Sally Goddard Blythe
MSc. FRSA
Consultant in Neuro-Developmental Education
“……….if boys and girls are to have equality of opportunity in education, then education needs to take these small but significant differences in rates of maturation and learning needs into account from the outset”
Extract from feature length article in Montessori International Journal April-June 2010
Developmental testing should be reintroduced for children before and after school entry to improve learning skills, says Sally Goddard Blythe.
Babies with poor motor skills at nine months are also likely to be behind in their cognitive development at this age and less well behaved at age five, the Millenium Cohort Study - involving 15,000 children - has found.(1)
These findings mirror the results of an earlier study, which found a link between immature balance and co-ordination skills at age five and poor reading and writing in primary school.(2)
Physical development is the foundation for learning. Without balance and co-ordination, we could not sit nor stand, have free use of our hands to carry out fine motor tasks, or control the eye movements needed for reading, writing, copying and maths.
Learning success begins with physical development and it is in the first nine months of life that a baby develops the postural abilities that will support gross and fine motor co-ordination for life.
No two children develop at exactly the same rate. But the development of head control, for example, is crucial for learning to sit, stand, walk and provide a stable platform for control of eye movements. Children who are later at developing head control tend to be later at developing other skills. This is where the assessment of primitive and postural reflexes at key stages in development can help identify children whose motor skills are likely to be delayed.
REFLEXES
Primitive reflexes emerge during life in the womb, are developed at birth in the full-term baby and are slowly controlled and transformed into more mature postural patterns in the first six months of life. Postural reflexes start to emerge after birth and continue to develop up to three and a half years of age.
Primitive reflexes are tested as a matter of routine at the post-natal assessment and at developmental check-ups in the first six months of life, but are not assessed as part of standard practice thereafter.
It tends to be assumed that if they were sufficiently integrated at six months then no further assessment is required. However, studies carried out on primary school children have shown that traces of primitive reflexes can and do persist into later childhood and that they are linked to under-achievement(3) and behavioural problems(4).
When my eldest son, now 28, was due to start school, every child underwent a developmental assessment by a school doctor, who checked gross and fine motor skills in addition to basic tests for vision and hearing. These tests were phased out a couple of years later, so children with underdeveloped physical skills at school entry simply slipped through the net.
By the time a child enters school, responsibility for the welfare of the child moves from the domain of medicine to education, meaning that subtle problems of a physical nature are not addressed. Neither do health visitors, trained to pick up signs of delay in the early years, follow a child on when they enter school to observe the long-term effects of early delays in motor development.
Reinstating developmental testing of all children, not only in the first year of life but also at later key stages in development, could help to identify children at risk.
This was evident in a study comparing the early developmental history of 72 children who had specific learning difficulties with children of the same age who were performing well at school. The study found that those who were struggling at school had almost twice the incidence of problems occurring in the first 18 months of life (from medical problems during pregnancy and the birth process to being later walkers and talkers).(5)
With regular assessments, suitable physical programmes could then be implemented to improve the motor skills of ‘at risk’ children before and in their first years at school.
Studies carried out in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the UK between 2001 and 2005 have indicated that in many cases, developmental delay responds to specific training programmes.(6)
Daily developmental movement exercises were introduced into schools. Children in the experimental groups showed statistically significant improvements in measures of balance, co-ordination and infant reflexes compared with control and comparison groups, and greater gains in measures of reading and spelling. Teachers also reported improvements in concentration, behaviour and social skills.
These findings suggest that if we paid more attention to children’s physical development, teaching outcomes could be improved.
