The Young Mathematician

Valerie Jackson tells us about the importance of hand and eye coordination in the development of babies. Valerie, Operations Director at Primary Steps, is responsible for the management of thirty two day nurseries and two crèches. Primary Steps, now a top ten provider of nursery places in the UK, has one simple ambition - to maximise the social and educational potential of each child attending its nurseries.

If a childcare professional speaks to parents about hand and eye co-ordination, the parents may initially be puzzled by this term. The psychologist who first referred to this significant aspect of a child’s development was Jean Piaget, who in a sense was the founder of child-conscious psychology. In Piaget’s view, until a child had acquired hand and eye co-ordination, their physical movements meant nothing except that they were flexing their limbs.

So, what is it? In basic descriptive language, this is the stage of development when a baby, usually from about 4 months of age, discovers that they can reach out and touch or grasp objects. From this period onwards, according to Piaget, the child makes conscious, considered actions.

Hand and eye co-ordination is so much more. Let’s break it down into its smallest components. The first time a small baby touches something, it is usually by accident. They wave their hands about and occasionally touch or smack an object. If they have reached that cognitive or thinking stage where they can reflect about the experience, they will then attempt to repeat the movement to see what happens. Parents observing their new child may see repeated actions that form a pattern of movement which results in the baby touching or grabbing hold of an object.

According to Piaget, the baby is working hard actively learning about their environment by bringing an object of interest close to their faces so they can smell, taste, see, touch and hear it.

The baby is two-handed at this stage. Most objects are mouthed, not due to hunger but because the mouth is an important sensory organ, giving detailed information to the baby about taste, texture, hardness and so on.

Let’s return to the action of grasping the object. After that first initial surprise the repeated actions are practised until success is achieved first time. What does this tell us about the baby? We can say with some confidence that the baby has a well-developed memory. There was a lot to remember!

* First, they remembered what happened when they touched the object and wanted to repeat that experience.

* Second, the baby managed to estimate the distance between themselves and the object of desire.

* Third, a calculation was worked out to make sure that the amount of bending forward and arm stretching was sufficient to reach the toy.

* Fourth, balance was maintained whilst bending forward to retrieve the toy.

These skills were practised and honed to precision!

Now this young genius is ready to take on the world. Not only can he or she complete complex calculations, but they use that skill in other ways. Let’s take the example of a toy thrown from a buggy or high chair. From a parent’s perspective, the baby is just practising gaining control over them by making loud vocalisations to demand the return of the ‘lost’ toy! It’s an interesting game and it would appear that the baby is doing it deliberately.

But this deliberate action is linked to another phase in calculation. The baby throws the toy, looks ahead to predict where the toy will land, then shouts to alert the adult to get the toy. If the adult checks where the child is looking, inevitably, they will see the article lying, waiting to be picked up in order to be thrown again.

These babies know a thing or two! That’s why we are fascinated by them.