Gabriel’s environment has influenced him greatly. At nine months old, Gabriel could understand a few words and point to something he wanted but at twelve months old, Gabriel could clearly understand a couple of dozen words. I think that this is partly due to the fact that me, my husband, and Gabriel started regularly visiting grandma and grandpa's house on weekends. Gabriel loves to play with their little dog, and gets a lot of attention from grandma and grandpa. In fact, Gabriel’s first words were the name of grandma and grandpa’s dog. I think that these chances for Gabriel to socialize with extended family and learn new words on a regular basis greatly increased Gabriel’s socialization, vocabulary and language skills. I have also been showing Gabriel how to take care of the growing number of plants we have on the sunny balcony of the apartment to give Gabriel a chance to further bond with me and work on his fine motor skills. Gabriel is very interested in music, and we have often danced with him. He has clapped and sang along with the TV. We have also taught him some short little preschool songs and enjoy dancing or moving around together to music. I think these experiences have helped Gabriel become above average in his gross motor skills. I believe the lack of experiences with other children have contributed to Gabriel’s below average skills in language.
Gabriel is now able to focus on tasks and show self control for long periods of time. I have heard that this is unusually good for his age. He is pretty cooperative with other children, but can become a little aggressive over a favorite toy, and needs to be reminded to share. Gabriel is toilet trained now, and rarely has any accidents. When the occasional accident does occur he is embarrassed and is showing signs of self awareness. He is communicating better, but has difficulty understanding other people's perspectives and using plural and past tenses. Gabriel knows he is a boy now, and has begun to categorize behavior and objects as made for boys or girls. He prefers playing with boys, but gets along pretty well with girls. We are still working on socialization with other children.
My husband and I are big believers in aspects of social learning theory. We are careful to make sure that our actions are appropriate and beneficial for Gabriel at all times and we love to set a good example for Gabriel. As mentioned above, Gabriel loves to help me take care of our plants and models the way that I water them. He also loves to dance the way that we do. Money is tight for us right now because we are saving to buy a house but we love to do inexpensive activities with Gabriel so that he can learn from us in new situations such as going to the zoo, the petting farm, museums and the park. We also keep our actions in mind when following elements of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. We make sure that we talk to Gabriel a lot and attempt to pass on our information to him about the world around him. Gabriel loves to follow me around the house and I teach him about everything I do. We also talk to Gabriel about the importance of values like sharing with the other children he plays with, listening to his teachers, etc. In addition, we recognize aspects of information processing theory. We try to give Gabriel interesting stimuli and encourage positive behavior.
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2 comments:
That is great that Gabriel is doing so well with his language! My son Aiden has done well with learning but I do need to get him out more and talking with others on a regular basis to encourage his language skills more.
My husband and I are also very cautious of our actions and words around Aiden. We too are big on the Soical Learning Theory. It does have a huge positive effect on the little one!
That is great that you are exposing him to so many different influences especially grand parents and animals. Veyr good job!
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