REFERENCES
1. Hansen K, Joshi H, Dex S, eds (2010) ‘Children of the 21st Century: The first five years’. Policy Press
2. North Eastern Education and Library Board (NEELB) 2004. ‘An evaluation of the pilot INPP movement programme in primary schools in Northern Ireland. Final report’. Prepared by Brainbox Research Ltd for the NEELB. http://www.neeelb.org.uk/
3. Goddard Blythe 2005. ‘Releasing educational potential through movement: A summary of individual studies carried out using the INPP Test Battery and Developmental Exercise Programme for use in schools with children with special needs’. Child Care in Practice.11/4:415-432
McPhillips M, Sheehy N, ‘Prevalence of persistent primary reflexes and motor problems in children with reading difficulties’ Dyslexia 2004; 10/4: 316-338
4. Marlee R, 2008. ‘Neurological developmental delay research programme, first report’. Report prepared for the Behaviour Support Service, School and Family Support Division, Northumberland County Council
5. Goddard Blythe SA, Hyland D, 1998. ‘Screening for neurological dysfunction in the specific learning difficulty child’. British Journal of Occupational Therapy, October 1998
6. See reference 2
Sally Goddard Blythe is the director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester and author of books on child development including Attention, Balance and Co-ordination: The A,B,C of learning success (WileyBlackwell) and The Well Balanced Child: Movement and early learning (Hawthorn Press)
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2010 Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology Conference
April 10 and 11, 2010
Grove Isle Hotel, Miami, Florida
“Uniting Science and Education to Identify and Remediate Learning and Emotional Difficulties Associated with Developmental Delay”
Featured Speakers
Sally Goddard- Blythe
Session Title:
Primitive and Postural Reflexes in Perspective: An Overview of the INPP Method – A Clinical and Educational Method of Assessment, Remediation, and Evaluation
Session Description:
Primitive and postural reflexes provide diagnostic signposts of maturity in the functioning of the central nervous system at key stages in development. Although these reflexes are tested at birth and in the first weeks of post natal life by medical practitioners, they are not re-assessed at later stages in development as a matter of routine. When the responsibility for evaluating a child’s development passes from the domain of Medicine to Education at the time of school entry (in the UK), the focus of assessment shifts from assessment of physical development to the attainment of educational targets. Teachers do not have sufficient training to assess physical development, while doctors are primarily concerned with detection and treatment of medical conditions, not of the impact of dysfunction or immaturity on learning outcomes. This has meant that children who are not developmentally “ready” for aspects of formal education simply “slip through the net” of professional services which should be in place to identify and remediate the underlying physical causes of educational under-achievement or behavioral difficulties.
The INPP Programme provides a method of identifying and assessing signs of developmental immaturity together with effective remedial intervention programmes. This presentation will examine the history of the development of The INPP Method, the use of tests for primitive and postural reflexes as tools for the identification, assessment and remediation of developmental immaturity and will discuss the use of The INPP Programmes in educational and clinical settings.
Biographical Information:
Sally Goddard Blythe, MSc.FRSA, is a Consultant in Neurodevelopmental Education and Director of The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology (INPP) in Chester. INPP was established as a private research, clinical and training organization in 1975, dedicated to the development of assessment procedures to identify underlying physical factors in specific learning disabilities and adults suffering from anxiety and panic disorder and to the development of effective remediation programmes.
Sally is the author of several books and published papers on child development and neuro-developmental factors in specific learning disabilities including Reflexes, Learning and Behavior, The Well Balanced Child, and What Babies and Children Really Need. Her newest book, Attention, Balance, and Coordination – the A,B,C of Learning Success was published by Wiley-Blackwell in April 2009.
Sally is the author of The INPP Test Battery and Developmental Exercise Programme for Use in Schools - a programme of daily exercises designed to be used in schools with a whole class of children over one academic year – this programme has been the subject of published research involving 810 children across schools in the UK. The aim of the programme has been to provide teachers with a method to help them identify physical readiness for learning and a programme of exercises designed to encourage physical readiness in children with problems.
Sally has lectured on the role of infant reflexes in development and later learning problems to many different groups throughout Europe and in different parts of the United States. She is a member of the International Alliance for Childhood and the “Open EYE” campaign – a pressure group dedicated to ensuring that children’s developmental needs remain at the top of the agenda for government recommendations for early years’ education in England. She is also a patron of Toddler Kindy Gymbaroo, a programme developed in Australia to optimize children’s development in the early years.
The Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology is honoured that Dr. Pasquale J. Accardo has agreed to make a presentation at the 2010 INPP Conference; he is known throughout the world for his work on the Primitive and Postural Reflexes and the effect that they have on children. Dr. Accardo worked very closely with the medical ‘Grandfather’ of the role of Reflexes in development, the late Professor Arnold Capute.
“In view of Dr. Accardo’s background and knowledge we are sure that his presentation will be vital for all Pediatricians, Occupational Therapists, Physio-Therapists, Educators and everyone involved in the future well-being of children.” Peter Blythe, INPP-Chester
Dr. Pasquale J. Accardo, M.D.
Session Title:
A BRIEF MEDICAL HISTORY OF NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES: Being notes on the curious and surprising, if not shocking, histories of childhood, pediatrics, medicine, society, and civilization by a bemused observer and sometime participant.
Session Description:
Some key milestones in the history of childhood and their developmental significance will be reviewed. The various threads in the histories of medicine, neurology, pediatrics, psychiatry, and education will be used to explain the surprisingly recent discovery of neuro-developmental disorders and then place in perspective the many current unanswered questions about diagnosis and treatment. Cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, learning and attention disorders, and autism will be highlighted.
