How children see the world around them is integral to their development. Jennie Lindon takes a close look at ways to stimulate them
Visual awareness is important for young children. Looking with care is one half of the development of attention skills; the other half is good listening. Young children need to use their eyes as a major source of information to support their early language, or else it is very difficult for them to make sense of words for objects and people. Vision is also crucial to support physical skills such as walking and running and holding objects.
0-12 months
Newborn babies can see clearly up to about a metre away. Beyond that point the world is fuzzy. They see in colour and have clear preferences for high-contrast objects, like striped and chequered patterns. They are also born with a strong preference for homing in on human faces.
Very young babies use their eyes to follow movement. This is known as visual tracking. When they have greater muscle control, they move their whole head and then their body to follow interesting objects, people and events. Up to about three months of age, babies seem to track where objects are, since they look mostly at the edges. Then babies look very carefully at what things are, and stare at the details of an object. Older babies can be very active visually: watching people or pets, holding an object that they examine with their eyes as well as their fingers.
1-2 years
Toddlers will combine their new-found mobility and fine physical skills - being able to do things with their hands - to look at items out of their immediate reach, to go and fetch and explore in detail. They enjoy games of 'Where's the...?' with partially hidden toys and parts of the body. Older toddlers, who have enjoyed books with adults, will now be ready to look for details in the illustrations. Children of this age understand how pointing to objects directs someone else's gaze and helps them choose books or food. You can observe how visual awareness supports toddlers' memory when they point out the picture of a familiar object or recognise a toy they have at home or in the nursery. A sight that is out of the ordinary will amuse them.
2-3 years
At this age children can be very adept at spotting small details in pictures and will enjoy finding them with an adult. They will now be more able to scan a large picture or a room, looking from one part to another in a deliberate way. Their visual attention to small details helps them to feed and dress themselves. Close visual attention also helps children to manage jigsaws, arts and crafts and construc- tion. These activities need physical skills, but careful looking is equally important.
Two- to three-year-olds will show visual memory - for instance, they will recognise local landmarks when you are out walking. They can make visual comparisons to enable them to understand some aspects of 'same' and 'different' - the only way that young children can grasp ideas like colour or shape. They can look, recall and imitate what they have seen, so they enjoy simple physical games like 'Simon says'.
Ensure you always do the following:
- Be close to very young babies; they need to be able to focus on your face and to home in on your smile.
- Join in with what catches the attention of babies, toddlers and young children. Sometimes you will say 'Look at that!', but show interest in what they are looking at just as often.
- Make it easy for under-threes to look. They need an interesting environment, but not one that is over- cluttered.
- Make sure you have regular outings. These help young children to anticipate, see and recall. The experience also gives them practice in looking at near, middle and longer distances.
- Enjoy 'Spot the...' games with older toddlers and two-year-olds. Help them to look, scan and find with illustrations in books, posters and seek-and-find games for toys or parts of their own body.
- Be aware if the behaviour of babies and toddlers is very different from what is described in this feature. Sometimes, you may need to encourage the looking skills of young children and then all will be fine. But some children may have some degree of visual loss and your care may alert everyone to this situation.
Activities for visual awareness by Kevin Kelman and Alice Sharp
Part of a parent's or carer's role is to make sure that activities are at the appropriate level for an individual child. Each baby or toddler will develop at their own rate, so be careful that they are not under-stimulated or over- challenged. Experimenting, exploring, creating and communicating through the activity is more important than expecting the children to achieve an end goal - for example, guessing correctly which items have been removed in 'Magnetic pictures' (see right).
Flying saucers
- Gather a selection of different sizes of white paper plates.
- Cut bold shapes from black sugar paper and stick them to the plates. Alternatively, paint bold black shapes directly on to the plates.
- Hang the saucers around the babies' cots, making sure they are no more than one metre from the baby.
- They can also be dangled from the roof above the cot using a piece of string, so that the patterns are facing down towards the baby.
- Change the plates regularly and use different colours to create strong contrasts.
Rolling books
- Collect empty stacking crisp tubes and baby milk cartons.
- Cover the containers with child- friendly images. These may be painted patterns with strong contrasts; photos of their family; cut-outs of popular children's characters; wrapping paper; pictures of familiar toys cut from catalogues, and so on.
- Allow the babies to roll their book back and forth, talk about the images on their book.
- As an alternative, the 'books' can be displayed as mobiles. Pierce holes in the lids, thread through wool and hang up.
- Invite parents to make other 'books' that can be shared with the babies.
Bottles of colour
- Gather small water or fizzy juice bottles. Wash with warm, soapy water and allow them to drip dry.
- Fill each bottle with different items that will catch the baby's attention. For example, fabric conditioner, tinsel, coloured sweets, balls of bath oil and so on.
- Try to vary the weights of the contents of the bottles and the noise they make when shaken.
- Make sure that you secure the lids on the bottles so that the babies cannot access their contents.
- Gently shake one bottle at a time in front of the baby and allow the baby to visually track the movement of the contents.
- As the babies get older, allow them to explore the bottles freely.
Shiny and dull
- Gather a range of everyday items, similar to those in the photograph.
- Allow the children the opportunity to look closely at the items and play freely with them.
- Introduce words such as shiny, sparkly and glittery.
- Challenge some of the older children to sort the items into piles of shiny and matt items.
- Invite the children to feel the different textures of the items too. You've been framed!
- Make a range of interesting frames similar to those in the photograph from cardboard.
- Paint the card to make the frames look more attractive and interesting.
- Give each child in your group a frame and take them for a walk in the local environment.
- Discuss the importance of not picking things up when they are on the walk. Instead, encourage the children to 'frame' interesting objects. For example, it may be a pretty flower or an empty crisp packet.
- Invite the children to tell the others in the group what they have 'framed'.
- This activity can be adapted so that it can be used indoors or used to 'frame' characters in books.
Magnetic pictures
- Gather clean baking trays and a range of small everyday items - see some of the examples in the photograph.
- Attach a small piece of magnetic tape to the small items and encourage the children to create pictures with the available items.
- Younger children enjoy having photos of family members and pets that they can add to their pictures.
- Older children may be challenged by being asked to close their eyes and asked to guess which of the items you have removed from their magnetic picture.
Funky facecloths
- Securely attach a range of bows, ribbons and beads to coloured facecloths.
- Hold a facecloth in front of the baby to attract their attention.
- Move it towards the baby, and away again.
- Play peek-a-boo games with the facecloths by hiding your face behind a facecloth and then removing it so that the baby can see your face.
- Allow babies to manipulate whatever you have secured to the facecloths, with close supervision at all times.
PLEASE NOTE: Any activity involving small items that can be swallowed must be closely supervised by an adult
