Literacy Links

Literacy Programs Responding to Communities in Crisis

Family Literacy: Being in Touch

by Jacqueline Gramann, TCALL Family Literacy Specialist

Being in touch is a phrase that resonates through many aspects of a family literacy program. How can being in touch affect physical development for young children? Physical development in the early years can be followed on development charts. In Parent Involvement Begins at Birth (Goldberg, 1997, pp.144-145), the charted motor development milestones are listed from birth to five years. Birth to three months lists “lifts head and chest while lying on stomach” as a milestone. One to one and a half years lists “stacks about two blocks or similar objects” and “begins to scribble.” Two to three years lists “throws a ball overhead.” Three to four years lists “cuts and pastes.” How easy it is for a parent or caregiver to be providing the stimulus and opportunities for milestones in physical development to be reached and eagerly practiced in play. After all, who is the infant lifting up to see? Where are the blocks, crayons, ball, scissors, and paper coming from? And how is this learning environment created?

Play is the way that young children learn. Infants use their senses to facilitate learning—hearing, smelling, tasting, seeing, and feeling. Being in touch with playful interactive learning activities sets the stage for a child who is an enthusiastic learner. Encouragement and feedback with the opportunities for learning are verbal and, more often, nonverbal. Development depends on secure relationships. “A clear connection remains between attachment and time spent skin-to-skin with the infant’s mother or primary caregiver during the first months of life,” (Carlson, 2005, p. 81). Zero to Three’s On the Move (2005) states that “children develop a close bond with you through movement” and that this “desire to be close to and connect with you is what motivates her to move.” Besides the impact on physical development, research indicates a link between parent/child relationships and cognitive development, as well as social/emotional development (NSCDC, 2004, p. 2). Learning is on-going for infants and toddlers. The curriculum is what happens. What parents and caregivers organize is the environment and opportunities.

Not so easy to visualize are the outcomes of touch. “Touch matters. Humans need nurturing touch for optimum emotional, physical, and cognitive development and health—especially in infancy. Daily touch plays a significant role in early brain development. Babies can actually die from lack of loving touch,” (Carlson, 2005, p. 79). Touch through holding, hugging, and nonverbal exchanges are an integral part of bonding with an infant or toddler. Touch can convey emotional support, encouragement, and positive feedback from the parent and caregiver to the young child. Children depend on the understanding and guidance that caring touch can communicate. In times of stress, touch is one of the tools parents need to use over and over.

Greenman’s book on helping children cope during difficult times summarizes what children under age five need: “plenty of physical reassurance (e.g., hugs, snuggling)” accompanies “verbal reassurance,” “normal routines and favorite rituals,” and “ample time with calm, loving, reassuring adults,” (2001, p. 25). All of these are necessary experiences for a child to have a normal childhood. During crisis situations the loving care of children needs to be prescription-strength. Stress hormones levels are lowered with touch. In stressful situations, elevated levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, are not as high in a child that has secure relationships. High levels of cortisol can alter the development of brain circuitry, and the child will never be able to cope as effectively with stress (NSCDC, 2005, p. 4).

Movement encourages infants and toddlers to connect with touch and grow in their physical development. Parents from different cultures may interpret and use touch in different ways. Teachers and caregivers should receive annual training in developmentally appropriate touch. Preschoolers need to have training in what is appropriate touch. Parenting classes must discuss the outcomes of touch and secure relationships. Being in touch is the first literacy of the infant and in a family literacy program.

References

Carlson, Frances M. (2005). Significance of Touch in Young Children’s Lives. Young Children: Journal of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. 60(4), 79-85.

Goldberg, Sally (1997). Parent Involvement Begins at Birth: Collaboration between Parents and Teachers of Children in the Early Years. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Greenman, Jim (2001). What Happened to the World? Helping Children Cope in Turbulent Times. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2004). Young Children Develop in an Environment of Relationships, Working Paper #1. Retrieved January 4, 2006 from http://www.developingchild.net/reports. shtml

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2005). Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of the Developing Brain, Working Paper #3. Retrieved January 4, 2006 from http://www.developingchild.net/reports.shtml

Zero to Three ( 2002). On The Move: The Power of Movement in Your Child’s First Three Years. Retrieved January 4, 2006 from http://www.zero tothree.org/Search/index2.cfm