Biographical Information:
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Pasquale Accardo, MD, received his M.D. from SUNY Downstate, and completed his pediatric residency at Riley Children’s Hospital, Indianapolis, and his developmental pediatrics fellowship at the Kennedy Institute, Baltimore. He has subspecialty certification in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and in Neuro-developmental Disabilities through the American Board of Pediatrics. He previously served as the medical director of the Knights of Columbus Developmental Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and the LEND director at the Westchester Institute for Human Development, New York. He is currently James H. Franklin Professor of Developmental Research in Pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University where he directs the VCU Child Development Clinic. Dr. Accardo has authored, edited, co-edited over three dozen books as well as numerous chapters and papers in the field of neuro-developmental disabilities. In 2005 Dr. Accardo received the Arnold J. Capute Award from the Council on Children with Disabilities of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Maryanne Wolf, Ed.D
Title:
The Evolving Reading Brain: Implications for Reading Development, Dyslexia, and Intervention
Session Description:
An overview of how the human brain learned to read will be used as a new framework for understanding how each child learns to read and why many children have difficulties. Principles of the brain’s design that allow the learning of new skills will be described in terms of their implications for intervention. Results of efficacy studies will be described. Finally, implications of this view of an evolving reading brain will be the basis for discussing societal challenges and individual children’s challenges in the current transitions to a digital reading brain.
Biographical Information:
Maryanne Wolf is the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service, Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, and Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. She received her doctorate from Harvard University, where she began her work on the neurological underpinnings of reading, language, and dyslexia. Among her awards for teaching and research are the Distinguished Professor of the Year award from the Massachusetts Psychological Association, the Teaching Excellence Award from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Researcher Award from Tufts University, a Fulbright Research Fellowship award for research on dyslexia in Germany, the Norman Geschwind Lecture Award from the International Dyslexia Association for neuroscience research in dyslexia, and the Alice Ansara Award for work in dyslexia. Along with colleagues Dr. Robin Morris, and Dr. Maureen Lovett, Prof. Wolf was awarded the NICHD Shannon Award for Innovative Research and several multi-year NICHD grants to investigate new approaches to reading intervention, including the RAVE-O reading intervention program, created by Prof. Wolf and members of the Center.
The author of numerous scientific publications, Wolf recently completed a book for the general public, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, published by Harper-Collins in the United States, by Icon Books in England, and now translated into ten languages and audio version. Described as one of the Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and an Acclaimed Book of the Year by US News and World Report, Proust and the Squid received the Marek Award from the New York International Dyslexia Association for the best book of the year on reading.
Dr. Wolf’s recent research interests include reading intervention, early prediction, fluency and naming speed, cross-linguistic studies of reading, the relationship between entrepreneurial talents and dyslexia, and the uses of brain imaging in understanding dyslexia and treatment changes.
Anna R. Buck
Session Title:
The INPP Program: What Happens When the Primitive Reflexes Become Inhibited‐
Documented Stories from the Perspective of Parents and Professionals
Session Description:
Anna will share real‐life stories of children she has treated: previous diagnoses, findings
fromINPPassessments, progression through the INPP program, observed behavioral and academic changes, and responses from parents and professionals.
Biographical Information:
Anna Buck has been in the educational field for more than 20 years. She is a certified
Neuro‐Developmental Delay therapist, trained by INPP in Chester, England. She is a
certified Listening Fitness Instructor, trained at the Listening Centre, Toronto, Canada.
Anna has also received advanced training in Bilateral Integration by Sheila Dobie
Associates (Training) Limited in Bo’ness, Scotland. Currently, Anna is completing
program studies for certification as a Naturopath. She established Anna’s House, LLC, in2005 in Denver, Colorado.
Miracle Children was published in 2008. This book tells the story of Anna’s pursuit to
find theroot of her own daughter’s difficulties, which she eventually found through INPP.The book describes, in layman’s terms, how dysfunction in the brain stem can affect
children and how an INPP program targets these difficulties at the root level. It includes
stories of children as they progressed through an INPP program and a Listening Fitness
program and describes how their lives were transformed.
Anna’s Sound Bits, Volume 1 was published in 2009. This is a CD curriculum for
teaching reading,writing and spelling through sound and is adaptable for classroom or
home‐school use. Additional materials are available to support the curriculum.
Anna’s Sound Bits, Volume 2 will be available in 2010.
Paul Madaule
Title:
Listening and the Ear-Voice Connection
Session Description:
The ear is the first sensory modality to develop well before birth starting with the vestibular system at about ten weeks of pre-natal life, soon followed by the auditory system. The listening function, the ability to use the ear and body to pick-up the information we need and leave others, has pre-natal roots as well. This developmental precedence gives a head start in the acquisition of language.
