Learning to See

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 533, 10 December 1928, Page 12

Learning to See

Babies Blind for About Three Weeks PATHWAY TO THE MIND Babies canuot really “see” until they are three weeks old. It takes ! that long for the function of sight in the new-born infant to begin to adjust itself to the light. This is the contention of Dr. n ark Lewis, vice-president of the u s.a National Society for the Prevei tion ! of Blindness, in Hospital-Topics tßuf. ! falo). We do not actually see with j our eyes, but they help us to see with I our minds, according to Dr. Lewis. H« | says: i “The infant coming into the world ! requires for certain functions months I and, for others, even years before thev j are prepared, for their proper uses. | The fibres of the optic nerve which I carry the consciousness of light to the brain at first are not completed until three weeks after birth. It is the light which favours their development. The centre of acute vision, the fovea, firs; attains its full development some months after birth. The iris or coloured part of the eye, the central opening of which is the pupil, may not reach its complete development until the seventh year. As structure must be completed before function can be safely exercised, the necessity for care in the use of the eyes during these early and plastic years must not be forgotten. Bundle of Potentialities “The new-born child is simply a bundle of potentialities. Millions oi nerve-cells must be activated before they are prepared to carry the light impulses back to the brain centres to be interpreted into visual terms. The eyes of all white babies at birth are blue. They have not yet become deeply pigmented as many of them will at a later date. “The eyeballs move vaguely at first, and during the early days they look almost blindly around them. They are unseeing eyes. Until there is answering intelligence within, the image ot the object before the child conveys nothing to him. “A lamp held before the face of the child will, in the course of a week or so, be followed by the eyes vaveiingiv and indefinitely. It probably appears to the infant, whose intelligence has not yet become awakened, as a mere blotch of orange colour. Gradually, as the weeks go on, the more definite and brilliant objects as they are presented before the baby, begin to excite, feebly at first, a sense of interest and curiosity. They appear very faint at first, but gradually increase, and w-ith the increase comes a rapid gain in the perceptive faculties. Through the eyes a pathway is being made to the mind. Awakening the Senses “If, after intelligence has become somewhat aroused, in place of the lamp an orange is held before the child’s eyes, the blur which was at first that of the yellow light begins to note that the object is round and that it has a striking colour. Later, the baby fingers touch it, and another series of sense impressions are awakened. The orange drops to the floor with a dull thud, and the auditory centres respond. “Later the sound will be recognised, not as that of broken glass, nor of a falling book. It is the sound peculiar to the falling fruit and to nothing else. Then the skin is broken, and the fragrance reaches the nerve endings within the nose. The sense of smell is being stimulated. A new memory impression has been given, adding to the multitude that are now pouring in on the baby’s readily responsive senses. Then the juice of the fruit is put on the infant’s tongue, and a complex of all of those qualities that go to make up the oranges—those of light, of hearing, of smell, of touch and of taste —have been so impressed on his memory centres that they will never be eradicated while each nerve fibre can carry its message. At last, the baby reaches round the orange, and he will have made a great discovery—he has learned of the existence of depth. He is not living in a flat world, but one of three dimensional spaces, and in learning this he has made an immense stride in the newly acquired knowledge to which he is now rapidly adding every hour.”