The Development of Childrens Sensory Abilities in Relation to Nursery Placement

Infants are born aware of their environment from the moment of birth. This suggests that at birth the visual and auditory systems of infants are intact and fully functional.

This assignment will begin by outlining the role and function of the significant parts of an infant’s visual and auditory system. I will start with discussing the visual system and how infants are limited by the development of their visual system. I will then continue to outline the auditory system and its limitations. I will draw on evidence to explain the characteristics of preferred stimuli, both auditory and visual, in order to demonstrate the stimuli that would be best suited in a nursery environment.

The visual system of newborn babies develops over an extended period but develops significantly within the first few months of life. A newborn has limited vision in the first few weeks of life due to the underdeveloped retina, optic nerve, lateral geniculate nucleus and this visual cortex.

The retina contains rods and cones. These rods and cones are what distinguish between light and dark. The rods provide black and white vision whilst the cones are responsible to colour vision and fine detail. In newborn children, the fovea, the middle of the retina, does not contain many cones. As the eye is not able to make anymore, the cones move fastest to the fovea in the first 2-3 months of life and enable the new born to see clearer. The lack of maturity in this area at birth suggests that the visual filed of new-borns is blurry and fairly colourless (Hainline, 1998)

The optic nerves communicate information from the retina to the brain for decoding. The optic nerves, although lacking their myelin coating, are all formed in the womb before b...

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.... Infants also have the ability to discriminate between languages at an early age so it is clear that if part of a bilingual nursery, languages that are used are done so on a regular basis. This will prevent the infants from losing the ability to hear differences in speech, which occurs as they age. It can also be noted that from a young aged infants become sophisticated in their understanding of their native language.

Atkinson (2000), cited in Slater and Oates (2005) p.102.

Bahrick (2001) cited in Slater and Oates (2005) p.117.

Furnald (1985), cited in Slater and Oates (2005)p.113.

Hainline (1998), cited in Slater and Oates (2005) p.97.

Singh et al (2002), cited in Slater and Oates (2005)p.113.

Slater, A., Oates, J. (2005) ‘Sensation to perception’, in Oates, J., Slater, A. (eds) Psychological Development in Early Childhood, Oxford, Blackwell/The Open Univeristy