The First Relationship

"Are you mother’s little baby?…… Are yooouuu mother’s little baby?…… … Aaaare yooouuuu mother’s liiiiittle baaaaby?……" A mother is conversing with her little baby. She speaks with a high-pitched voice and her facial expressions are exaggerated, both in duration and in style. The baby is not yet sufficiently developed to respond in words to the mother’s repetitive and enthusiastic question, but somehow the mother perceives the baby to be fully capable of taking part in the conversation and she feels encouraged to go on. Those of us witnessing the “conversation” notice the joy and sheer fun emanating from the duo. We intuitively sense their mutual love and find it sweet. According to research described in the classic child development book “The First Relationship – Infant and Mother,” by pre-eminent psychologist, Daniel Stern, and according to a host of others, the vital role in baby brain development in these innocent play episodes is confirmed. These common “conversations” between mother and baby form or sculpt the extremely rapidly developing baby brain at a neurological level and equip the baby with the range of fundamental non-verbal skills which will become vital to the baby’s ability to cope with human life later on. This type of interaction is carried out in a very specific development period of the baby – the period from approximately 2-6 months, where the baby is intensely pre-occupied with the human face and actively seeks out social interactions with adults. Using “modern” filming techniques of the 1970’s, employing 16 millimeter film, Daniel Stern was the first scientist to notice the only universal language that exists, that of “Motherese.” Across the globe, women from all language groups are using this language to communicate with their babies: high-pitched voice, facial expressions that are drawn out and exaggerated, slowed down clear speech, slightly varying each sentence’s rhythm and duration. All these factors became apparent when the fast and brief conversations between mother and baby were slowed down with the help of the film camera, where recordings could be analyzed down to a 24th of a second. Essentially, what Daniel Stern realized was this: mothers, intuitively, and without any particular conscious hindsight, were training the baby to read the vast multitude of facial expressions that exist. Mothers were naturally performing small acts, or plays together with the baby, deliberately fixating each individual facial expression and drawing it out in time. This allowed the baby to recognize and record the communication. Mothers were simply improvising, changing facial expressions gradually, minutely, sometimes abruptly or grossly; all done in a completely spontaneous, spur-of-the–moment manner, providing whatever would maintain the baby’s interest and excitement for the interactive play taking place. Likewise with the verbal conversations, sentences were repeated again and again, as when learning a new language – which indeed is the case for a baby. The individual words were often pronounced quite slowly, or rather, they were drawn out, syllable for syllable, so that the baby again could manage to catch the words and really get a grasp for them and their sounds and rhythms. Viewing this approach from a pedagogical angle, all this training and learning was done in an atmosphere of play, excitement and fun. Maybe this is why teachers who are able to combine learning with excitement have always made the greatest impression on us later in life. Our first teacher (our mother) was that way. Daniel Stern realized something very important, not just about the mother (or any other emotionally engaged caregiver), but also about the baby. The baby is far from just a passive recipient in these play episodes. How is that possible - how does the baby manage to participate in the play and provide that essential feed-back that so spurs and excites the mother? A baby at about three months surely does not have particularly great control over its body, with the notable exception of its eyes (glance direction) and its neck musculature. Gradually, the intended social smile also sets in, in response to all the fun and games that the mother presents. Deliberately using its eyes and thus its glance, in combination with the direction of its face, the baby is able to completely control conversations with the mother. It became clear, when the fast conversations were slowed down to 24 pictures per second, that it was in fact the baby that often invited the conversations to take place by signaling with its glance, and the gleam in its eyes, and the direction of its face that it was ready. The mother would catch the clue and on went the fast and improvised play episode, with gradually increasing excitement building up in the baby as the result of masterfully performed facial choreography and verbal variations of the mother. When the excitement became too much for the baby, the baby itself actively broke off the contact by either turning its head, or averting eye contact. By repeating these play episodes again and again, each time with a slightly different accentuation or variation on the part of the mother, in as little as 4 months, the baby makes the miraculous transition from what appears to be a practically clueless baby to becoming the master of all the fundamental non-verbal skills required to conduct a proper conversation. The baby also learns fundamental lessons about being able to handle excitement or arousal, as it is called by psychologists. With even a remotely sufficiently sensitive mother, who respects the baby’s quite clear signals, the baby learns that it is capable of actively shutting out stimuli which are becoming a source of too much internal excitement. It does so by simply turning its head and/or closing its eyes. It also learns to regulate attention by intentionally maintaining eye contact, locking its glance to that of its parent or other caregiver. And it learns to read and interpret faces correctly. All these fundamental skills are indispensable for human life, vital precursors to a skillful conduct of verbal communication. Additionally, as later researchers have suggested, it seems that the neurological foundation for being able to experience joy is also stimulated by the baby being actively stimulated or pushed into high-arousal states (baby very excited in a positive sense) by the mother. It is as if the baby’s “joy muscle” is being created and sculpted by these joyful interactions. Much like a muscle needs to be used to grow or to avoid atrophy, the neurological circuits and neurotransmitters responsible for creating the sensation of joy in the human being need to be stimulated in this very important phase of the baby’s life. Isn’t that wonderful, how fun and development go so well together?

Literature:  Daniel Stern. The First Relationship – Infant and Mother, Harvard University Press, 1977 Link: Talk To Your Baby Campaign, Transforming Lives. http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talk_to_your_baby