This year will be marked as the 75th Independence day of the nation. ‘Nation First, Always First’ will be the theme of India’s 75th Independence Day celebrations at the Red Fort.

Greetings of the day!

Threya Child Development Solutions in it's effort to create awareness about child development services would like to share a video blog from 'our 'Ask your Expert Series'. Know about Physiotherapy services and it's efficacy through Tele-Practice from our expert Ms. Sai Krupa Mannemuddu. 

Know about sensory integration and occupational therapy services through Tele-Practice from our expert Ms. Shilpa Srivatsava.

Ambika's words: "You are what you eat", this phrase made sense when I started seeing most of the people around unhealthy, suffering lifestyle disorders caused by wrong dietary habits. The desire to make people be healthy, to understand the body and to help them achieve their health and fitness goals drove me into studying nutrition and walk onto the path of health and wellness.  

Brain is a neural network and neuro activity is highly active during the early years of the child, as the brain process every input from the environment. The signals flows and get processed through the core of the brain. The network structures and links gets reinforced based on the stimulation experienced by the child. Parents engage though different activities, daily routines need to be set and parents need to engage positively with the child. 

It is not necessary to buy special products and services for the routine activities. Earlier joint family setup was very conducive for the child as we have numerous relatives all engaging with the child simultaneously, with the growing nuclear family setup the number of interactions reduce. Some of the common everyday activities are

• Love and affection which come pretty naturally need to be expressed to our children, the unconditional love allows for the creation of strong self-confidence and reinforces bonding between the family.
• Talk and sing in the mother tongue. Continue to describe the activity that you are doing, sing as a song and enjoy the moments with the child. The descriptions provide language nutrition that helps in developing vocabulary in children and also helps connect with the environment.
• Respond to the queries from the child.in a right manner. Never ignore any question from the child, your response provides confidence, sense of trust and emotional connect.
• Touch the infant through cuddling, feeding and also build eye contact.
• Modelling is a quick approach, encourage the child to imitate your actions and you can imitate the child's actions. Appreciate her action by applause and hugging as it reinforces the brain connections to further motivate to imitate facial expressions and emotions.
• Let the infant experience the environment by taking the child on trip around the house, to the market, grocery store, park and neighborhood. This experience encourages the child to discover the entities, smell, sounds and climate around each of the spaces. 
• Read books to the child in the mother tongue and this increases the vocabulary of the child, change of intonation while saying the words builds connect to pictures.
• Singing songs to the child in the form of lullaby or rhymes with sounds engages the child and creates an opportunity for them to imitate 

reference: https://cchp.ucsf.edu/sites/g/files/tkssra181/f/buildbabyinten081803_adr.pdf

Brain development in the child happens as soon as the child is born and the network starts to develop with each interaction and experience of the child. The parent starts to engage with the child through different activities starting from the sense of touch, respond to every request/action of the child, talking/singing to the child and providing the love and care for the child. 

The neural network in the brain learns from every interaction, and reinforces with repetition and conditioning. Mother is the first caregiver by feeding the child and taking care through the initial stages. The father would then start interacting much like the mother. The nurturing of the kid helps foster the emotional development of the child. 

• Language stimulation starts with the eye-contact. Eye-contact is the first connect the child establishes and experiences the bonding with the people around. Language is critical for cognitive development. 
  
• Imitation is the approach the child uses to learn, by constantly observing and repeating the actions of the people around, the child is able to enact the activities, display sense of connection, bond through gestures and build social understanding. 
  
• Touch builds the sensory connect to the environment around and without the right sensory stimuli the child would not be able to grow seamlessly. Touch is a means of connection to the world around.