The following are some of the ways in which rhymes can contribute to social-emotional development...
This stage has been called "the golden age of lap rhymes" (Lottridge, 1999) as children are now particularly receptive to the kinds of social experiences involved in rhymes and lap games.
Rhymes provide the kinds of social interactions babies are now intensely interested in and the kind of experiences they are now more capable of - more animated and 'readable' responses and more coordinated reaching and grasping.
Rhymes use the kind of language that babies at this stage respond to best - high in pitch, slow in pace, clearly spoken and highly musical. This kind of speech helps babies isolate the individual sounds in the language spoken and trains the infant's ability to hear the individual sounds in words clearly.
Sights, words and actions become linked together to establish early language, cognitive and motor knowledge. Many lap rhymes give information in simple ways that babies can easily absorb about names for body parts, where these body parts are and what they can do.
After repeated rhymes and interactions become familiar, babies can then be active partners in these interactions, anticipating what is going to happen, communicating, and learning to keep their emotions at comfortable levels.
All of the information provided in the Benefits of Mother Goose is taken from an article that was adapted from a presentation given at the first National Conference of the Parent - Child Mother Goose in April 2001.
