A Developing Baby Writes Their Own Story
All rights reserved - Glen T. Steele, OD FOVDR FAAO and OPSIS Education Foundation 2026
How does a developing baby write their own story? EVERY baby writes their own story. They do it through developing their internal curiosity. What whets their internal curiosity? This curiosity may occur naturally in a few but in most it is a developing process. Each baby must learn through the developmental processes to work within their expanding environment which then shapes their overall development.
Babies do not sit around waiting for something to happen. Babies are naturally curious and engage in everything around themselves. They are instigators of action, and the processes of VISION emerge as the primary explorers, instigators, and influencers. It is a daily expansion of their surrounding environment.
“Every child has an inner timetable for growth - a pattern unique to him.... Growth is not steady, forward, upward progression. It is instead a switchback trail; three steps forward, two back, one around the bushes, and a few simply standing, before another forward leap." - Dorothy Corkville Briggs
We all have a developmental fingerprint but that changes through time and is subject to change throughout life. Most of the changes are a result of the interaction within the environment, therefore, we must treat each patient as an individual.
While every baby writes their own story, it is never written alone. Whether actively or passively involved, parents and other caregivers play a major part in the development of the child. Parent behavior and engagement could be over-active or over-passive which would not be best, but it becomes their guiding factor. These guiding factors facilitate and guide the developing baby and young child as they write their own story.
Milestones in development are not transient events. They represent a lifestyle. They represent the default scaffolding patterns that have developed for action and engagement. Milestones are not something we meet - IT IS SOMETHING WE ARE!! And developing the ability to meet the milestone has emerged over quite some time.
We are taught to understand the physical aspects of development (milestones, etc.) but rarely the questions of HOW or WHY. These are the aspects of scaffolding – the posturing that changes with each curiosity, each disruption, each explosion in the developmental process. HOW do we react and WHY do we react in that manner? Development doesn’t just happen. Development is a process that continues throughout life. Similar to Gesell’s statement, “An infant does not really wake up until he begins to look, and when he ceases to look, he goes to sleep,” an adult continues to live and thrive as long as they stay curious and engaged but begin to deteriorate when they stop being curious and engaging. They must continue searching for the HOW and WHY rather than accepting their current status as an expected part of aging. Realizing that is more difficult for some than others. Finding that curiosity in new and different and doable activities and engagements will keep one curious and engaged.
Because so much is going on in their life every day in their new and less protected environments, every child writes a different story. The thing we should do besides providing protection is trying to provide opportunities to explore and engage within their environments. We should try to find new opportunities, new events, and new physical activities that encourage exploration and development of curiosity within their new environments. For instance, don’t throw away the box in which the toy came. Every child loves playing with the box rather than the toy.
As optometrists, we have the ability to observe and alter the trajectory of development if we engage in early identification and intervention. Neither instruments, technology, guidelines, nor milestones ever changed a life. Your use of those and the options you chose through using them is what changes a life! The links between milestones, guidelines, technology, and instruments emerge as you understand them better. THE POWER IS IN YOU!
When development is allowed to occur rather than be pushed, encouraged rather than demanded, and rewarded rather than punished, the child develops into a strong and engaging adult. When so much is done for them, their developmental foundation is weak and insecure and their emergence into adulthood is tenuous at best and withdrawn in hard time. Babies need to learn how to meet obstacles and disruptions and move on through them. This cannot be done without expectation and encouragement from parents and caregivers.
This is how a developing baby writes their own story!
All rights reserved - Glen T. Steele, OD FOVDR FAAO and OPSIS Education Foundation 2026