Babies, Parenting, Child Health, Infant Nutrition

Baby Development – UW Study Finds Experience may be the Best Teacher for Infants

02.10.2008 | 5:03:11 pm | Posted by admin

By Colleen Hurley, RD, Certified Kid’s Nutrition Specialist

baby development, parenting More and more research unveils the importance of parenting skills in a baby’s first year of life. As the old saying goes, experience is the best teacher and many new parents would certainly agree. The same adage may apply to infants as well, as a new study found 10 month old babies were already able to apply lessons learned.

University of Washington (UW) researchers found that infants who had an opportunity to use a cane to grab a toy far from reach were actually able to understand another person’s objective when using a similar tool. Previous studies by UW psychology professors found that infants do not normally use a tool, such as a cane, spontaneously.

Following this lead, assistant psychology professor and study author Jessica Sommerville sought to see if a more active approach along with hands-on training increased a baby’s understanding of another person’s goal. For the new study, 51 infants were divided into 3 groups; a training group, an observational group, and a baseline.

The babies in the training group were taught to use the crook of a plastic cane to pull a toy closer to them and were given 2 trys to see if they could do it themselves. The babies in the observational group went through a similar procedure, except they watched an adult mimic the behaviors of the infants in the training as they learned to use the cane. All the babies watched a researcher sit at a table and use the cane to pull a toy closer to them for 4 trials. Different toys were used for 2 trials, and a different cane was used for the other 2; all the babies’ observations were recorded.

baby development, parenting The experiment was designed to establish whether infants’ paid attention to the change in the researchers’ goal of getting a new toy rather than using a new tool, according to Sommerville. The observational and baseline groups spent equal time observing the trials while the trained group spent the most, focused time- leading researchers to speculate a a greater understanding of the use of the tool by the trained group. The infants in the training group were also the most proficient at using the cane to grasp a toy.

What You Can Do
It may seem like a small step for baby-kind, but the study provides valuable insight to child development. Researchers conclude that simple observation of another’s behavior isn’t enough for babies to fully understand. It is the combination of both hands on interaction as well as first hand experience that really sends the message home for babies.

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The Baby Mum-Mum blog discusses everything to do with babies and parenting with a focus on child health and child development. Baby Mum-Mum is a healthy, easy to digest baby rice snack that is enjoyed by babies and mothers around the world for its portability, gluten free ingredients and great taste.

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On February 22, the FDA issued letters relating to labelling to 22 food companies, including several baby food manufacturers. We were advised by the FDA that we are not permitted to print the statements "Low in Fat" or "No added fat or oils" on our Baby Mum-Mum packaging.

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In the future, these claims will be removed from our packaging.

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