'Sticky Mittens' Give Babies A Head Start

Tammy Tieu writes "Duke University psychologists have discovered that fitting infants with Velcro-covered 'sticky mittens' gives them a developmental jump start in learning to explore objects. The researchers placed the mittens on infants too young to actually grasp objects, but the mittens allowed the infants to snag Velcro-fitted toys merely by swiping at them. In comparisons with infants who hadn't used the mittens, found the psychologists, those who had used the mitten subsequently showed more sophisticated abilities to explore objects."

Comments

Re:Advanced kids?

[baldass_newbie]

I don't know. My daughter is 4 months old, too. She does swat and can grab things (she grabbed the 'teething keys' in the Neglect-O-Matic the other day - I was astounded.) But it's not like she does anything with it other than stick it in her mouth and even that's a recent development.
Nothing like: "other researchers had found evidence that infants between 2 and 5 months of age are developing strategies for exploring objects, like switching between visual and oral exploration"
I mean, you might think you're seeing it, but, really, how much of that is the kid just doing something and how much of it is the psychologist ascribing it to them?