I have a new nephew now and he is so adorable! Can't stand to be away from him because he is so cute and and chubby! And by having a new baby in this home, one of my 'psychology radar' is turning on now. There are some part of me which wants to apply things that I've learned at school to him or his parents (my sister), but then sometimes my guts and feelings got in the way.
Well .. these few weeks, I've been studying about language development, especially for infants and toddlers. I also volunteered my self to give the first journal article presentation about it because unconsciously, I just want to know more about my nephew's development even though he's only a month old of age.
Based on what we've discuss in class, we've found that there are many challenges that is faced by children nowadays to develop their language. One of them is because of the technology. Once, my friend told me that
she learned foreign language well because she played video games, but nowadays, a two year old kid can have their own gadget and play with it. Give me a break! They don't even understand what the gadget is for and it keeps them away to interact with other people because those gadgets are so addicting. Me, myself find it that way, too. So, you can imagine, a toddler who is trying to develop their speech and ability to communicate with other people, have to postpone their development because they are too busy playing with gadgets. Of course, parents will say that those games can make their children calm, but it doesn't mean that they can't calm their children by doing activities together, right?
Some people might not know that actually children need to get used with books. They need to touch the book even to crush it. If parents allow them to play with the book, tell story by book-sharing, they will allow the children to get attracted by the book which expose them with letters and words and sentences. Some things that they really need to influence their ability to talk and to read/write later. I know that those cool gadget also provide stories like that too, but the difference is the screen is only two-dimension and in order to develop their brain better, they need to feel it in person. Moreover, one of the research that once mentioned in my class proved that children can't be exposed to TV or movie until they are two years old, because at that time what they need is a direct interaction among people and not just by pictures or people on screen. Therefore, they will create a strong interpersonal communication and they can also build a strong bond with people near them.
Okay, besides discussing about the influences of technologies nowadays, we also discussed some researches in our class. Two weeks ago I had the chance to present one interesting journal which I took from APA. The interesting part about this journal is the fact that actually, children begin to talk when they start to walk. I found this interesting because in my culture, there are a strange believe that children will not start to walk and talk in the same time. Many people here believe that a child will start to walk or talk in a separate time and not at the same. So, when we discuss about this in my class, we were also confuse, why we have belief like that in our culture. I still want to try to find the answer about that too!
It's funny how people can change their behavior by not again introducing their children with books but with computers and stuff but still hang on with the odd belief about the onset of walking and talking. Well, all of those are just my opinion and thoughts, probably other can have a different point of view about that, and I am so glad to have you share it with me!
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