Your Baby is a Looker

This is a part of a series of articles based on the book How to Maximize Your Childs Learning Ability by Dr. Lauren Bradway and Barbara Albers Hill In this articleTips for enhancing an infants existing looker skillsDeveloping listener skills in looker infantsDeveloping mover skills in looker infantsTips for enhancing an infants existing looker skills These tips are for babies who have a natural learning style that makes them lookers as per Dr. Bradways classification. The way to go about doing this is to make sure that you provide your baby with plenty of visual stimulation. He should always have something to observe and feast his eyes on. If you are bottle-feeding your baby, switch the baby from side to side like a breastfeeding mother shifts her baby from one breast to the other. This will stimulate each of his eyes in turn. Sit in front of the mirror with your baby and have some fun. Make faces, point at the various reflections, and just laugh in general. Make a photo album of all the key people in the babys life - mother, father, grandparents, siblings, babysitters, etc. and go through the finished product with your baby. Hang a colourful mobile over your babys cot. Engage in frequent eye contact with the baby. Draw a face on your index finger and wiggle your finger in front of your babys face. Play with your baby in such a way that he follows the movement of the finger puppet with his eyes. Crawling plays an important part in the development of visual skills. Do not try to hurry your baby through this stage in an attempt to make her stand and walk at an earlier age. Place your baby in a vantage point from where he can observe the entire family going about their daily routine. Keep the light on in your babys room at night in the first few weeks so that he can look around if he wakes up at night. If the light begins to distract him, and prevent him from falling asleep, may be you could try switching on a night light. Developing listener skills in looker infants The best way to accomplish this is to combine talking and listening with action and visuals. In this way, parents can appeal to the lookers natural learning style while teaching him a new way of absorbing information. Parents can tie a rattle to their babies wrist or ankle so the baby will hear a sound every time he moves. Parents should sing to their children when rocking them to sleep or cuddling them. It is also a good idea to provide children with toys that show pictures that make corresponding sounds, or play tunes at a touch of a button. To make things more interesting, parents can use gestures while singing nursery rhymes and telling stories to their children. Hand gestures can also help illustrate concepts like big, small, hot, cold, goodbye, etc. Babies often pick up expressive sounds like "yuck", "ouch", "uh-oh", before they speak words. Thus, parents can use such expressive sounds while conversing with their babies. There is no harm in indulging in a little baby talk in order to make words easier for the baby to mimic.Developing mover skills in looker infants Touch and movement play a key role in developing mover skills. Parents should attempt to maintain as much physical contact with their babies as possible - hug them, rock them, pat them, caress them. Following the same principle, the best way to carry babies when going out is in a baby sling or front carrier. A large, lightweight, multi-coloured ball is a good toy. The baby can roll it, kick it, and bounce it. Allow your baby to move around freely outside the confines of a playpen or a walker. Get into a wading pool with your child and talk about the fun youre having and the toys you are playing with.

This is a part of a series of articles based on the book 'How to Maximize Your Child's Learning Ability' by Dr. Lauren Bradway and Barbara Albers Hill

Tips for enhancing an infant's existing looker skills

These tips are for babies who have a natural learning style that makes them lookers as per Dr. Bradway's classification. The way to go about doing this is to make sure that you provide your baby with plenty of visual stimulation. He should always have something to observe and feast his eyes on. If you are bottle-feeding your baby, switch the baby from side to side like a breastfeeding mother shifts her baby from one breast to the other. This will stimulate each of his eyes in turn. Sit in front of the mirror with your baby and have some fun. Make faces, point at the various reflections, and just laugh in general. Make a photo album of all the key people in the baby's life - mother, father, grandparents, siblings, babysitters, etc. and go through the finished product with your baby. Hang a colourful mobile over your baby's cot. Engage in frequent eye contact with the baby. Draw a face on your index finger and wiggle your finger in front of your baby's face. Play with your baby in such a way that he follows the movement of the finger puppet with his eyes. Crawling plays an important part in the development of visual skills. Do not try to hurry your baby through this stage in an attempt to make her stand and walk at an earlier age. Place your baby in a vantage point from where he can observe the entire family going about their daily routine. Keep the light on in your baby's room at night in the first few weeks so that he can look around if he wakes up at night. If the light begins to distract him, and prevent him from falling asleep, may be you could try switching on a night light.

Developing listener skills in looker infants

The best way to accomplish this is to combine talking and listening with action and visuals. In this way, parents can appeal to the looker's natural learning style while teaching him a new way of absorbing information. Parents can tie a rattle to their babies' wrist or ankle so the baby will hear a sound every time he moves. Parents should sing to their children when rocking them to sleep or cuddling them. It is also a good idea to provide children with toys that show pictures that make corresponding sounds, or play tunes at a touch of a button. To make things more interesting, parents can use gestures while singing nursery rhymes and telling stories to their children. Hand gestures can also help illustrate concepts like 'big', 'small', 'hot', 'cold', 'goodbye', etc. Babies often pick up expressive sounds like "yuck", "ouch", "uh-oh", before they speak words. Thus, parents can use such expressive sounds while conversing with their babies. There is no harm in indulging in a little baby talk in order to make words easier for the baby to mimic.

Developing mover skills in looker infants

Touch and movement play a key role in developing mover skills. Parents should attempt to maintain as much physical contact with their babies as possible - hug them, rock them, pat them, caress them. Following the same principle, the best way to carry babies when going out is in a baby sling or front carrier. A large, lightweight, multi-coloured ball is a good toy. The baby can roll it, kick it, and bounce it. Allow your baby to move around freely outside the confines of a playpen or a walker. Get into a wading pool with your child and talk about the fun you're having and the toys you are playing with.