Eyes that see well; full colour, depth, beauty & movement
Level 3
LEVEL 3.
EYES THAT SEE WELL; FULL COLOUR, DEPTH, BEAUTY AND MOVEMENT. Baby’s ability to see and vision development.
Baby’s OMSDEP: Her vision development intentions:
To literally see more of the world. To see more detail in faces (for example, eyes, ears and noses), paintings, floor tile patterns, animals, fabric prints and other objects.
Baby recognises faces:
At this level baby is seeing detail in objects that appeared to her only as outlines in Level 2. She will progressively develop the ability to see even more detail in people’s faces and various objects as she passes through this level.
She is now likely to see a person’s face including their nose, eyes, ears, skin colour, eyebrows, hair and other facial features if they are less than one metre away from her. As a result, she will now begin to recognise familiar people such as mother, father, brother, sister and family pets.
She may also be apprehensive now if she sees a stranger or a facial expression that does not appear friendly. This is a time when visiting grandparents, whose faces may not be familiar to baby, might cause her to cry when she literally sees them for the first time: Even if it has only been a few weeks since they visited her.
This is also a time when baby is likely to respond to a smiling face with a smile or a frowning face with tears.
This is an excellent time to encourage baby’s natural social development by introducing her to many new, happy and friendly people. She should thoroughly enjoy being the centre of attention from others; and should develop a naturally positive attitude towards others if their attention is positive, friendly and loving.
Vision, Language and Social Development:
Introducing her to others at this level benefits her social development, her vision development and her language development as she sees and hears friendly people speaking to her. Introducing baby to many new people is not difficult in the right environment. For example a trip to a supermarket can provide introduction opportunities at checkouts, both with supermarket employee(s) and with other shoppers who queue with baby and you. Then, if you can walk about a shopping centre building, there are shoppers and various shopkeepers and sales staff to meet. There are also opportunities for baby to meet people on, or while waiting for, public transport such as trains or buses. Introductions are also possible at swimming pools (in and out of the water), theatres, baby gym classes, baby health centres, play parks or when meeting neighbours. Meeting 25 people each day gives baby plenty of opportunity to experience and identify different facial characteristics. Baby’s immediate family including mother, father, brothers and sisters can be counted in the twenty-five. Although twenty-five introductions each day could be difficult if you stay at home all day, when you are out and about most people are very pleased to be able to greet a young baby if they are given the opportunity. If, for example, you say to baby “That person has a red umbrella.” Then the person with a red umbrella will almost certainly say something like, “ What a beautiful baby,” and lean down for a closer look.
Focusing on a single point:
Many children and adults who wear spectacles or have reading difficulties have not developed their brain’s ability to simultaneously adjust each of their two eyes to focus precisely on what they try to look at. This inability to focus usually lies in the brain and not the eyes themselves. Many children and adults would not need to wear spectacles if they had been given the opportunity to fully develop the visual parts of their brains as young children. Magnificent Children.Love parents, of course, provide their child with many visual development opportunities to help the child to develop excellent vision.
Until now baby’s eyes have acted somewhat independently when she has been looking at the world. She has not been focusing on the objects she has been looking at. Baby’s brain has to develop to Level 4 before she can clearly focus. When adults, such as ourselves, look at objects we naturally turn each eye slightly inward to focus on the object we want to see. We change the angle to which we turn each eye inward whenever we want to focus on (that is see clearly) another person or object. You can test an adult’s ability to focus by having her look at your finger held 350 mm in front of her nose. If you then move your finger slowly towards her nose, and she continues to focus on it, you will plainly see both of her eyes move in towards her nose. Her eyes will be in the position sometimes referred to as being ‘cross-eyed’.
If you hold your finger, or a small flashlight, 300 mm in front of baby’s nose and then slowly move it towards her nose she is very unlikely to focus on it; and you will not see both of her eyes move in towards her nose. It may be that neither eye turns inward or that only one eye turns inward. At best it is possible that both eyes will turn inward for a moment only, but will not remain focused together as your finger moves towards her nose. If she does maintain focus, and does so throughout the day, then she is now a Level 4 baby.
At this Level 3 baby is still developing the ability to naturally focus both eyes on a single point like an adult can. This ability to focus is what most adults learnt to do when they were children at the end of visual Level 3 and entering Level 4.
Creeping and focusing:
At Level 3 of “Baby’s Great Adventure” baby begins creeping. Creeping can be of enormous assistance to help baby to focus her eyes naturally (as was crawling). When baby creeps she must look where she places her hands. She will notice that sometimes she can more easily see where she places her hands than at other times. The times she sees more easily will be when her eyes are more in focus. Her OMSDEP will then become to focus her eyes wherever she looks, including focusing on each point where she places, or will place, her hands when she is creeping.
Although there are many opportunities for baby to focus on people and objects she sees around her there are several key reasons why creeping is particularly important and becomes central to her vision OMSDEP.
Creeping is a more efficient form of transport than crawling; it uses far less energy and is much faster. Therefore baby is highly motivated to do it well and using her vision with intensity develops her vision even more.
When she creeps baby wants to avoid accidents. If she falls, or puts her hand in the wrong place she can get injured and hurt. One way baby avoids accidents is by developing the ability to focus clearly on the points where she places her hands when she creeps.
