Adaptive Behavior

Self help/adaptive behavior is one of the six domains of early childhood development, along with gross motor, fine motor, cognitive, language and social/emotional. Self help skills begin developing early in a child’s life, and follows other development. One of the first major milestones in self help skill is holding a bottle. While holding your child in your arms to give a bottle (no propping the bottle, no matter how hurried you are), you can help your child toward independent bottle feeding by putting your little finger in his/her clenched fist. This allows the infant to hold onto something close to the bottle, and is the first step toward independent bottle holding. The next step, is to place his/her hand on the bottle as you hold it in your hands. Two hands on the bottle is the logical step that follows, and so on. Your baby will soon be independently taking a bottle.

The next major self help skill to develop, is finger feeding.  It is important for eye-hand coordination, fine muscle control and language development that your child be allowed to finger feed. Finger feeding simply means, to use his/her own fingers to put food into the mouth. When your child can sit independently in a highchair, allow him/her to put fingers in the cereal and assist in bringing them to the mouth (you will also want to spoon feed to make sure enough food is getting into the tummy). After accomplishing the task with mom’s help, it is time to begin full scale finger feeding. Put a spoonful of cereal on the tray and help your child put fingers into the mushy food and bring it to his/her mouth. This takes a lot of practice, and even more mess. If you have carpet, buy a plastic picnic table cloth and spread it under the highchair. Children will finger paint with food, so expect a mess. A diaper and bib may be the only clothing necessary during this time. With practice, your child will eventually get the mushy food into his/her mouth quiet regularly. Now it is time to add infant crackers, that turn to mush once they hit saliva. Put a few soft crackers on the tray, while you watch. Now, he/she must learn to pick up the crackers, and then get them into the mouth, requiring cognitive problem solving, as the cracker is grasped and swapped from hand to hand while trying to decide how to get it into the mouth.

The next self help skill to occur is spoon feeding. Now, your child must scoop the food before putting it into his/her mouth. You can help by standing behind your child, holding the spoon in the child’s hand, while helping to connect with the mouth. This method is called “hand over hand”, and is very useful in teaching many different skills. Again, spoon to mouth takes practice.  Explore new textures as your child’s skills develop. Talk to your child’s doctor about when you can introduce different textures into his/her diet. And, don’t be afraid to make the changes that are suggested.

Everything follows a pattern in childhood development, and adaptive skills are no exception. Grasping objects, letting objects go, sitting independently, among other skills, must be firmly in place for a child to self feed, using a spoon. Continue helping self help skills develop during bath time and dressing, all under the supervision and assistance of an adult.