Being the first listeners of what we say, listening is key to the monitoring of our own voice. This ear-voice loop provides the control system necessary to speak, read and write. It also influences self-regulatory functions such as attention span, focus, being ‘in sync’ and ‘well-balanced’. It also plays a role in social-emotional maturation, self-image and self-awareness.
Listening and the ear-voice connection can be developed and improved through sound stimulation training and voice exercises. Listening training and work on the primitive reflexes complement each other in many ways because they both access deeply rooted issues through different sensory-motor pathways.
Biographical Information:
Paul Madaule is the Director of The Listening Centre in Toronto that he founded with Dr. Tomatis in 1978. The Listening Centre was the first clinical facility using listening training in North America. Paul also helped develop this work throughout the US, Mexico and South America.
Paul authored When Listening Comes Alive (1993), available in ten languages. He also authored numerous articles on the importance of music, listening and the voice in education and therapy. His primary focus is children with developmental and learning problems, specifically auditory processing disorders, ADHD, learning disabilities, and Autism. His work has garnered widespread media attention through television and radio, and the written press.
Drawing from 35 years of clinical experience, Paul has developed a portable audio device called the LiFT® (Listening Fitness Trainer) to support international clientele and a course for professionals on how to incorporate listening training within their own practices and classrooms.
Dr. Harry Schneider, Ph.D, M.D. P.C.
Title:
Neurobiological and Neuroimaging Evidence for Abnormal Findings of Brain and Connectivity Dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Session Description: Awaiting details
Biographical Information:
Maureen Swanson –awaiting details of this session.
For further information or to download a registration form contact ajanoura@bellsouth.net
Sally Goddard Blythe examines the implications of the findings of a recent study in the context of child development
The results of a study carried out by the UK think tank Demos has found that the most important influence on children is the quality of parenting they receive.
The findings are a reminder that whatever the developments of the modern world, parental involvement, love and consistent discipline are essential to provide a secure framework for children’s development.
The findings based on more than 9000 households in the UK found that although children from the richest backgrounds were more than twice as likely to develop qualities such as application, self-regulation and empathy which make, “a vital contribution to life chances, mobility and opportunity”, parental style and confidence, warmth and discipline were the key factors in developing social skills and in narrowing the divide between rich and poor. This study follows on the heels of the UK Millennium Cohort Study published in September the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health which showed that children whose mothers go out to work have poorer dietary habits, are more sedentary and are more likely to be driven to work than children’s whose mothers are not in paid employment.
These two studies each examining different aspects of child well being raise the question, in what ways do parents act as the primary mediators of child well being?
Why Parents Matter:
Human babies are born at an immature stage of development compared with other mammals and remain physically dependent on their parents for an extended period of time. In the first year of life the mother (or primary care-giver) acts as an “auxiliary cortex” to the infant’s developing brain. The quality of care-giving (reciprocal interaction) a child receives in the early years develop neurological pathways involved in emotional regulation and helps to form the basis for self-regulation and self control later on. Children who are neglected or who receive inconsistent care and attention tend to have difficulty with self-regulation.
The human brain develops through dual processes of maturation and interaction with the environment. A child’s earliest experience of the world is a physical one with information about the environment being derived primarily from sensory experience, movement opportunity and social engagement with the primary source of love. One-to-one interaction is a vital ingredient for the development of language and socialization particularly in the early years.
Parental education and breast feeding were mentioned in the study as positive influences. The positive effects of breast feeding are not surprising when we remind ourselves what breastfeeding actually does. The word “mammal” means “breast” and as one of the species of mammal, humans were designed to suckle their young. Whilst there are 4000 species of mammal that produce milk, the only source of milk specifically designed to provide all the nutrients a human baby needs is human breast milk. Human breast milk also adapts to the environment of the baby during each and every day changing its composition to meet the specific needs of mother and child. It stimulates the production of hormones involved in maternal bonding and infant attachment and requires both commitment and self-discipline from the mother to establish and maintain. It has also been shown to have many other physical health benefits including containing the optimum ratio of essential fatty acids needed for brain development, development of binocular vision and some protection from the development of familial allergic tendencies and the of onset childhood obesity.
Time is a crucial factor in parental involvement. Parents who have too many external demands on the their time, or mothers suffering from stress, depression, illness or drug and alcohol abuse are more likely to resort to use convenience foods, equipment and forms of entertainment, which act as surrogates for direct interactive parenting. Modern conveniences do not provide the same amount, quality or flexibility of care as interaction with another human being. As the study on working mothers pointed out, this can affect the amount of physical exercise children experience, time spent in conversation - necessary for developing social skills and social awareness - and can be linked to a tendency to seek comfort from biochemical sources such as sweets, snacks and soft drinks. Nutrition is the source of many of the chemical messengers through which the nervous system communicates. Nutritional status affects not only weight and physical health but also attention, mood and behaviour.
