimes they involve family support and family interaction, so we think of things like being able to participate in play at an appropriate or functional way. We think about being able to participate in feeding and mealtime. Sleeping is an important occupation for everyone, but especially babies, because it supports so much of their growth and development. So, things like that. One important occupation of a baby is to be able to interact with other people socially. We don’t target the speech and language development like a speech and language therapist would, but we support it more from an occupation and participation sort of way with promoting interaction, bringing in those motor skills and the sensory component and the social skills all sort of together so they can participate in social interactions throughout the day. So, you think of, what are the jobs of daily living for a baby? Play time, feeding time, sleeping time, social interaction – those sorts of things. Ayelet: So, I think you sort of hit on this, but what parts of a young child’s development fall under the scope – as you said, sleeping, playing, and the positioning to be able to play and engage with, say, play objects. So you mentioned a little bit about the ability to experience things sensorially, or from a sensory perspective, and I think one of the terms that gets used so often these days, and especially in relation to the role of an occupational therapist, whether that’s early intervention or school aged children, is the term “sensory processing” or “sensory integration.” I think our listeners would be really interested to have your explanation really about what that term means from a theoretical and practical standpoint. Christie: One way I like to explain “sensory processing” that parents seem to appreciate is – we constantly have sensory input coming at us from our environment, and then also sensory input that occurs within our body. And so we have to take sensory information that occurs from outside of our body and inside of our body and be able to make sense of it, so that we can use it to participate in our daily activities. So, sensory information coming from the outside. So we have the auditory information, we have smells, we have taste, we have vision. And then we have what we can feel through our skin, the tactile sense. Those are sort of classic senses that we think about that we learn about as kids. And the two that come from inside of our body, vestibular, being a fancy word for balance and motion, located in our inner ear, and then proprioception, which is that sense of body awareness, what our limbs are doing in relation to each other, in order to be able to navigate through our environment. Those seven senses are typically the 7 that we’re talking about as occupational therapists when we’re talking about sensory processing. So during our day to day, we have to be able to take in information from all of those different channels and organize it, make sense of it so that we can use it. Examples would include knowing how much force to use when you’re opening the refrigerator – you have to be able to see it, feel it with your skin, feel it with your muscles, know how far you are away from it, and then appropriately pull it open. We open the refrigerator maybe a dozen times a day or more, and it’s such a basic thing, but you don’t realize how much sensory integration or sensory processing has to go into that simple act in order to successfully operate the refrigerator. Ayelet: What might the difficulty with sensory integration or processing look like in an infant or toddler? Christie: So, for a baby, if their nervous system is having a hard time processing the sensory information coming from the environment or from their body, they may be overly sensitive to touch, so they may be the type of baby that doesn’t like to be held by strangers – even held by mom – they might not like to be bounced to be soothed, or rocked to be soothed because they’re too sensitive to movement. They may be extremely sensitive to light, and so they cry and fuss whenever the lights are turned on or if they’re taken outside, or if the windows are open. Those would be more like “sensitivities” to sensory input. One way that you can think about that the way that sensory processing is divided up is that some sensory channels may have a tendency to over-respond, so they might be very sensitive to or avoidant of certain types of sensory input. Then, you might have other sensory channels that might be sensory under-responsive, so they might need more input in order to really feel secure or to really activate what’s needed to respond to the environment. And then you have your “sensory seekers” who actively seek out because they need more of that input to really feel regulated and secure. So if we go back to the example of the baby, you may have a baby who’s under-responsive to tactile input maybe on their skin or even in their mouth, and so that might affect, let’s say, their ability to develop feeding skills – because if they’re under-responsive from a sensory perspective in their mouth, they are not going to be able to as skillfully sense what’s going on in their mouth when they’re trying to deal with a nipple they’re drinking from or trying to learn to bite from a cracker, or even learning to drink from a cup. So that would be an under-responsive example. So you have babies that might appear more sensitive to certain types of input, you have babies that might appear to seek out or be under responsive to other types of input, and it can be complicated to determine whether something truly is a sensory challenge for a little one because each sensory system can respond in its own way. You can have one system, like your tactile system, that’s over-responsive or too sensitive, while you may have another system that is under-responsive or seeking, like with auditory. So they don’t want to be touched, but they love those loud noises, they love the sound of the toy, you know, making the noise over and over and over, they want to hit that button over and over… so it’s not always clear cut as to whether a child’s challenge in the first year is really due to sensory issues. I think a really common one that we’ll see in toddlers a lot, too, is that tactile defensiveness. They don’t like to touch things that feel messy, they get irritated by clothing tags, they avoid participating in “typical” early childhood activities that are great for their development like running around barefoot on the grass, like playing with play dough, like finger painting… and so that’s one is pretty commonly seen that we’ll get referrals for is those kids with