A Baby's Amazing Sense of Smell

Did you know...

At only 28 weeks of gestation, your unborn baby's sense of smell is awakened?

As a result, your newborn baby is able to recognize the scent of your amniotic fluid after being born?

Your baby's sense of smell helps bond you with your infant?

Your newborn baby can detect your breast milk over someone else's (after only 2 weeks)?

In general, most infants prefer sweet smells such as butter, vanilla and cream over pungent ones?


For find out more about your baby's sense of smell, check out: Your Baby's Sense of Smell at Different Ages.

Alta California Regional Center

Alta California Regional Center is a private, non-profit corporation which offers a myriad of services to support individuals with developmental disabilities at its 21 locations throughout California.

You might be interested in knowing that they also offer early intervention services for children, infants to 36 months old free of charge if you meet eligibility. In addition to working with families with children who exhibit significant delays in cognitive development and social adjustment, they also serve infants and toddlers with communication and speech delays.

For more info, please contact the Board Hotline: (916) 978-6400 located at 2135 Butano Drive, Sacramento CA 95825.

You may also want to check out the following articles. Please keep in mind, that each child develops at his/her rate and these are to be used as a general guide posts.

Ages and Stages Developmental Milestones


Delayed Speech or Language Development

Music and Language: New Findings

"ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2007) — Researchers have long debated whether or not language and music depend on common processes in the mind. Now, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have found evidence that the processing of music and language do indeed depend on some of the same brain systems.

heir findings, which are currently available on-line and will be published later this year in the journal NeuroImage, are the first to suggest that two different aspects of both music and language depend on the same two memory systems in the brain.

One brain system, based in the temporal lobes, helps humans memorize information in both language and music— for example, words and meanings in language and familiar melodies in music. The other system, based in the frontal lobes, helps us unconsciously learn and use the rules that underlie both language and music, such as the rules of syntax in sentences, and the rules of harmony in music."

Click here to read the full article:Music and Language are Processed by the Same Language System

Recall on Clear Egg Shakers

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has recently announced a recall measure against "Transparent Toy Egg Shakers" manufactured by West Music Company. Apparently, West Music Company received a report where the end cap detached from the egg shaker, allowing the beads to spill out-- luckily, there were no injuries.

If you received these clear plastic shaker eggs as a promotional gift from Musikandmotion during the spring of 2007 or in the past year, please bring them to class and I will replace them with a new set of shaker eggs. If you have any questions, please visit U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission or email/call me at musikandmotion@yahoo.com or 916-419-6999.

Elgar's Dream of Gerontius

Though I had to sit the Gerontius concert out last Saturday (due my bout with laryngitis), I hear Sacramento Choral Society & Orchestra gave yet another inspiring and dramatic performance! Bravo!!!

"The chorus, which Elgar uses sparingly in "Gerontius," sang with sophistication and dramatic grit. There are some incredibly fluid but unconventional choral moments in this work, and these 180 musicians handled those with a red-blooded urgency." Here's the full glowing review by Edward Ortiz of Sacramento Bee.

North Koreans Welcome Symphonic Diplomacy

Video of NYC Philharmonic in North Korean

For a brief moment in a concert hall, music helped to bridge the divergent political beliefs between the U.S. and North Korea-- suggesting yet again the power and universal beauty music beholds! Here is a short excerpt from The New York Time. For the full article, please read: The New York Times

"Feb. 26, 2008 - The New York Philharmonic brought musical diplomacy to the heart of communist North Korea in a historic concert Tuesday before the communist nation's elite...

The audience applauded for more than five minutes, and orchestra members, some of them crying, waved. People in the seats cheered and waved back, reluctant to let the visitors leave..."