The nature of entertainment provided by the electronic media is different from activities shared with another person. Before the invention of radio, television or computers, leisure time was filled with outdoor pursuits, reading, drawing, imaginative games, making things, socializing and discussion. The negative face of leisure technology is not what it does provide – there are many benefits - it is what it does not provide. This includes, arousal without integration; inflexible response; talking without listening to what a child has to say, and encouraging rapid shifts of attention. Electronic media does not teach children to read and adapt to the non-verbal aspects of language in the same way that direct communication with another human being does. Non-verbal language contributes up to 90% of effective communication including the understanding of empathy.
The word “discipline” is derived from “disciple” or “pupil”, meaning one who is taught. The original meaning of discipline is therefore associated with teaching through example. Parents act as sounding boards for negative emotions and inappropriate behaviour. The goal of discipline is to help children become responsible for the consequences of their behaviour by teaching them how to modify behaviour within developmentally appropriate parameters. Inconsistent, disengaged and authoritarian parenting are less effective than a firm and consistent approach (authoratitive). A child who cries in the night and is picked up one night and then left to cry the next, simply learns that it has cry longer on the third night to receive attention. Authoratitive parenting involves paying attention to children’s needs and a firm and consistent approach, which above all else requires parental time and involvement.
Children learn by example (modeling). In less technologically advanced societies this is one of the chief ways in which the wisdom and skills of one generation is passed on to the next. Learning by example involves time spent together observing and learning through practice (doing) simple activities such as eating a meal together, cooking, reading, washing the car etc. This type of learning takes place over many years, cannot be taught in short “bytes” and is rooted in the self-discipline and consistency provided by parents and other adults such as teachers and grandparents.
Richard Reeves, co-author of The Building Character report said that, “The Right is obsessed with family structure and the institution of marriage rather than the actual job of parenting, while the Left is more comfortable with economic explanations and is terrified of appearing judgmental. The result is to deepen disadvantage for already deprived children”. If we are to make a lasting difference in the future, we need to pay attention to what children really need, emotionally, developmentally and socially. Children need stable, loving and consistent parents. The rest is politics.
Report of INPP research in North Tyneside has been submitted to C4EO ( Centre for Excellence and Outcomes ). It has been validated and can be found at: http://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/general/localpracticeexamples.aspx?themeid=10 under ’ Narrowing the Gap’.
Response to article: Teaching teenagers parenting skills will encourage teenage pregnancy:
Sir,
Teaching children parenting skills is not the same as encouraging teenage pregnancy and although the fact it is necessary to give 14-year-olds compulsory parenting lessons is a sad reflection of our times, it is one of the better initiatives to be instigated by the present government.
It is not easy to be a parent in modern world of the 21st century. We are seeing an increasing percentage of new parents who have no direct experience of having been parented by a full time parent themselves. Part of the instinct to parent – to intuitively know what your child needs and act upon it appropriately – develops as a result of the parenting received. Advances in technology and speed of social change over the last 50 years have resulted in a range of time saving devices, which allow parents more time for other activities but reduce the physical time parents actually spend engaged with their children. Children are not miniature adults. Children’s brains have evolved to develop in the context of physical interaction with the environment and social engagement with the primary source of love. This involves time spent together, shared activity and a climate of firm and consistent discipline over the course of many years, the early pre-school years being particularly important. While the majority of parents still do a good job, we are in danger of raising a generation of youngsters for whom remote parenting and entertainment have been normal. It is vital for society in the future that the next generation of parents grow up understanding the biological and developmental needs of children. Far from encouraging teenage pregnancy, a better understanding of the sheer hard work involved in parenting might serve to delay it.
Sally Goddard Blythe
The foundation for learning is the physical readiness nurtured by carers in the years before a child starts school, writes Sally Goddard Blythe:
With so much emphasis on getting children ready for reading, writing and numeracy in the early years, it is important to remember that the ability to understand and use written language is built upon earlier physical foundations developed in the pre-school years. Movement, touch and music are like the environmental software that enable the developing nervous system of the child to unfold its potential.
MOVEMENT
In the protected environment of the womb, the developing baby is safely cocooned from many of the dangers of the outside world. The pre-birth environment has changed little since man first learned to stand and walk on two legs, which recent discoveries suggest may have been as long as four million years ago.
In this sense, every baby is born from the prehistoric world of the womb into a new world as ‘ancient man’, and must learn to adapt to the demands of an environment very different from the world he was designed to live in more than two million years ago¹.
In the 1800s, a biological theory was born which stated that ontogeny, the origin and development of an individual organism from embryo to adult, recapitulates phylogeny, the evolutionary history of the species².
