Playing with contrasts

One controversial idea in the raising of children is the idea that the child should direct their own learning. Of course there are many ways to take that, and many ways to misconstrue it. The reality is that children, especially young children, will learn mostly only what they are disposed to learn. But they will also only learn that which they are exposed to.

We can lead children to certain experiences, but we cannot determine what it is they will take away from them. Play, especially one on one with a caregiver, is one of the best ways for them to learn. By creating a constrained but varied environment for play, we help them to learn, and us to understand what they are learning.

For example, one can play with opposites and contrasts. Get a small shoe box or something similar with a lid that the child can manipulate. Get a variety of objects that relate to one another but differ in some clear way. Try to keep the contrasts as simple as possible, at least at first. For instance, get two balls: one red, and one blue; or one large and one small; small figures: one of a dog, the second a horse; or a white cat, and a brown one. Have a whole collection of these objects, but for each contrast keep it to one or two varieties, so that the contrast itself is as clear as possible. (Just make sure that the objects are age-appropriate and do not represent choking hazards.)

Many household item will serve as well: a wooden spoon and a metal or rubberized one; a blue storage lid, and a pink one. Often with storage lids, the colors correspond to different sizes or shapes, so for example, the blue lids may be smaller than the pink ones, or the blue ones will be rectangular, and the green ones round. Begin with the simpler contrasts, where only one feature varies if possible. Then, slowly introduce the objects that vary along several dimensions.

Just let the child play with the objects and the box. They will be learning about inside/outside, open/close, visible/hidden, as well as the contrasts of the objects themselves. In fact, there's no telling just how many things they'll be learning from the game. As they gain more experience with this activity, they will begin forming expectations about the experience. You can play with this by mixing things up. Play with the spoons for a while, then slip some other object in there. You may see their eyes open wide, or hear a laugh, to express their surprise that something else appeared.* That's a good sign that they are forming expectations, testing their hypotheses.

Just be patient, and enjoy their process of playing. Don't be afraid to repeat the same procedure, with the same objects, over and over. You may be surprised at how long they will play this game. If they don't take to the game right away however, just put it away in your mind for a while, and try again in a few weeks or a month.

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* An interesting, related article on recent research is by Rechele Brooks and Andrew N. Meltzoff (Brooks & Meltzoff, "The development of gaze following and its relation to language," Developmental Science 8:6 (2005), pp. 535–543). Their findings show that 10-11 month olds who vocalized simultaneously when gaze-sharing with an adult were more advanced linguistically at 18 months. The procedure involved open- versus closed-eye conditions for the adults. The findings showed that 9-month olds seem oblivious to whether an adult's eyes are open or closed when looking at an object.

In contrast, 10- and 11-month-olds sharply differentiate these two conditions. The majority of the older infants look at the adult’s target specifically when the adult turns with open eyes (and refrain when she turns with closed eyes). The 10- and 11-month-olds are closely monitoring the adult’s perceptual organs. (540)

Further, regarding simlutaneous vocalization during shared eye gaze, they write:

The findings concerning vocalization provide additional data concerning the proposed developmental shift. In a sense, the infants themselves could be telling us that they are linking the looker with the object. The significant finding is that by 11 months, but not at 9 months, infants are adding simultaneous vocalizations to their target looks in the open-eyes condition and rarely doing the same in the closed-eyes condition. (540)

As they put it:

...the current results lend support to the theoretical arguments ... and empirical findings ... suggesting that gaze following plays a role in language acquisition. In the current study, correct gaze following plus simultaneous vocalization predicted later vocabulary comprehension and gesture production, but general vocalization alone (without looking at the target) did not. (540-541)