Playing video games may affect some children’s physical functioning
It was once believed that infants lacked the ability to think or form complex ideas and remained without cognition until they learned language. It is now known that babies are aware of their surroundings and interested in exploration from the time they are born. From birth, babies begin to actively learn. They gather, sort, and process information from around them, using the data to develop perception and thinking skills.
Children with linguistic intelligence excel at reading, writing, telling stories, and doing crossword or other word puzzles.
as soon as they are born, infants begin learning to use their senses to explore the world around them. Most newborns can focus on and follow moving objects, distinguish the pitch and volume of sound, see all colors and distinguish their hue and brightness, and start anticipating events, such as sucking at the sight of a nipple. By three months old, infants can recognize faces; imitate the facial expressions of others, such as smiling and frowning; and respond to familiar sounds.
At six months of age, babies are just beginning to understand how the world around them works. They imitate sounds, enjoy hearing their own voice, recognize parents, fear strangers, distinguish between animate and inanimate objects, and base distance on the size of an object. They also realize that if they drop an object, they can pick it up again. At four to seven months, babies can recognize their names.
By nine months, infants can imitate gestures and actions, experiment with the physical properties of objects, understand simple words such as “no,” and understand that an object still exists even when they cannot see it. They also begin to test parental responses to their behavior, such as throwing food on the floor. They remember the reaction and test the parents again to see if they get the same reaction.
Part of the problem regarding intelligence stems from the fact that nobody has adequately defined what intelligence really means. In everyday life, people have a general understanding that some people are “smart,” but when they try to define “smart” precisely, they often have difficulty because a person can be gifted in one area and average or below in another. To explain this phenomenon, some psychologists have developed theories to include multiple components of intelligence.
At 12 months of age, babies can follow a fast moving object; can speak two to fours words, including “mama” and “papa”; imitate animal sounds; associate names with objects; develop attachments to objects, such as a toy or blanket; and experience separation anxiety when away from their parents.
These children process knowledge through their senses. They usually excel at athletics and sports , dance, and crafts.
By 18 months of age, babies are able to understand about 10–50 words; identify body parts; feel a sense of ownership by using the word “my” with certain people or objects; and can follow directions that involve two different tasks, such as picking up toys and putting them in a box.
Some research suggests that playing video games may affect some children’s physical functioning. Effects range from triggering epileptic seizures to causing heart rate and blood pressure changes. Serious adverse physical effects, however, are transient or limited to a small number of players. Research has also identified benefits associated with creative and prosocial uses of video games, as in physical rehabilitation and oncology (Funk, 1993). Proponents of video games suggest that they may be a friendly way of introducing children to computers, and may increase children’s hand-eye coordination and attention to detail.
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