A Cup A Day

This week is going to be all about Pediatrics as my classmates and I look forward to our first Peds exam on Friday. The fun thing is I really don’t know how to draw babies, so in my notes they look like a series of big round balls that end up looking like little sumo wrestlers 🙂 However, it has been quite fun sketching the little dudes. THEY HAVE SUCH BIG HEADS!

 There is so much to know about the developing human being, it really is very fascinating and quite overwhelming. I’m really interested in the development of speech and here is kind of a cute mile stone:

Baby Monk Rocking Out ~ Canonical babbling

Around 6 -7 months babies begin this canonical babbling phase where their “speech” is just a ton of strung together vowels with some ‘easy’ to speak consonants like “p” “b” and “m” “d”. The reason they start here with these sounds is because speech really happens durring exhale, as air leaves and passes over your vocal chords you make sounds. Now play around with a few sounds in your mouth, vowels are WAY easier to say than some of those tricky hard consonants –> Just think of the weird contortions you have to make with your mouth.

googogapaaaaaoooomamada da da ma ma ?

When babies are born their ribs are oriented very horizontally, limiting the amount of air they can take in at a time so they have a very high respiratory rate (fast little breathers). As they develop and this rib angle decreases, so does their respiratory rate allowing are tiny friends to start expressing themselves more verbally.

Pretty horizontal right? When we (“grown-ups”) take a nice big breath our chest expands and the ribs move upward to be more horizontal … but babies, they are already there. (silly babies)

Check out this adorbs little girl as she gets her babble on

So what else is happening around 6 – 7 months? 

Ask a GW PT student or:

Gross Motor – Rolling from their backs to tummies (6), Sitting w/o support on floor and prone extension (7)

Fine Motor – Palmar grasp to radial grasp and raking of small objects