During the first few years of life, babies learn to separate themselves from their surroundings. This is a critical developmental process for learning of all kinds. Once you understand that you are separate from your parents, you can begin to understand that what you see, feel, hear, smell, think and know are perceptions that can be relied upon to learn about the world.

Developmental psychologists think that one of the ways babies come to this realization is to focus on themselves and listen to their own voices. This attention to self is governed, as Karmiloff-Smith states, bay natural predispositions. Maria Legerstee and her colleagues at York University, in Ontario, Canada, looked to see if infants had a preference for looking at their own images, at the images of other babies, or at things. Legerstee showed five- and eight-month-olds a picture of either themselves, another baby or an object. She then measured the amount of time the infants spent looking at these pictures.

She found that five-month-olds spent more time looking at themselves than at either the picture of the other baby or the object. Eight-month-olds, however, spent more time looking at other babies than at themselves or the object. It seems that the younger infants have an innate preference to look at themselves as separate little people. By the time they are eight months old, most babies understand this and no longer have a need to focus on themselves.
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Baby-safe baby mirrors are a wonderful developmental learning tool for babies.