Birth to three matters - Communities and Local Government

of control through safe explorations, asSelleck and Griffin point out:-‘Physical care and loving attention isrequired in different ways as a toddlerbecomes mobile…exploratory behaviour…takes the child away as she crawls, walksand inspects the world around her. Theeducator is required not only to protectthe child through closeness, but also tolet go to encourage growing autonomy.’Selleck & Griffin (1996:157).Naturally nutrition as well as activity isimportant here because the baby isgrowing bone, muscle and other tissue.However, activity and its relationship towell-being is the focus of work by GoddardBlythe (2001) and Nuttall (1999). WendyNuttall argues from the point of view ofthe Alexander Technique, that placingemphasis on long periods of sittingrelatively still without freedom ofmovement had had a noticeable effecton children’s posture. She adds that the‘slumped and hunched posture’ of thechildren is noticeable and that they ‘comeup’ when engaged and collapse downagain when not engaged or whenchastised. Her observations were mainlywith slightly older children in classroomsbut she found a high level of physicalstress which should alarm early yearspractitioners and which has messagesfor those who work with the childrenin younger age groups.In addition to this, re s e a rchers haveex p l o red whether being mobile influence scog n i t i ve deve l o p m e nt, or understandingof the wo rl d, and it seems that being ableto look at the wo rld from diffe re nt anglesd oes improve other aspe cts ofd eve l o p m e nt (Ka rm i l o f f - Smith 1994 ).Howeve r, re s e a rchers at the Un i ve r s i ty ofDublin (Ga rrett et al 2002) re ce nt ly found ina study of over 170 childre n ,t h at a gro u pwhose pare nts or ca rers placed them inb a by- wa l kers from around six months oldwe re slower to be come indepe n d e nt lymobile than babies who we re not put intowa l kers – they we re also said to have morea c c i d e nt s. While their re s e a rch has be e nchallenged in the same edition of the BMJ,the re s e a rch team members are co nt i n u i n gtheir study to find out if ex pe ri e n ce in awa l ker enhances or detra cts from prog re s sin other areas of deve l o p m e nt and learn i n g.Research has shown, surprisingly, thateven very young babies can translate fromone way of perceiving (say sight and touchor taste) to another. Meltzoff and Borton(1979) gave three week old babiesdifferently shaped dummies and theyfound that after they had sucked on thedummies without being allowed to seethem, the infants spent longer looking atthe type of dummy they had sucked ratherthan the other. So having opportunitiesto explore the world through the differentsenses also seems to be important.Using hands and mouth to explore theworld is also important. Two importantabilities usually become part of a youngchild’s physical repertoire at around 12m o nths old. Being able to bring two object stogether so that they meet one another isthe first – in fact ‘clapping’ is an example125