Why A Child Is A Blank Slate

According to Annie Murphy Paul’s research (2011), one of the first things babies learn before they are born are the sounds of their surroundings, and most important, the sound of their mother’s voice—her voice is the clearest to the baby so it is the most soothing and calming. Babies also learn smells and tastes in utero, once the olfactory receptors and taste buds are developed. This teaches the baby what is and is not safe to consume. Overall, babies learn about the culture they are going to enter—they learn their mother’s accent and the variety of food available.

Before my first child was born, I studied child development. I learned the importance of responsive caregiving. I learned that I would soon be able to read my baby’s cries. I would know what was wrong and what I could do by the sound of the cry. After my baby was born, I responded quickly when he cried. To my surprise, I had difficulty calming him. I realized I did not always know what was wrong by the sound of his cry. I became very frustrated and decided that if my baby was dry, fed, and not tired. I would just let him cry it out. I didn’t know what else to do.

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The physical development of a baby in its first six months of life shows limited range of movement but the beginnings of an ability to respond to stimulus around them. They show their reaction to people, sounds and movement by turning their head toward whatever attracts their attention. They will watch an adult’s face whilst feeding, but have already begun to shows signs of recognition as they will smile when familiar people are around them either because they can see them

Locke’s states that “All knowledge comes from the senses through experience” interpreted when Locke’s “blank slate” idea to when we are kids we know nothing. Our brains have to make connections to things and these connections are gained through experience and continues

Babies prefer the sound of humans interacting to other sounds and from this, they quickly learn to recognise and identify their mother’s voice. Babies form their first relationship through emotional attachments with their mother or main carer. The first year of a baby’s life is a period of incredible growth, and a baby’s brain goes through critical periods during which stimulation is needed for proper development. During the babies first years, visual stimuli or verbal language is necessary for areas of the brain to grow and without this growth, a child’s vision or speaking abilities might be impaired. Infants tend to have different cries for hunger or pain, as well as making other noises. These abilities show your child is gaining communication and pre-language skills. Infants from birth to 6 months will forget about objects they cannot see however they begin to explore objects they can see and grab by putting them in their mouths. They will also follow moving objects with their eyes and look around at nearby objects. Infants in this stage will turn to look at a source of sound. These developmental milestones show a baby’s brain is developing and they are gaining new skills. From 7 to 12 months, infants also learn the idea of cause and effect, and they might repeat an action that causes a

During this stage of life, babies will begin to interact with adults that surround them by getting easily distracted by looking at their faces or listening to the sound of their voices. Babies will begin vocalising by cooing at people that they recognise and are familiar to them . A baby will recognise the sound of a parent or carer and will respond when they hear their voice, many mistake this for a baby responding to their name but this is unlikely at this stage.

The advanced technology today makes it possible to fetus’s potential conditions when it is born. Not everything is perfect and sometimes we find out that a baby

John Locke was the forefather of the Educational Constructivist movement, which theorized that children and learners construct their personal knowledge in both social and individual situations. Though his opinions were often disputed, Locke had many opinions and theories of the habits and social conventions for the education of young children. Specifically, and perhaps most importantly, he believed that “It is more accurate to think of the child’s mind as a blank slate, and whatever comes from the mind is from the environment” (Crain 7). This ‘blank slate’, or tabula rasa idea founded the theory of nurture. According to his theory, as babies we are born without knowledge of what we should fear or how we should act, it is up to our environments to teach us how to act and behave.

At a certain age infants begin to resist the unfamiliar and are very vocal in expressing their feelings (Brazelton, 1992).

Advancement made in regard to cognitive neuroscience has enabled a better understanding of the cognitive processes in infants. Studies have indicated that cognitive development in infants starts before they are born. In the eighth week of pregnancy, fetuses have the ability to hear. They become accustomed to their

The child has not been perceived like an individual until the work of eighteen century philosophers Locke and Rousseau, who expressed their thoughts on paper about the child's ability to

John Locke, a British philosopher, focused on the role of social environment and experiences in education. Locke believed that children’s minds were blank slates. Meaning we are not born with any innate notions or abilities. Locke consider the mind “to be...white paper void of all characteristics, without any ideas.” (Crain 7) The mind is very pliable and ready to accept new information. Locke believed children learned in four ways, the first of which is associations. What this means is that we simultaneously think of two things and associate them. For example if you get sick after eating at McDonalds, you might feel stomach pain every time you see one. The next way is repetition, or doing something several

In our everyday lives, the origin of our ability to communicate is usually not often taken into consideration. One doesn't think about how every person has, or rather had at one time, an innate ability to learn a language to total fluency without a conscious effort – a feat that is seen by the scientific community "as one of the many utterly unexplainable mysteries that beset us in our daily lives" (3).. Other such mysteries include our body's ability to pump blood and take in oxygen constantly seemingly without thought, and a new mother's ability to unconsciously raise her body temperature when her infant is placed on her chest. But a child's first language acquisition is different from these

Although babies spend most of their time sleeping and eating they still have transitions to different stages. For example, reflexes are the most common for people to recognize the organized patterns of behavior. Also, a crying baby is what everyone recognizes. However, it is somewhat good when the baby cries, because it stimulates strong discomfort that the adults can realize. Usually the baby just needs a diaper change or needs to be feed, but sometimes its more and it is the parent's job to figure out why the baby is crying. The parents have to soothe them; they can do this by rocking, walking, swaddling, and talking softly. The baby also is developing their five senses, so it is important that the parents do not interfere with the development. For example, using screaming very loudly can ruin a baby's hearing. Vision is the one that develops the least. Nerveless, newborns can recognize human faces and want the mother's familiar face instead of a stranger. The most widely used instrument for helping the behavior of the newborn infant is Brazelton's Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). It has helped researchers understand newborns better.