Seven Month Old Developmental Check-In (Stage III, Midbrain and Subcortical Areas)

Damien, the day he turned seven months old

Early last June, sitting in a hospital bed holding my tiny newborn, all wrinkled, blotchy-skinned, and helpless, it was hard to fathom that in just a little over 200 days he would be creeping [crawling], standing, "talking", understanding, and charming at the level he is now.

Seven months passes by in the blink of an eye.

Seven months is also another benchmark age on the Developmental Profile for the average age for babies to achieve stage III brain function (using the midbrain and subcortical areas).

In speaking of the profile, the IAHP says

"The time schedule is highly variable and depends, not upon genetic factors, but rather upon the frequency, intensity and duration of the stimuli provided to the brain by the child's environment, which is notably and most often his family."

The idea is that the brain grows by use, not by some biological alarm clock. Opportunity, frequency, encouragement, and to a lesser decree, personality will determine development. Our goal is, of course, to give our baby as much of these things as possible and do all we can to help him, not hinder him.

Damien, 5 months, pauses his creeping adventures for a smile

1. Stage III Mobility: Creeping on hands and knees, culminating in cross pattern creeping

Age achieved: 5 months, 2 weeks old

Description: "Creeping" is what most of us know as "crawling" - that cute little hands and knees movement that typifies the picture of babyhood. "Cross pattern creeping" refers to the cross pattern exhibited when a baby uses his opposite extremities simultaneously to move while on his hands and knees - right arm and left leg go forward, then left arm and right leg go forward.

Damien achieved the official "cross pattern creeping" at five months old. He has been "crawling" in other formations - more or less scooting, hopping, lunging, twisting, and rolling - since four months. He has had movement on his stomach (pushing his legs off the ground and propelling himself forward) since birth.

His most current interest is pulling himself to standing, which he does essentially all day, every day, creeping around the house finding different pieces of furniture that can act as a support frame for his vertical position.

Damien, at four months, babbling on

2. Stage III Language: Creation of meaningful sounds

Age achieved: 1-2 months

Description: "Creation of meaningful sounds" is when the baby essentially begins to make noises, beyond a basic cry, that have meaning attached to them. He begins to be able to communicate not only his needs, but his wants, moods, feelings, and preferences. These are not necessarily first English words, but words for him nonetheless.

Damien began creating meaningful sound at about 1-2 months old. He began to coo when he was happy, "yell" when he wanted attention, and whine when he was tired.

At four months, Damien said his first English word - "dada". He still attaches meaning to that word and says it when he sees pictures of his dad. His second English word, "more" (which comes out more like "muh" or "mah") began the day he turned seven months old. Ever since then, he creeps up to me and says "muh" when he wants food, or while we are eating and he wants another bite. (So he has achieved stage IV language development, "Two words of speech used spontaneously and meaningfully", an average 12 month milestone).

Damien, at six months, practicing using the prehensile grasp with small objects

3. Stage III Manual: Prehensile grasp

Age achieved: 3 months

Description: The "prehensile grasp" is when a baby is able to voluntarily pick up objects using his whole hand. The four fingers and palm are mainly used, while the thumb is usually not.

Damien achieved the prehensile grasp at around at the end of his third month. The first object that he was able to easily grab and pick up were some of Hunter's nerf gun bullets. He is now working on the pincer grasp (picking up objects with thumb and forefinger) and has nearly mastered it (an average 12 month milestone).

Damien, at two months, had grown tired of his detail board and was looking around the room for new things

4. Stage III Visual Competence: Appreciation of detail within a configuration

Age achieved: 1.5 months old

Description: At birth, babies can see only light and dark. Soon after, babies begin to see outlines. The next step is being able to see "detail within a configuration", for example the details of mother's face within the outline of her head.

Damien achieved this stage of development at approximately 4-5 weeks of age. He began to smile in response to facial expressions (without sound). He began to study detail on his daddy's camouflage uniform, or the patterns on his bouncy seat. By two months, he was studying details from across the room.

