0-3 months

0-3 months

1. emotional/intellectual

   • self regulation
   • mimic facial expressions
   • respond to sound, sight, touch, smell, movement and taste

2. sensory function

   • palmar grasp reflex
   • swiping of arms to interact with environment
     • good for body awareness and reaching
   • arms come to midline (3m)
     • play with babies hands in midline, encourage touching hands together, tie rattle or bels around wrists
   • briefly hold object in hand (3m)
   • scratchind and clutching at clothes or blanket
   • need exposure to as much as possible
     • naked or in nappy
     • different textures
     • different touch on different parts of the body
     • positional changes for gravitational awareness and comfort
   • problems include sensory defensiveness, increased tone, gravitational insecurity, and hand function.

3. motor function

4. hearing

   • can hear well right from birth
   • Respond to sound by change in behaviour
     • respond well to parentese - high pitch
   • Start to recognise mom's voice
     • commentaries help to learn intonations and rhythm of speech
   • Turn head towards sound (towards 3m)
   • Communicate through crying, smiling (6w), laughing, cooing
     • take turns with 'talking' to one another to teach the principles of turn taking in communication
     • mom needs to be able to read body language to feel confident and baby to feel understood
     • baby talks by imitating sounds

5. vision

   • Blurred vision
     • Methods of improving vision: mobiles, kites, bright colours, faces on paper plates, spirals, interesting and noisy toys, hanging toys
   • High contrast - black, white, bold colour
   • 30cm range of vision
   • 2 months - use both eyes to focus
   • Start to track objects (2m)
   • Look at hands (towards 3m)