Features

Child Development: Your guide to the first five years: part 7 - Awareness

The development of being conscious of oneself and the wider world begins with the care that a child receives from attentive adults, explains Maria Robinson.

The subject of 'awareness' has many different and fascinating aspects to it. For example, a definition of awareness includes 'being conscious', 'knowing' and 'self-awareness', as well as 'watchful' and 'vigilant'.

As well as becoming self-aware, being aware or 'paying attention' is also associated with all forms of general learning. This is because, in order to learn, we do have to 'focus', and focus brings in a further dimension.

According to Professor Temple Grandin(1), humans are 'built to see what they are expecting to see'. In other words, as we go through life, we are conscious or aware of only what we pay attention to, and we often ignore the myriad of other things in our environment that could attract our interest.

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