By 5-6 months, he had achieved the next stage (level IV) of development: depth perception. At seven months now his depth perception is quite good - he creeps quickly and easily without running into things much anymore, and reaches well with good accuracy.

Damien, seven months, quite happy with himself that he is no longer afraid of the vacuum

5. Stage III Auditory Competence: Appreciation of meaningful sounds

Age achieved: 2 months

Description: Baby listens to many sounds in his environment from birth, and will soon begin to understand their meaning. For example, the bathtub water running, the door opening, and mother's voice. In family members' voices, he begins to understand the tone of voice and their meanings.

Damien began to be comforted by a soothing voice at around two months old. He started laughing at silliness, and being scared by upset voices. He was deathly afraid of the vacuum for a while, now he seems to have proudly conquered his fear.

Between one and four months, he also achieve the next stage (level IV) of development: "Understanding of two words of speech". At four weeks he began to understand the meaning of the word "nurse". Other words soon followed, including "potty" (and other words associated with it) and "up". 

Damien at two months, laughing with a tickle

6. Stage III Tactile Competence: Appreciation of gnostic sensation

Age achieved: 2 months

Description: "Gnostic" comes from the Greek root word for knowledge, "gnosis". Gnostic sensation means, literally, "knowing sensation". At birth babies cannot feel very well - they may not respond consistently to pain, hot, or cold. Soon they begin to respond to these more intense sensations quickly and instantly. The next stage is to be able to respond to more variances in sensation and be able to appreciate them - for example, the subtleties of cool and warm, the peaceful calm of a soothing massage, or the humor of a boisterous tickle.

Damien achieved this stage at about 2 months old. He began to respond to tickles, enjoy his infant massages, and notice the differences in textures and what made him comfortable or uncomfortable. At four months, he achieved stage IV, "Tactile understanding of the third dimension in objects which appear to be flat". This is when he started to notice small things (like specks on the floor), or things that clearly looked flat (like a piece of paper) and started feeling for them and trying to grab them.

Summary

So in summary, this is what my notes on Damien's little Developmental Profile look like (in the back of my How Smart is Your Baby book) for him at seven months, one day old:

Motor:

 Sensory:

He is still perfecting his stage IV (green) areas, but overall is doing very well. Environment really does make such a huge difference!

Thank you for your comments!

Damien is 7 months, 0 week old

Tutorial: How to Make a Picture Detail Checkerboard (Infant Visual Stimulation)

Damien loving his new picture board, 8 weeks old

Once baby is seeing more details (rather than just outlines), a great way to encourage them to use their vision and give them something interesting to look at and explore is to make a simple picture board.

In How Smart is Your Baby, Glenn Doman recommends adding different colored silhouettes of various objects to your baby's checkerboard, and rotating them regularly so that they don't become "like old wallpaper: beloved but not very stimulating".

There is the recommendation of course but not really any guidance on how to build this rotatable checkerboard. 

Here was my solution:

I printed out the colored silhouettes and attached them to black and white squares, then laminated them. My original idea was to stick velcro dots on the back of each one along with velcro dots on the board, but with as many squares as there were it would end up not only being costly in velcro but also difficult to store all the now-bulky cards.

My solution was to make clear pockets on the checkerboard where the squares could be slid in, using clear contact paper. This tutorial will show you how to make those pockets.

Materials

The materials you will need are:

• The checkerboard (a piece of foam board with 5-inch black squares glued on - tutorial here)
• The picture cards (printable color silhouette version available here, as well as a stencil [ink-saving] version here)
• 12-inch wide roll of clear contact paper
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Yard stick (or ruler, straightedge) 

1. Cut a piece of contact paper that goes about an inch over each end of the checkerboard.

2. Cut that piece in half, to six inches wide. The piece you will use for your pocket should look like the one above.

The next step is to take that piece of contact paper, and fold part of it over so that it sticks to itself and creates a clear, non-sticky plastic pocket.

