Ashley+L

=**Brain Development** = 

 **Linking Research to Practice **

The development of the brain, from the womb to adulthood, is a fascinating thing. While the strictly structural growth occurs mainly during the prenatal period, there is an incredible explosion of synaptic connections (or communication between different parts of the brain that helps it synthesize existing information with the new) that begins early in childhood. As such, providing positive early experiences to young children will promote the healthy development of the brain, while neglect and/or abuse can stunt its growth, resulting in developmental delays and other emotional difficulties.

**Brain Development and the Learning Process **   As parents and/or educators, we cannot separate the importance of understanding the development of the brain and our mission to help children learn. All instructional practices and learning opportunities must take into account the way in which we know the child's brain to be functioning. That is, we must first consider what we know about childhood brain development before we determine the appropriate strategy or approach to take with a particular child. As Howard, Williams, & Lepper (2005) point out, the process of maturation, particularly in regard to the brain's capabilities, is influenced by both biological and environmental factors. Maturation refers to the universally observed sequence of events that occurs as the individual ages (p. 161). Whether a child has or does not have a disability or a genetic impairment will certainly determine the course of development in some respects; however, the environment also plays a crucial role. Providing a linguistically rich home environment, intervening early when risks are identified, and ensuring that the child is fed nutritiously are just several ways parents and educators can make a difference in the development of the child's brain, and hence their overall development.

The brain is responsible for all functions and actions we carry out. As such, it is helpful to remember and appreciate that difficulty in one area can and often does inevitably affect the progress and development of others. For example, if a child is unable to process auditory information sufficiently, whether this is due to a hearing impairment or a language decoding deficit, they are likely to have trouble speaking and encoding language as well. Moreover, if a child cannot hear well or cannot make sense of information being provided, they are bound to miss important learning opportunities in other developmental areas. Furthermore, the functions of the right and left hemisphere of the brain differ, and we can really enhance a child's educational experiences by recognizing which side of their brain is more dominant in terms of learning, and understanding how we can enrich our homes and classrooms to provide for more experiences that help balance the abilities of both sides of the brain. When we familiarize ourselves with the process of brain development, we become much better able to look at children holistically and consider all of their unique needs- and how strengths and deficits in one area inevitably affect others.

__**Speaking of the Right and Left Brain //Did you know?//  **__ According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, or ASHA (2009), while the left hemisphere contains the language centers, the right hemisphere is responsible for all other cognitive processing. As a result, they state that damage to the right hemisphere can cause a host of communication problems. In contrast, Walker, Pelletier, & Reif (2004) found that adult individuals with right hemisphere brain damage generally fared the same as subjects in a con t r <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%; line-height: 115%;">ol group on tasks of speech production, though they did exhibit less interpretable speech in one of the three experiments that were conducted. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%;"> Moreover, Bates and Roe (2001) state that most research agrees that there is no significant language delays that commonly present themselves when young children sustain unilateral brain damage, no matter which side. Furthermore, they go on to unequivocally suggest that children can recover language capabilities in virtue of the fact that it is precisely that early period, before age 5 or 6, in which language learning is going through a sensitive period. As a result, children that sustain unilateral brain damage at an early age can still learn language because their brains reorganize their functions and theoretically ‘problem-solve’ their way into making up for the functions that were lost. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">** <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 195%; text-align: center;">Sensitive and Critical Periods of Development ** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 14.3pt; line-height: 115%;">Observing the phenomenon of imprinting in young birds, ethologists discovered that there was a **critical period** of development in which the birds needed to see their mother in order to understand who she was. Later, child development researchers were able to apply this to human children. However, since critical periods are rigid, and suggest that there is only a limited opportunity to learn certain skills, a **sensitive period** seems to better explain human development. The concept of a sensitive period refers to the optimal time in which a child can learn, or when it would be best for certain capacities to emerge. Being particularly responsive to the environment, it makes it difficult- though not impossible- to induce these specific skills at a later time (Hess-Robbins, 2009).

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Vision and language are two key developmental functions that tend to be more sensitive than others, such as mathematics learning or gross motor skills. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Though language learning is resilient in many ways, it is also sensitive as well. As is common knowledge, adults that seek to learn a second language typically find it much more difficult than young children. There is currently considerable evidence within the early childhood and language development literature which points to early exposure to language as being a strong predictor of later success. While it is not impossible to overcome the hurdles that are associated with learning language later rather than earlier, the task is more complex as the brain becomes more neurally committed to the sounds and rules of the native language (Kuhl, Stevens, Hayashi, Deguchi, Kiritani, & Iverson, 2006). Essentially, there is a sensitive period for some aspects of language, such as morphology, grammar, and phonetics (think of the case of the child using invented gestures to communicate- morphology is more likely when others try to learn to communicate in their language, and grammar is often present but follows its own rules). In these areas of language, the earlier a child is exposed and receives instruction or intervention (if necessary), the better their chance at success in the language. Other aspects of language, like general vocabulary and basic semantics, are nearly completely resilient in most cases. Furthermore, studies also seem to suggest that children that excel in high school and beyond are most often found to have had strong language skills in preschool (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000, p. 125). However, it should be noted that there is variance in such findings, and that there are certainly children that struggle early on that go on to be successful in language and other areas of academia, and vice versa. In terms of a critical period for language acquisition, there really isn’t one. While sensitive periods are present, as we just now discussed, there is no specific time frame in which children absolutely must learn a component of language in order to possess and maintain it. To date, research has shown that many children are likely not to acquire certain language skills if they did not receive the appropriate input during a sensitive period, but such findings are by no means an unbreakable rule. Certainly, there are children that defy the odds, and the research has yet to find any specific factors to explain such variance (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000, p. 125). In terms of vision, a child must be exposed to highly stimulating visuals such as contrasts, shapes, and colors so that their brains learn how to visually focus. This is somewhat critical, because unless the child's eyes become accustomed to their function early on, they are likely to have lasting vision problems, however significant or insignificant they may be. Moreover, a child's emotional well-being is also crucially affected in the early stages of life, particularly from birth to two years. Although the sensitive period for emotional and social development typically is thought to last through 12 years, the infancy and toddler years are highly influential. This is why secure attachments are so vital. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">**  <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> Check out this short video clip: ** media type="youtube" key="x0yGZnJqMXY" height="251" width="323"