When she creeps baby is able to use her sense of touch and the length of her arms, hands and fingers to test out what she can see with her eyes and vice versa. Proper focusing helps her to properly test what she can feel and vice versa. Baby does not need such accurate environmental feedback to protect herself from accidents when she looks at the world around her. Therefore focusing her eyes is not as important to her then as when she is creeping.
A very important point about baby focusing when she is creeping is this: She is doing what is called near point focusing, that is, she is very often focusing on a point near to her eyes and not far off in the distance. When people read they use near point focusing. Some people cannot focus on a near point and require spectacles to assist them to focus. By developing her near point focusing ability at this Level baby is well prepared to learn to read. To the contrary children who do not develop near point focusing at this level may have difficulty learning to read and may require spectacles or other visual aids in the future.
As stated above, creeping is an important natural contributor to both baby’s mobility development and her ability to focus on near points (technically known as ‘convergence of vision’). It is important, therefore, to encourage baby to creep for the full time she wishes and to avoid using walking frames or other devices that unnaturally limit the amount of creeping she can do.
Activities for parents and babies:
Twenty-five times each day:
Five hundred millimetres from baby’s face change your facial expression two or three times. For example; smile, open your mouth, lift your eyebrows, wink and purse your lips in a kiss.
2. Introduce baby to 25 or more people (spread throughout the day) each day if possible. Ensure that they are closer than 750 millimetres to her face. The same people can be reintroduced each day but it is best to gradually introduce new people over several weeks if possible.
3. Place many contrasting and colourful posters, paintings, wall hangings or other similar objects on walls baby sees frequently. Move some of the objects to different positions three times each day and show baby you have done this.
4. If possible place several multi-coloured multi-design carpets on the floor, move them three times each day and show baby you have done this.
5. Three times each day show baby Magnificent Knowledge cards having contrasting colours and shapes. Artwork cards, such as many Monet paintings, geometric shape cards and many, many others are suitable. See the book Magnificent Knowledge for information about these cards.
6. Do the creeping activity in BABY’S GREAT ADVENTURE…Level 3 (Chapter 19) to develop baby’s near point focus.
7. Each day take baby to a museum, art gallery, gymkhana, zoo, shopping centre, or other place having a wide variety of visual experiences and considerable detail. Stop and observe and discuss clothes, animals, paintings or whatever is on display.
8. Express delight whenever you notice baby is watching something. For example say delightedly, “You watch that really well, darling.”
About Creeping and Focusing:
Baby’s natural sight development at Level 3, which raises her to Level 4, is very positively affected by the amount of creeping she does at Level 3. After reading EYES THAT SEE WELL… Level 3 it is very worthwhile to read EYES THAT SEE WELL… Level 4 and then BABY’S GREAT ADVENTURE… Level 3 that describes creeping. EYES THAT SEE WELL… Level 4 also mentions how baby’s creeping assists her to develop excellent focus.
If baby does enough good quality creeping at BABY’S GREAT ADVENTURE …Level 3 her eye focussing abilities should develop well and she will be very well prepared for her OMSDEP in EYES THAT SEE WELL… Level 4. Baby should then be able to do her sight development OMSDEP at Level 4 easily.
What baby should be doing at this Level of development:
Recognising familiar objects and people by sight. Be sure she can recognise them by sight and not because they make a sound or touch her.
Reacting to changes in your facial expression. For example; she may smile at you, if you smile at her.
She may cry or demonstrate concern if she sees an unfamiliar face.
What baby should be doing as she enters the next Level of development:
Focusing both eyes on a single point at the same time.
You can usually assume that baby can focus on a single point if she does both of the following:
(i). When her eyes are open; both eyes simultaneously only look straight ahead or move together to the left or right and,
(ii). Both eyes move in towards her nose simultaneously (that is she goes ‘cross eyed’) if you use the ‘focus on finger’ test mentioned below. If this happens she is probably focusing effectively.
(iii) Her eyes do not move in different directions at any time during the day, such as one eye briefly looking left or right while the other eye looks straight ahead. If one eye does briefly look in a different direction to the other then she is not focusing at that time.
Confirming focus on a point. The ‘focus on finger test’:
You can generally confirm if baby’s eyes focus on a point correctly by holding one of your fingers, or a small flashlight, up about 350 millimetres in front of her nose and asking her to look at it. When she looks at your finger move it towards her nose and watch her eyes. The eyes should both remain fixed on your finger and she should become what is commonly called ‘cross-eyed’ when your finger reaches her nose. Moving the finger from the 350-millimetre point to her nose should take only about two or three seconds maximum.
If baby’s eyes follow your finger to her nose without one eye turning further inwardly or outwardly than the other then her focus and depth perception is probably OK. Nonetheless, it is also useful to observe her eyes each day for a few weeks to see if one eye ever turns further in or further out than the other.
If you do observe a difference then she may need more intensive developmental activities (such as more creeping), or therapy. One benefit for children and parents doing the Magnificentparent.com activities is that the environmental simulation children receive by doing the activities solves many of children’s minor, and sometimes major, health and developmental problems, such as poor ability to focus on a point and poor depth perception. If such children were not doing the Magnificentparent.com activities then they would likely be faced with future difficulties such as having to wear spectacles or not being able to read well.
When she can do as above baby graduates to the next Level, Eyes That See Well Level 4. Click on the diploma below to move on to Level 4.
An average child is likely to move on to Level 4 at about age 12 months.
A magnificentparent.com child could move on to Level 4 at about age 6 months.