A Child’s World - How Young Children Learn

Buy this book »

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.—Albert Einstein

Babies live in a completely perceptual world, as all their knowledge comes through their available senses. They begin their lives with an impressive ability to take in, organize, and process these perceptions, and thus make sense of their world (Gonzalez-Mena & Widmeyer Eyer, 2001). Infants are responsive to touch and pain and are able to respond to objects placed in hand. They are able to distinguish between sweet, sour, and bitter tastes and smells, preferring the sweet ones. They adapt their head movements as their eyes move and scan their environment for interesting sights and moving objects. Infants will also turn in the direction of a sound. They prefer complex sounds to pure tones and are capable of distinguishing certain sound patterns (Berk, 2006).

As infants perceive the world around them, they pay attention and make sense of their perceptions. Thus, their attention is interwoven with what they perceive (Bruning, Schraw, Norby, & Ronning, 2004). It is the attention to these perceptions that gives infants experiences that will lead to memory, which is the retaining of impressions and experiences, and conceptual knowledge, which is nothing the construction of meaning about the impressions and experiences. This development is short of miraculous.

At birth, the world of each child consists of only their immediate surroundings: the sounds of commotion and peacefulness that the infant senses in the environment, the security of being held by a parent or caregiver, the bright rays of light from a lamp, or a cool breeze from the window. Infants are quite captivated by people’s actions. They learn and remember by perceiving such actions in their world. Infants do not need to be as physically active to acquire new information as they will later, when motor activity will facilitate certain aspects of perception and cognition (Berk, 2006).

The only reality infants know about this small world is what they gain by using their available senses: sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste. These five senses will be their tools for a lifetime of learning. Infants’ first experiences are simply the joy of sensing and observing. As they grow and develop, their experiences help them make sense of their world. As infants experience predictable events, they become better able to understand logical patterns (Poole, 1998).

As infants receive stimuli they can be either pleased or distressed by them. It is important that infants have rich and varied positive personal interactions, perceptual events and items with which to interact. Through careful, individualized observation, teachers can determine how much stimulation is appropriate for each child, as both overstimulation and understimulation are risks. Through their world perceptions, infants develop impressions, attitudes, and ideas about people and life. Sharp and loud sounds may startle and concern them. The sound of a pleasant voice causes them to smile, giggle, or respond with arm and leg movements. Infants are extremely sensitive to temperature and currents of air that cause them to be too warm or too cold. Their sensations and responses are quite immediate. What do they need to know for their basic comforts from minute to minute? How do they communicate their basic needs to adults? What actions invite certain kinds of interaction with others?