Seeing IS believing!

Baby does see! Even that newborn sees. We are born able to see yet I still hear well educated adults saying that their newborn "looks as if she is looking at me but I know she can't see me."

Well the adult is incorrect. The newborn sees but has more accurate vision in a range of about 10 inches. That's just about the distance baby is from the adult face when the baby is being held or being breast fed.

As the baby ages, the vision improves and we see babies actively watching and following objects with the eyes. Remember what was said in the last posing about our "old" perceptions of children. Go look at the picture of the newborn. See how large the head is? The head of a newborn is almost it's adult size - it's BIG. The head is well developed at birth and the eyes work - but the head is still too large for the baby to control - so the eyes follow but it will take more growth for the head to follow. [That's also why we carefully hold a baby's head when we pick it up and cradle it.]

As the baby develops, perception is an important part of the cognitive process. For a young infant, if an object can not be seen - it does not exist! So seeing IS believing.

An interesting task for adults is to get ourselves down on the level of an infant and start looking around. What do you REALLY see? More about this next time - with photos.