3. Use yardstick/ruler to make a straight line that is 2.5 inches away from the edge, then fold at that line, backing-side up, and crease with your fingernail. 

You will then have this (above): a 2.5 inch "pocket"with one inch of sticky contact paper on the bottom to secure pocket to board.

4. Next, cut a piece out of the ends where they will wrap around. This part will secure to the back of the board. 

The end result will look like this (above). It is important that you cut out this rectangle about a quarter inch past the end of the board. You don't want any of the sticky part of the contact paper to be on the front of the board - if there is, the picture cards will stick to it when you slide them to the edge.

5. Next, unfold contact paper, lay flat, and carefully remove backing.

6. Take the contact paper and very carefully fold it over so that the "pocket" section sticks to itself. Start in the middle, at the edge, and carefully smooth out little by little towards one end, then go back to the middle and smooth out towards the other end.

Note: you will notice from the above pictures that the contact paper was actually folded "backwards" when it still had the backing on it. This is very important to do because then it will "stand up". If you fold it the other way, as soon as you take off the backing the entire thing will stick to itself and will not be smooth at all.

Your end result should look like this.

7. Flip over the pocket you just made and line up the bottom of the non-sticky part with the bottom of one row of boxes on the checkerboard.

8. Smooth out pocket so it sticks securely to board.

9. Pull on end pieces as hard as you can to make the pocket lay as flat and tight as possible, then wrap around and attach sticky ends to back.

The end result (after you've added all of your pockets) should look something like this.

The folding and sticking the contact paper to itself is the hardest part - I actually had to throw away three different "pockets" due to incurable bubbles and wrinkles that happen when the contact paper sticks to itself too soon. Try not to be too worried about perfectionism, though - the point is to grow your baby's vision, not win any kind of award.

10. After you've made your board, get out your cards, slide some of them into the pockets, and enjoy!

It's as good idea to change out your cards and/or move them around daily. Keep baby visually exploring and, in turn, visually growing!

"Incline thine ear, O LORD, and hear; open thine eyes, O LORD, and see..." 

Isaiah 37:17

Damien is 8 weeks old

Tutorial: How to Make a Checkerboard (Infant Stimulation)

It is now well-recognized that newborns prefer looking at bold, black and white patterns.

Less recognized is that by looking at these patterns, baby's vision will actually grow because he is using it and strengthening his weak eye muscles by doing so.

Newborn babies really can't see all that much so it is important that we create an environment of things that are easy for them to see (high contrast) and encourages them to use their vision. A baby in an environment of pastel tones and white walls will simply not use his vision at all - he can't see anything, so what's the point?

Making a checkerboard for you baby is the perfect way to stimulate their very newly-developing vision and create the ideal environment for their growing senses. Since you probably can't repaint your whole house, the checkerboard is a portable visual environment that can go wherever the baby goes.

Here is how:

Materials:

1. A 30-inch x 20-inch piece of foam board
2. Sheet of black poster board
3. Yard stick (or ruler/straight edge)
4. Pencil
5. Scissors
6. Glue stick
7. Roll of clear contact paper

Foam board is ideal since it is very light-weight and won't hurt the baby if the board accidentally falls on him.

1. First measure and cut the black posterboard into 5-inch squares. You will need 12 squares for a 30x20-inch board. Another option is to use black card stock or printer paper.

2. Lay out squares on board in checkerboard pattern.

3. Glue squares on one at a time. For best results apply glue to both the square and the board.

4. Next apply clear contact paper. Since contact paper is only 12 inches wide you will have to use several strips. Cut enough so that the contact paper can wrap around the ends and sides.

5. Wrap contact paper around the edges.

And viola! You have a beautiful checkerboard to grow your baby's vision.

"But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear." 

Matthew 13:16

Damien is one week old