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Babies on the Edge
March 28, 2012
The first six years of life on earth
We to January would compare,
For in that month strength is as rare
As in a child six years from birth.
-From a 14th century poem
This is the conclusion, reported in Scientific American Mind (November 2010), of Karen Adolph a developmental psychologist at New York University. Adolph tested how infants judge risk by setting 12- and 18-month old infants at the top of an adjustable wooden "cliff" and having their mothers beckon them over the edge. Babies who had been crawling for months generally did not go over the drop-offs that were too big for them, nor did babies who had been walking for a while. But many babies who had just started walking marched straight over drop-offs beyond their capabilities — even the highest, most obvious, three-foot plunge.
According to Adolph, this means that crawling infants do not learn to be afraid of heights. Instead, they learn what their crawling bodies can do, and when their style of locomotion changes, they need practice to recalibrate how they perceive their abilities.
Learning Moments CD - How Infants Learn
This Learning Moments CD (for use on a computer) presents 11 real-life video files that are the perfect compliment to workshops, lectures, and online courses on how infants learn through their interactions with objects, peers, and adults. The clips include children from infancy to one year of age.
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