1.2 Senses

This is an interactive of a baby with pop-up boxes positioned on the face, head and hand of the bady describing the various sesnes. Touch: Babies need to touch interesting objects and textured materials in order to develop and strengthen connections between the brain cells. Whenever an object is grasped or explored with the fingertips, millions of sensory receptors send messages to the brain, which then processes, analyses and stores the information. Touch also stimulates parts of the brain that govern action, coordination and thinking. Vision: At birth, the eye and brain areas responsible for vision are not fully developed. Although babies can see colours, they may appear blurred so using black and white images can help to refine the muscles of the eyes, and objects should be held about 30cm from the baby’s face. By 6 months significant advances have been made in the vision centre of the brain. Colours can be seen clearly, and both eyes can track and focus accurately on a moving object. At 8 months, babies can see with much better accuracy. Even so, it takes another four years for vision to reach the full adult level, which is why continual visual stimulation is so important. Smell: At birth, the sense of smell is fully mature and babies can distinguish thousands of different smells. Most babies are responsive to smells that they encounter daily such as breast milk, their mother’s perfume or a familiar blanket. Such smells are associated with comfort and security. Smells are received by receptors at the top of the nasal passage, but they are processed and interpreted by the temporal lobe in the brain. Signals also pass through the limbic system, which is associated with memory, mood, behaviour and basic thought processes. Stimulating babies with different smells develops brain connections and helps them to learn about the world. Hearing: The part of the brain that is responsible for hearing becomes functional at about 25 weeks gestation. This is the time when the ear and the brain tune into specific frequencies and intensities such as the mother’s voice and the rhythmic sound of her heart. These same sounds provide comfort and reassurance to the newborn baby. Hearing continues to develop up to 6 months after the birth. Sound experiences, verbal interactions, rhymes, singing and stories build important brain cell connections for speech and language skills, and they contribute to all-round development of the brain. Taste: Taste buds on the tongue can distinguish sweet, sour, bitter and salt, all other tastes are detected by smell receptors in the nose. When a baby brings an object to its mouth, their lips and tongue provide a very accurate image of texture, size, weight, shape and temperature. Mouthing is often accompanied by noises called vocalisations, which play an important role in speech and intellectual development. Mouthing also develops skilful jaw and tongue movements in readiness for solid foods.