This theory has since been discounted in its literal sense. But in a functional sense, every child retraces in telescopic form the evolutionary steps of its forebears in terms of movement and language development during the early years. Children who are deprived of sufficient movement and sensory experience in the pre-school years run the risk of developing problems with specific aspects of learning and emotional regulation (behaviour) later on³.
Due to a unique combination of enlarged head and restricted birth canal, the human baby is born at a relatively immature stage of development compared with other mammals, unable even to get up on to its feet and support its own body weight until well into the second six months after birth.
During the first year of life, the normally developing baby runs a fast-forward ‘replay’ of its ancestral history. Movements that began in the womb were fish-like and appropriate for an environment surrounded by fluid. After birth, when the baby has to develop muscle tone against gravity, movements progress to crawling on the belly like a reptile, crawling on hands and knees like a mammal, and briefly passing through a phase when the baby can stand unaided for a few moments but must still use its hands and arms to support balance, like an ape.
Only when it is able to stand and walk with free use of the hands do the skills that are unique to the human race – spoken language, fine motor control, and eventually the ability to understand and use written langauge – start to develop.
LANGUAGE
Language acquisition, like the development of postural control and co-ordination, involves a re-run of the past involving two key elements: gesture and music. In 1872 Charles Darwin wrote4, ‘I have been led to infer that the progenitors of man probably uttered musical tones before they had acquired the powers of articulate speech.’
What we think of as music in the modern world has its origins in two types of sound:
l first, rhythm, expressed through the beating of drums, dance movements and the stamping of feet – body-based communication articulated through pathways involved in proprioception (feedback to the brain derived from the tendons, muscles and joints of the body) and the vestibular system (balance system). These are ‘lower’ centres in the brain, which are more developed in babies and young children than the “higher” centres later involved in speech.
l secondly, tone – uttered by using the vocal organs (also controlled by more primitive parts of the brain than the ones which govern speech).
In other words, rhythmical and musical centres of the brain are more ‘ready for use’ in the early years than the more complex, higher centres associated with speech and written language. In this respect, the training of movement and music in the early years provides essential building blocks for more complex skills later on.
Babies are born with an innate desire to communicate, which started before birth when the foetus felt its mother’s emotions through chemical changes that took place in her body, alterations in the nature and speed of her movements and the melody, volume and rhythms of her speech. Speech was sensed through a combination of vibration and sound.
Babies can ‘hear’ from the 24th week of pregnancy, but because of the surrounding amniotic fluid and barrier of the abdominal wall, they hear only a limited range of lower- to medium-frequency sounds, which correspond roughly to the same range as the human voice and the majority of musical instruments used in classical music.
Babies and infants (where infant means ‘one without speech’) have a special language that is more akin to music and mime than speech.
Up to 90 per cent of communication in the adult world is based on the non-verbal aspects of language – posture, gesture, eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice, speed, rhythm and cadence.
Babies are able to detect, and increasingly use, these powerful components of universal language in the first year of life. In this sense, the first expressive language of life is one of music and movement.
Babies are also born mimics. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers5 studying mother-infant interaction observed babies who were only a few days old imitating adult gestures such as sticking out the tongue.
They concluded that humans are born with the same capacity to assimilate movements, feelings and gestures through simple imitation, and this early mimetic language becomes part of a mirror neuron system, which is able to sense and recognise the feelings of others – the origins of sympathy. (The more commonly used word ‘empathy’ originally meant to ‘give the evil eye’; ‘sympathy’ means to feel as another.)
Building on these early, innate abilities is partly dependent on receiving sufficient and appropriate environmental experience in the form of social engagement – first, with the primary source of love, and in later years with siblings, adults and peers.
flexible exchange
The technological revolution of the past 30 years and the lifestyle changes it has brought to parents is changing the quality and quantity of direct one-to-one communication children receive. The electronic media may be useful for soothing or entertaining a fretful child, but it cannot provide direct interactive communication between individuals. It provides stimulation, but does not listen or have a flexible response to what the child has to say. Nor does it take body language into account.
The importance of interaction and flexibility is illustrated by research carried out at the University of Edinburgh6, which examined mother-infant interactions in the first weeks of life.
They discovered that when a mother was attuned to her baby, a dialogue takes place, with the mother uttering short phrases to her baby in a sing-song voice. It she waits for a few seconds, the baby sings an answering phrase in return.
When the dialogue was analysed using a sound frequency analyser, the conversation showed all the features of a musical composition – melody, structured timing, phrasing and cadence, with one partner repeating and answering the musical phrase of the other.
If the adult ‘interrupted’ the baby before it had time to reply, the baby gave up and the ‘conversation’ came to an end. It seems that the human infant really does learn to dance before it can walk and to sing long before it can talk7.
