In our introduction to cause and effect, we explained how a child learns the concept of “making things happen” within their first year. It starts with simple cues, such as: when they call out for you, you will come to them; or when they shake a toy, it will make noise.
Developing cause and effect is important as your baby learns that his behaviour and actions result in a response. This helps your child to develop early communication and cognition skills, which are necessary to understand the cause and effect relationship.
There are a number of ways to help your child to learn cause and effect:
- Encourage play with toys that make noise or movement when an action is taken.
- Reinforce object permanence by having them drop a toy and then pick it back up.
- In the toddler years, help them discover problem solving, by opening and closing a door or flushing the toilet.
In this video, we look at the importance of cause and effect further and we demonstrate how to help your child make things happen.
There are many effective (and fun) ways to help a child learn cause and effect. We’d love for you to share how you’ve helped your child make things happen in the comments below. If you are looking for additional ideas, feel free to reach out to 1to1 Therapy.
