How to Stimulate a 8 month old's Senses

Video Transcript

"You have an eight month old and you are wanting to continue to work on sensory motor development. Hi I'm Dr. Donna to give you tips on how to do that. One thing that you can do is get an old phone. Kids obviously at this point in development, at eight months they have probably seen you talking on the phone one too many times. They probably have started screaming. Well, give them the opportunity to talk on the phone. Pretend to play with them. Give them conversation. If you want to you can use the real phone and call and have somebody speak to them on the phone. It's a whole new sensation to hear it from the other line. Purchase some drum. I'll tell you what drum sets, music sets are wonderful at this age to work on sensory motor. Have your child sit on your lap, put the drum face in front of them. Let them pound on it, pound loud, pound soft, you name it, fast slow. Just give them the opportunity to feel that sensation of drumming. They'll love it and you'll love it. Make sure you are singing songs when you are doing this too. Make up some silly songs. I always did that. It didn't make sense but I loved it. Books, books are a wonderful way to create sensory motor stimulation visual tracking, let them see the colors, let them see the shapes, start to talk about what is in a book. Talk about circles, and triangles, this is a wonderful opportunity to also promote different cognitive concepts. Get books that have real life pictures. I think it is really important that children see actual pictures of things in their environment instead of just always cartoon pictures. Continue with the DVD's, love DVD's, I'm a big fan of them and as long as you are interacting with them just don't plop your child in front of a TV with the DVD. Let them see them, let them talk to you about them. Another opportunity at this point. They are starting to really have great muscle control, give them the opportunity again to see bubbles. They'll love them. I'm Dr. Donna with a few tips. I hope that helps you. Good luck."