Sensory Development in Babies: The Sense of Touch
The sense of touch in the development of sensory organs in infants is a sense that begins in the womb, continues after birth and develops as age progresses. Just as our babies are restless and unhappy when they get their diapers dirty, they are also relieved and happy when their mothers hold them and caress them. Therefore, the sense of touch undoubtedly has a miraculous effect.
In addition to its relaxing and happiness-enhancing side, it is also remarkable that it has a developing side. In particular, the results of the studies show that the more different tissues our babies and children touch, the more the tactile discrimination system develops. The tactile discrimination system is the system that allows us to distinguish the tissues we touch. In other words, when we touch a sharp object, the information that it is sharp is felt by the receptors on our fingers, this information is sent to the central nervous system and causes this perception. Another example is; like feeling the small key and pulling it out without using visuals from a full pocket…
Tactile discrimination system
The more developed the tactile discrimination system, the more positively affected finger control and finger manipulative movements. This, on the other hand, positively affects important skills such as pencil grip. In short, the tactile discrimination system is one of the cornerstones of our fine motor skills.
Our children, who have weak tactile discrimination systems, especially have poor fine motor development, because they do not get enough feedback from the concept objects, they have difficulty in controlling and manipulating the concept ideally. This is like when we put on cleaning gloves and try to button up. Therefore, if our children’s discriminative system is weak, it is much more effective to apply studies to develop their tactile system without doing different conceptual studies with it.
What are the Objects for Developing the Sense of Touch in Babies?
So how does the tactile discrimination system develop in the home environment? It is possible to do studies and activities for this system during infancy. For example, you can give your 5-6 month old baby a blanket made of different textures and make sure that he touches it a lot. Or, you can make a great contribution to the development of the tactile discrimination system by asking them to touch all kinds of textures that you see different in your environment.
In a child who has finished the oral period, the options increase considerably. For example, set up different texture pools. Sandbox, bean pool, mud pool, etc. Put a small object that your child likes in these pools and encourage them to find that object. In this way, you both stimulate the tactile system and develop the tactile discrimination system.
One activity that our children particularly enjoy and enjoy is shaving foam games:
Squeeze the shaving foam on a flat surface, first ask your child to play freely with the foam. After stimulating his tactile system, you can move on to more functional work. Again, you can put very small objects in the foam and ask them to find it and/or you can ask them to make pictures on the foam with their index finger.
A case study for older children (aged 5-6 years): put different objects on a table, then cover them with a cloth and ask them to identify the objects by feeling with their hands, without being visual.
This and similar works are both fun and highly nurturing. These foundation stones must be in place in order to lay the foundation for a child’s fine motor development. It is recommended that you apply the above activities / studies to support the faster development of these cornerstones.
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