Abstract:

The experience of early childhood, of the first thousand days of life, of the mother-child symbiosis, which takes place even before birth and of proper nursing, are crucial for later psycho-physical development and the shaping of neural connections. It has been confirmed by the most recent discoveries in the epigenetic, neuroscientific (S. Dehaene) and psycho-pedagogical (M. Montessori) fields. For a child , emerged from the warm, soft world of the mother's womb, the senses play a fundamental role in establishing the bond with the mother (D. Stern) and with the surrounding environment.

What Montessori calls "sensory periods" and neurosciences "time window periods", are innate programmes guiding the child's development, which cannot be taught, but helped or hindered by environment and objects. The infant lives in a dimension made up of sensations and perceptions stimulated by movement (E.Pikler), sight, touch, smell. Design can give tangible form to the baby's development needs. Shapes, colours, materials, textures can positively influence his/her sensory learning. These theories are at the basis of The Milk Way, a project developed for the Master's Degree in Integrated Product Design at Politecnico di Milano, which has explored the soft supports created to facilitate breastfeeding, nursing, sleeping and waking moments, the baby's first movements, from zero to one year age. The analysis of childcare products has shown how the solutions of design, market and production, are not always adequate. Some products have a very limited use over time, other ones are undersized or pre-formed aids limiting the infant's movement since its initial manifestations. They move from the false assumption that more stimuli correspond to more learning, so the child is overstimulated with an excessive use of bright colours, sounds and music, repeatedly played, forcing him/her to react rather than to act (D. Winnicott).

Our idea of design for the young child instead, envisages the creation of modular object-spaces that allow spontaneous arrangements for various uses and multiple functions, in line with the needs of the growing child and the mother nursing him/her. They should be characterised by organic and rounded shapes, resembling the mother’s body, capable of giving the child protection and containment without isolating him or her, but creating a corner of the world (G.Bachelar) to encourage closeness and mutual listening of child and caregiver. A set of soft supports made of natural, breathable fabrics and padding that can adapt to the body and react immediately to its action, becoming a second skin to be inhabited, in continuous transformation, capable of letting air and familiar smells pass through and transmitting tactile and auditory stimuli.

Preference should be given to the use of plain colours, which can better define the child's perception of space and objects, and to the choice of the so-called "filmy" colours, having the quality and perceptive depth of the colours of the nature we are immersed in.

This research can re-educate the adult’s world for a better understanding of the delicate phase of early childhood and to re-discover the empathy towards the newborn. At the same time it can lead to a new understanding of the role of our senses and their use in the realization of every design project contributing to the formation of young designers.

Keywords:

Design-driven approach, sensorial learning, early childhood education.