Observational Learning and Parallel Play

So, in the past two months since I've written about Gabriel, he has made quite a few advancements. We started him in a twice-weekly therapy playgroup where he has the opportunity to interact with other kids and observe how they play and eat. The first few times he went, he watched the other kids spoon-feeding very intently. He certainly had his "serious face" on. He really enjoys going to playgroup and while he doesn't actively play with the other kids (he's still a little young for that), he does participate in the group activities.

I think watching other kids has really contributed to some new behaviors. We just returned from a trip to visit my parents and my brother came out with his family as well. Cousin Heidi is one month younger (chronologically) than Gabriel, but she is 3 months ahead, developmentally speaking. She walks, has several words, and sits at the table like a little lady with her grown-up plate and silverware. We sat them down to play with each other, and after an initial "I look at you and you look at me" period, they did start playing side by side and sometimes playing together with the same toy. After several days of sitting at the table with Heidi, Gabriel had several good spoon-feeding sessions: he would open his mouth for food and also put his spoons in his bowl and then put them in his mouth. He continues to be more likely to investigate food and puts many more things in his mouth than he used to, which all seems to be in line with his current developmental stage of "self feeding", even though he doesn't quite have the skill set to successfully make that happen.

Once we returned home, he also started pulling up to standing on anything and everything. And since he can now reach his bookshelf, he likes to pull all the books off the shelf and even sits down to page through them. His new thing just this past week is restacking them on a different shelf. How organizational.

He is growing so fast, and every day is something new.