Producer/host: Cathy Jacobs
Topic: Seeing Babies with New Eyes
How has our view of babies and their abilities changed over the past 30 years? What do babies need most from their parents and caregivers? What are some characteristics of young babies?
Guests: Murielle Dibiase and Marella Averill from Southern Kennebec Child Development Services
Note: The first few minutes of the program were not recorded. Here is the quote that Cathy Jacobs started the show with this month:
” Until about 30 years ago, it was a common misconception, even among scientists, that newborns are incapable beings who do little more than sleep, cry and digest food. We now know that newborns are competent and have some amazing abilities. For example, newborns feel pain, think, dream, differentiate tastes and track a slowly moving object with their eyes. Perhaps the most striking example of infants’ complex abilities is shown by two-hour-old infants’ preference for hearing something their mother read aloud repeatedly before they were born. Clearly, many abilities are already finely tuned…”
