The Intellectual Needs of Infants

Babies are born learning. Infancy is a time of rapid brain development. They are totally dependent upon the important adults in their lives, including caregivers, to provide the right experiences at the right times to reach their optimal intellectual development. Infants learn through their eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and fingers. They need lots of opportunities to explore their world. Daily routines, including feeding, dressing, and diapering, are the most important teaching moments. Talk to infants. Tell them what you are doing and why. Explain to them what is happening. Laugh and play with them; celebrate life together. Even though they cannot talk yet, they are learning language, the meaning of words, and beginning to understand and read faces and body language.

To meet the intellectual needs of infants, make sure you:

•       Provide an appropriately challenging, safe environment for them to explore and manipulate

•       Provide light, colorful objects for babies to look at, reach for, and grasp

•       Play naming and hiding games such as peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake

•       Provide simple toys

•       Talk to them, make eye contact, and point out familiar objects to them

•       Engage in many one-to-one, face-to-face interactions with them

•       Share lullabies and music from around the world

•       Display interesting things to look at

•       Respond to sounds they make, occasionally imitating the infant’s vocalizations

•       Describe the infant’s and adult’s actions and the events that occur in the environment (“Oh, you like that song. Shall I sing it again?”)

•       Sing to them and appreciate their vocalizations and sounds

•       Place pictures and photos in their cribs and along the bottom of the wall at their eye level

•       Play games pointing out their body parts and naming familiar objects in their environment

•       Read picture books (both non-fiction and fiction) daily

Related Training:
Infant Care Series