For the implications of this research for nursery education, see boxes.
PHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS
In the early years, physical interaction is increasingly replaced by language-based communication. Traditionally, spoken language was developed through a combination of conversational feedback, songs, reading of stories, telling of tales and folklore, and most importantly, one-to-one interaction between child and primary care-giver. Formal nursery care needs to find ways of ensuring that this type of experience is a part of every child’s daily life.
A series of small-scale independent studies carried out on more than 800 children in the UK between 2000 and 2004 revealed that 48 per cent of five- and six-year-olds and 35 per cent of eight- to ten-year-olds still showed traces of infant reflexes, which should not be active beyond the first year of life, together with immature balance and co-ordination11.
There was also a correlation between immature reflexes and lower educational achievement at the end of the school year. Children who took part in a daily programme of developmental exercises in school, based on movements that an infant would normally make in the first year(s) of life, showed significant improvements in reflex status, balance, co-ordination and academic achievement, as well as anecdotal reports of improvements in attention, behaviour and self-esteem.
These studies suggest that if the physical foundations for learning are secured in the pre-school years, then the child enters the school system better equipped to cope with the demands of the classroom. Physical education in its broadest sense is the essential ingredient of the pre-school years.
Movement, music and social engagement are the early physical foundations of language. It is as important to ensure that every child has the opportunity to pass through the developmental and evolutionary stages of physical and language development, as it is to provide adequate instruction in reading, writing and maths when they enter school.
How music teaches language
Music, particularly song, can be used to set the scene for the next episode of language development. Song is important because it is a special type of speech:
• Song alters the duration of individual sounds in speech, lengthening the duration of vowel sounds, which are some of the hardest to detect aurally when speech is translated into written form.
• When we sing lullabies or nursery rhymes, we also educate the earliest of the senses – the vestibular sense through gentle rocking rhythms; the sense of touch through the effect of vibration produced by the voice; and the sense of hearing through tone, timbre, repetition of similar sounds and the prolongation of certain speech sounds.
•Traditional lullabies and nursery rhymes are important because they contain the specific melodies, stresses and accents peculiar to the language from which they grew (the music of the language).
• Children need plenty of opportunity to ‘voice aloud’ in the early years to develop an ‘internal voice’, which they will need when learning to read silently later on.
• Children can learn to sing complex language sounds before they understand their meaning. The process of ‘sounding out’ in song prepares the voice and the ear for the visual recognition of written symbols.
• ‘The voice can only reproduce what the ear can hear’10, but the human ear is continuously enriched and entrained through feedback from the voice to the ear (audio-vocal feedback loop).
• Sound is transitory, passing in a moment, and must be remembered. Music helps speech sounds to remain in the memory for longer, as well as providing an access ‘key’ for retrieval of auditory stimuli.
• Music develops both sides of the brain. Although the majority of the population have their main language centre on the left side of the brain, during the years of language development both sides are involved in different aspects of receptive, expressive and understanding the meaning of language.
Why early movement experience matters
• Movement is the primary medium through which sensory integration takes place.
• Movement experience helps a child to develop an internal body map.
• Movement helps a child to know their place in space. This forms the basis or reference point from which other spatial judgements are made.
• In the first year(s) of life, emotional regulation is felt and expressed in physical ways and is derived from touch, feeding, movement experience, social engagement and rough and tumble play.
• A climate of fear surrounding issues of child abuse and child safety has meant that children placed in nursery care tend to receive less experience of touch than in previous generations, both in the form of parental touch and the touch and opportunities for feedback derived from rough and tumble play.
Studies on animals have found that rough and tumble play is an essential ingredient of healthy development and socialisation in animal groups. Animal pups that are deprived of physical interaction show withdrawn, anti-social and aggressive behaviour.
On the one hand, having insufficient sensory experience can result in sensation-seeking or avoidance behaviour, and on the other hand, not allowing children to take reasonable risks and experience the consequences in childhood can make them more prone to indulging in high-risk behaviour, or to fear of taking risks, later on.
Rough and tumble play in the early years provides a wealth of tactile experience as well as developing physical fitness, sensory awareness, regulation of strength and self-control and involving flexible and creative behaviour.8
• Sensations derived from exercising the balance mechanism help to train centres in the brain which are involved in the control of eye movements that
will be necessary for reading, writing, copying and physical education, later on.
