Twist & Explore Caterpillar

Developmental Benefits

Motor Skills

Language Development

Auditory Stimulation

Developmental Benefits

Twist & Explore Caterpillar

Encourages fine motor skill development.
An infant’s growth and development in the first year of life is rapid. Many movements that young babies make are in preparation for the next stage of their development. When young babies watch a mobile they are constantly moving their head, arms, legs and even their mouths in response to the movement of the toy. Sound and movement attract a baby’s attention; if a toy is placed almost within reach of babies their movements become more animated. Bath toys provide opportunities to develop and use motor skills to great effect. For example, a young baby has greater control over their leg movements than their arms. You will often see young babies in a bath reaching with their legs towards a floating toy and kicking. All these movements strengthen muscles in readiness for the next stage - walking.
As babies develop they become more adept at grasping objects. Young infants learn to grasp an object, for instance a cube. The grasping, at first, is quite clumsy but through repetition, and across time, infants become adept at grasping and develop fine motor skills. Infants first use the ulnar grasp where their fingers close against the palm when trying to hold an object. Within another month they are able to move the object from hand to hand. After the first year, infants adopt the ‘pincer grasp’ where they use their thumb and index finger to grasp even very tiny objects. Shape sorters help infants to fine tune their visual perception and hand coordination. Soon infants are building towers with two cubes; this also requires fine coordination skills. As the child grows computer games have been shown to help with hand and eye coordination. Spatial skills can also be enhanced when playing games that require concentration, quick responses and finely tuned motor skills.

Introduces the alphabet, letter sounds and vocabulary.
Babies start to babble at an early age and this can be seen as the first signs of language. They are predisposed to pick up the sounds of the language that they hear around them. Adults can facilitate babies’ language development by playing with them, focussing on particular toys, reading books and naming everyday objects. The more babies are exposed to language the faster they will begin to pick up it up. There are social skills involved in language acquisition such as realising that it is necessary to wait until the other person has finished speaking. Babies begin to learn about conversational turn-taking from an early age; if a baby is babbling the adult waits for a pause and then talks to the baby. Babies learn to take turns even before they are using words. Social interaction is important for language development and turn-taking games are a fun and educational way for babies and young children to learn.
Young children also need to practice their language skills. Toys that name alphabet letters and everyday words satisfy young children’s need for repetition and rehearsal when practicing words and sounds. For instance, young children can press a button repetitively to hear the same sound or word again. Babies and children learn a lot through repetition and pick up words rapidly in this way. Once children begin to read their vocabulary expands enormously.

Fun and interesting sound effects draw baby’s attention to play.
Even very early in life babies can hear a wide variety of sounds. Infants will turn towards the sound of a toy and begin to reach towards it. This ability to recognise the direction that a sound is coming from improves greatly during the first few years of life. Young infants listen longer to the sound of human voice and seem to prefer it to any other sound. They are especially aware of the sound of language and like to be spoken to slowly and with a high pitch. This is sometimes referred to as ‘infant directed speech’ or even ‘baby talk’. Young babies are quite sensitive in their auditory abilities and can perceive all the categorical sound distinctions in world languages. As babies develop their auditory abilities narrow so that eventually babies are only sensitive to those sound categories specific to their native language.
As soon as babies are born they are influenced by what they hear around them and modify what they able to hear, accordingly. At the same time they become increasingly sensitive to music and musical patterns. Even in their first year babies are distinguishing between musical tunes on the basis of rhythmic patterns and later they begin to recognise the same melody played in a different key. Giving babies plenty of opportunities to hear music, singing, rhythm and talk enhances their learning and prepares them for the social world where they will talk, sing, play and listen to music.

Best for ages:

3 to 18 Months

Highlights

Discover sounds and moves with the Twist & Explore Caterpillar! Twist the caterpillar's body segments into new positions to pretend like it is moving.

Description

Shake the beads, spin the rings and press the light-up heart button to stimulate your baby’s sense of hearing and fine motor skills. Pressing the light-up heart plays music and phrases about feelings so your toddler can begin to learn words to name their emotions. With multiple textures from rubbery antennae to nubby rings and ribbons, little fingers will have fun exploring all the ways this cute critter delights the senses. Intended for ages 3+ months. Requires 3 LR44 button cell batteries. Batteries included for demo purposes only. New batteries recommended for regular use.