Eating independently is one of the most significant developmental milestones in early childhood. Typically acquired by around two and a half years of age, this skill begins to emerge when children show curiosity about food and start feeding themselves, either with their hands or with cutlery.
Recent scientific evidence suggests that involving children in family meals from the start of weaning - following a baby-led complementary feeding approach - may play an important role in an area of development that might seem unrelated at first glance: communication and language. This is the focus of a new study published in the journal Child Development, conducted by researchers from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Sapienza University of Rome and the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of Italy’s National Research Council (Cnr-Istc), in collaboration with the Italian National Institute of Health, Appalachian State University (USA) and Aston University (UK).
The study involved nearly 200 children and found that those who more frequently fed themselves at the age of one produced a significantly higher number of vocalisations and gestures during meals. “Children who eat independently more often at one year of age are about twice as likely to produce sentences by 24 months,” explained Giulia Pecora of the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
According to Francesca Bellagamba of Sapienza University of Rome, early self-feeding gives children more opportunities to manipulate food and refine fine motor skills, which in turn enhances gesture-based communication, a crucial component at this stage of development. These motor skills are closely linked to other cognitive processes that support language development, such as joint attention, imitation, tool use, self-regulation, visual recognition and word learning.
“The results of this study show that encouraging autonomous feeding in early life can stimulate the reciprocal and dynamic development of both motor and communication skills,” concluded Elsa Addessi of Cnr-Istc. (9colonne)