Openness for common ideas

Society

Building relationships with other people, getting along in groups, asserting themselves and being considerate – a child has to learn all of these things. Yet even the very young are equipped with a fine antenna for their social environment.

PhD. Karin Pfaller-Frank

Speech therapist

MAM expert Karin Pfaller-Frank, who is extensively involved with children’s language development, knows that babies try to communicate with trusted care-givers as early as the first few months of life through verbal utterances, eye contact or pointing. More and more often, the child points their index finger at a toy, for example, to signal to mom or dad: “Look, we both think that’s interesting.” Infants like to mimic the behavior of their parents – so it is important not only for language acquisition that parents actively engage with their baby and chat and maintain eye contact from an early age. After that, playing together with siblings or others their age becomes more and more important in order to promote social skills and to learn how to share.