Adults can facilitate babies’ language development by playing with them, focussing on particular toys, reading books and naming everyday objects. The confidence to explore and discover new things develops during infancy and creates a healthy curiousity about the world throughout childhood. Spatial skills can also be enhanced when playing games that require concentration, quick responses and finely tuned motor skills. Babies who handle shapes and also fit them through a hole are learning to solve problems through touch and sight.

Once babies are either crawling or walking their mobility gives them more opportunities to explore their world. After the first year, infants adopt the ‘pincer grasp’ where they use their thumb and index finger to grasp even very tiny objects.Infants first use the ulnar grasp where their fingers close against the palm when trying to hold an object. Babies can perceive input from different sensory systems in a unified way; for instance, vision and touch are closely coordinated when using a shape sorter. Adults can influence an infant’s confidence about the world by encouraging and smiling at them when they approach an unfamiliar object or toy.

Infants also learn about the links between sights, sounds and feel of toys when these are demonstrated by adults. During the first year of life infants’ visual development is rapid and they begin to identify objects through shape, colour and texture. Kicking and waving their arms while lying in their cot can lead them to discover that a kick can make a banging sound. Social interaction is important for language development and turn-taking games are a fun and educational way for babies and young children to learn.With light-up buttons and lots of manipulative features your child will learn age appropriate curriculum in a fun and engaging way. Exploration and play are closely linked in infants where, for example, discovering that a toy makes a noise leads to infants repeating the action that made the noise.

Babies begin to learn about conversational turn-taking from an early age; if a baby is babbling the adult waits for a pause and then talks to the baby.

When young babies watch a mobile they are constantly moving their head, arms, legs and even their mouths in response to the movement of the toy. The grasping, at first, is quite clumsy but through repetition, and across time, infants become adept at grasping and develop fine motor skills. Sound and movement attract a baby’s attention; if a toy is placed almost within reach of babies their movements become more animated.

Toys that name alphabet letters and everyday words satisfy young children’s need for repetition and rehearsal when practicing words and sounds. Role-play phone and interactive clock encourage imitative and independent play while the piano keys play cheerful music and the balloon button plays cute sing-along songs.Sensory development in babies can be facilitated through toys that provide opportunities for them to experience sounds, visuals and textures. You will often see young babies in a bath reaching with their legs towards a floating toy and kicking. Young infants need to be presented with an adequate but not too great amount of sensory stimulation. There are social skills involved in language acquisition such as realising that it is necessary to wait until the other person has finished speaking. br /> From an early age babies use touch to investigate their world; as they learn to reach they begin to run their tongue and lips over toys and then look at them.