Movement has the capacity to soothe or arouse and is usually experienced with joy by young children. When there is joy, children learn.9
FOOTNOTES
1 Lazarev, M (2008) Mamababy: Birth before birth. Borisoglebskiy per., House 9. Moscow
2 Haeckel, E (1899) Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century
3 Goddard Blythe, SA (2008) What Babies and Children Really Need. Hawthorn Press
4 Darwin, C (1872) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Online at: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1142&viewtype=text&pageseq=1
5 Melzoff, AN; Moore, MK (1977) ‘Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates’. Science, 198:75-78
Melzoff, AN; Moore, MK (1983) ‘Newborn infants imitate adult facial gestures’. Child Development, 54:702-9
6 Trevarthen, C (2006) Pleasure from others’ movements: how body massage and music speak with one voice to infants and give meaning to life’ Paper presented at the GICM Professional Conference. Coventry, October 2006
7 ABBA paraphrase from the song ‘Thank you for the music’.
8 Panksepp, J (1998) Affective Neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions. Oxford University Press. New York.
9 Kiphard, EJ (2000) Intervention programmes using the German psycho-motor approach with exceptional children. Paper presented at the 12th European Conference of Neuro-Developmental Delay in Children with Specific Learning Difficulties, Chester, March 2000
10 Madaule, P (2001) The ear-voice connection workshop seminar. Chester, November 2001
11 Goddard Blythe, SA (2005) Releasing educational potential through movement. A summary of individual studies carried out using the INPP test battery and developmental exercise programme for use in schools with children with special needs. Child Care in Practice 11/4:415-432
Sally Goddard Blythe will be providing a one day course on the use of The INPP Programme in Schools for teachers who are resident in Cyprus on the 14th November. Details of the course to be held in Cyrpus and final applicatons to attend the course may be made by contacting m.tsappas@gmail.com
SEMINAR
«MOVEMENT AND EXERCISE IN LEARNING»
IN PAFOS: SUNDAY NOVEMBER 15TH 2009
TIME 9:30-5:30
CENTRAL BRANCH OF POPULAR BANK
SPEAKER: SALLY GODDARD BLYTHE
RESEARCH DIRECTOR OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT IN THE INSTITUTE OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY IN CHESTER, ENGLAND.
BOOK AUTHOR OF ‘ The WELL Balanced CHILD’ , ‘WHAT BABIES AND CHILDREN REALLY NEED’ “Attention, balance and Coordination – the A,B,C of Learning Success”
THE SEMINAR IS APPROPRIATE FOR:
SCHOOL COUNSELORS, SPEECH THERAPISTS, PSYCHOLOGISTS, TEACHERS, SPECIAL EDUCATORS AND PARENTS.
FEE: €150 PER PERSON.
INCLUDES: SEMINAR PARTICIPATION, COFFEE, SNACK AND CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDANCE.
THE PRESENTATION WILL BE IN ENGLISH.
ORGANIZED BY: ‘Μ.Τ. ΤΟ ΑΝΑΓΝΩΣΤΗΡΙΟ’ PRIVATE INSTITUTE.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: MRS MONIKA TSAPPA, 99557317.
Full Transcript of letter sent to Times Education Supplement and published in TES on the 23rd October 2009
The Cambridge Review
Although there has already been considerable coverage of the recommendations of the Cambridge Review since its release last week, there has been little in depth coverage of why it is recommended that formal learning should not start until 6, why boys are falling further behind under the current system and why a less centralised prescriptive curriculum is advised.
The key to learning success at every stage of education is developmental readiness. Although some children are ready to read at 4½ years of age, others will not be ready until 6+ years, and one school of thought used to say that reading “readiness” was linked to biological development and coincided with the onset of shedding the first milk teeth, which usually takes place from 6 years of age (later in children with developmental delay).
Boys are generally later than girls at developing the fine motor skills needed for writing and the control of gross motor skills necessary to be able to sit still. These motor skills are developed through physical action and interaction with the environment in the early years when motor experience entrains neurological pathways involved in coordination, the control of eye movements needed for reading, writing and drawing and physical self control.
The ability to use written language is built upon an oral tradition when knowledge was passed from one generation to the next through the spoken word, songs and stories. Listening and speaking are the building blocks of literacy at which every child needs sufficient practice in the early years before being ready to “internalise” the written elements of language and match visual symbols on a page to memorised sounds.
Developmentally and neurologically, a child’s brain is primed to learn in different ways at different stages in development. For example, from 4- 7 years of age, areas involved in movement, rhythm, rhyme and song are particularly receptive to new information and experience and will support verbal language later on. When education seeks to attain targets without going through the necessary building procedures first, it results in gaps or weaknesses in the system which can undermine higher aspects of learning later on.
Learning is a biological as well as an educational process. Until education takes individual developmental readiness into account, we will continue to see an unacceptably high percentage of children in the British school system who under-achieve. The Cambridge Review, if governments can only heed its recommendations, is a ray of hope for children and education in the future.