more of a tactile defensiveness in those toddler years. Ayelet: What are some of the reasons why a child might have difficulty with sensory processing – I realize that’s a giant question – but, some of them? Christie: Yeah… that’s a really big question. You know, at this point in the research, there hasn’t been anything nailed down like, you know, a certain chromosome or marker in the genetic code or anything like that. It does, just based on our observation and some still-developing research, there does seem to be some sort of genetic or hereditary component. Family members often are more likely to have challenges with that sensory processing as compared to someone who doesn’t have that in their family tree, but, like I said, at this point, it hasn’t been really nailed down as to whether there’s something specific that causes it. I mean, there are so many theories about what could contribute to that. And certainly we know from sensory deprivation environments like orphanages where kids are kept in a crib their whole first three years or even their first year and they’re not exposed to the world – sensory deprivation can definitely contribute to that, and there’s been a lot of research in that area. But yeah, it’s tricky. It’s all based on the nervous system’s ability to process and integrate that sensory information, and as to what specifically causes it, I don’t know that we know that yet. Ayelet: I think a lot of parents and caregivers would love to know whether a child who is exhibiting issues with sensory integration or tactile defensiveness, like you said, whether that’s always a part of a larger issue? Does that mean that the child has autism, for instance, does that mean that the child is going to have issues with learning down the line? Can you give us some insight about what this might imply? Christie: Sure. In the last couple years, there’s been some really interesting, groundbreaking research from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). They’ve been doing neuroimaging studies to get a better understanding of whether sensory processing disorder is something that can occur on its own, or whether it’s something that always has to occur with other diagnoses like Autism or Fragile X Syndrome or things like that. The research is really interesting. They really are finding that true sensory processing disorder looks different in the brain than the way that kids with Autism process sensory information or the way that kids with ADHD process sensory information. So, that’s kind of the long answer. The short answer would be: just because your child’s demonstrating sensory symptoms doesn’t necessarily mean that they also have Autism or some other big scary diagnosis. Ayelet: And, obviously, like you said, an occupational therapist who works with young children is someone who might work with a child with sensory issues. So, what are some of your, say, top 3 sensory activities that you might do with any child, and/or with a child with sensory processing issues? Christie: We talk about the big three sensory systems, bein…
What’s So Important About Messy Play?
Aug 26, 2016
Show notes
How do we create messy play experiences for our little ones without going mad, ourselves?
Messy play is… messy – but SO important! There are so many reasons why “messy play” is important for learning in the lives of infants and toddlers. On this episode of Learn With Less, Ayelet explores these reasons, and provides a few ideas to help more resistant caregivers wrap their heads around some ways to present messy play activities!
Below is the transcript of this week’s “Developmental Thought,” an excerpt from the full episode. For additional information, music, play ideas and the complete interactive family experience, please listen to the entire episode.
Ah, messy play. The image that often comes to the mind’s eye is of walls and floors splattered with paint, an extra load of laundry, and a lot of extra work. Let me tell you this: messy play can be a big ordeal, but it doesn’t have to be.
Yes, summer time is often a great time to ensure the least amount of mess by getting young children outside on a surface you can easily spray down…
But there are a lot of other ways to integrate messy play opportunities into your little one’s life even in the dead of winter.
Let’s talk about why messy play is so important, first.
Why The Mess?
The introduction of any object or activity to an infant or toddler will be seen as a “play” activity. You might be familiar with the quote from Maria Montessori, “play is the work of the child.” As we have discussed in previous episodes, a young child learns through experience and interaction.
When we give our young children opportunities to explore textures, whether bumpy and smooth or wet and dry, we give them opportunities to learn. When a young child can play with materials that allow them to explore the environment with all their senses, there is a lot of learning happening! What we refer to as “messy play” is simply what happens when a child is able to engage in rich textural experiences.
When your baby is able to freely explore the world of texture, he learns the concepts of slimy, smooth, wet, bumpy, etc., he learns that what he does with his body has an impact on the objects with which he plays, and on the world (cause and effect), and he learns about vocabulary when you talk about what he or the two of you are doing.
Since this kind of play is naturally open-ended, he learns about self-expression and creation. He learns about what it is to investigate and problem solve when he manipulates materials – as one of my favorite child development researchers, Alison Gopnik, likes to say, he gets to practice becoming a “little scientist.”
Fun For Resistant Adults, Too
That brings us to the question of how to provide these experiences in a way that we as adults are comfortable… and this is where we must get a little creative, and need to give a little forethought to the ways in which we can structure the activity so that we are ok with the kind of clean up that will need to happen at the end.
So we use wipeable (or hoseable) surfaces – making sure that plastic trays, bathtubs, old table cloths, tarps, or large pieces of paper are available inside or outside, depending on the kind of activity we offer.
We use safe tools and provide supervision. Most importantly, and we’ll talk more about this in a future episode, we involve our young child in whatever way possible, and make the clean up into another activity of its own, where imitation, play, and success are valued above “getting the job done quickly.”
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