 * <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 170%; text-align: center;">Stages of Brain Development **

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;">Before we delve into the way in which the brain develops after birth, it is helpful to become familiar with the development process in the womb. During the 1st trimester, the top of the spinal stem expands to form the brain. Thousands of neurons are formed, and by the end of the second trimester, nearly all of the billions of neurons that will ever be produced have already formed. In the third and final trimester, the cerebral cortex, which is the outermost layer of the brain and is responsible for higher-order brain functions such as sensitivity, thought, memory, and voluntary muscle movement, completes formation. However, the brain maintains grooves that will allow it to grow larger without getting too big to make passage through the birth canal (Berk, 2005).

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> __**<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 96%;">Birth to Three <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> **__ <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;">Whereas during the prenatal period billions of neurons were formed, during infancy and toddlerhood, and the rest of an individual's life, neurons aren't formed anymore in most regions of the brain. Instead, **synapses**, which are the connections that are perpetually formed and reformed within the brain, fire so much that by the time a child is 8 months old, they have on average over 1,000 trillion synapses (Hawley & Gunner, 2000). While the firing of synapses will occur throughout an individual's life, it is specifically during this period when it occurs extensively, so as to provide the brain with more than will be needed; after all, we do lose brain cells for various reasons throughout our lives! As synapses lose their usefulness, the brain then begins to **prune,** or get rid of, those that no longer serve a purpose. This keeps the brain highly efficient and ready to incorporate new information into existing schemas. __**<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 96%;"> Growing up and Aging **__ <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">While the brain continues to trigger synapses throughout life, after about the age of 10, the plasticity, or malleability, of the brain diminishes so that it is not as easily capable of obtaining new information and synthesizing it as it had been in the earliest years of life <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;">(Hawley & Gunner, 2000) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">.

**Resources for parents and educators on how to help children learn within the context of understanding brain development:**
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">[|Early Childhood Brain Development]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">[|Tips for Encouraging Brain Development in Preschoolers]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">[|The Developing Brain]

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">Generally speaking, there are a variety of key ways in which we can support the development of children's brains, and hence their overall well-being. Chiefly, we want to make certain we provide positive experiences and avoid those that can have a negative impact. In brief, here are some of the highlights of the do's and don'ts: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 132%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 121%;"> <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%;"> **DON'T** <span style="color: #f50000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">
 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">DO: **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 142.56%;">Provide <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 142%;"> proper [|nutrition]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 121%;"> Arrange for appropriate, quality child care to the best of your ability.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Ensure the environment is visually stimulating
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Engage in direct interactions with children
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Make certain all their basic needs, including food, shelter, love, and attention, are being met.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Strive for secure relationships and attachments
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Provide an array of opportunities for<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 121%;"> [|play], with adults, other children, and themselves.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 159%;">Consume <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 167.508%;"> [|alcohol] <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 114.75%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 127.5%;">during pregnancy or if you think there is a chance you may be pregnant. Many times irrevocable damage is done during the short period after conception and before a woman finds out she is carrying a child.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 92%;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 144.1%;">[|Abuse drugs] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%;"> while with child
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 142%;">Provide sweets and other unhealthy snacks to substitute a well-balanced ans nutritious diet.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 183%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 138%;">Allow for poor child care arrangements, such as an unstimulating or harsh environment. Check out child care providers and make sure you are comfortable with them and can be assured of your child's safety and well-being before leaving your child in their care.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;"> Avoid, to the extent possible, traumatic experiences. Obviously many traumatic events are beyond are control, so if a tragedy does occur, be sure to be supportive and caring with your child.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;"> Neglect or abuse your children, or allow them to be in the care of those who may.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 142.56%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">Allow for exposure to stress, or at least minimize it. This means not fighting in front of children, not allowing personal and familial problems to become the problem of the child, and not <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">expecting more from children than they can provide or offer.


 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%;">Other Negative Influences on Brain Development: **
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;">Exposure to chemicals
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 158.4%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 132%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 171.6%;">Exposure to diseases
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;">Poverty
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;">Family violence

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 168%;"> <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> media type="youtube" key="7DzhiXg5rcw" height="250" width="434" align="center"
 * (Do's and Don'ts based in part on the Atypical/Typical Development Wiki. (2009). //Brain Development.// Retrieved November 08, 2009 from __ http://typical-atypical-development.wikispaces.com/Brain+Development )__**
 * Take a look at this short piece regarding brain development in young children and what we can do to support healthy development:**

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> ** The Evolution of ECE Practice **  <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">During the Reformation, at least amongst the Puritans, children were viewed as evil, tainted with original sin, and child-rearing was dedicated to 'civilizing' the youngest among them. This was consider <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%; line-height: 115%;">ed <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 108%; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 177.12%; line-height: 115%;">an enormous responsibility, and adults took pride in teaching children (what they believed to be) the difference between right and wrong. The Enlightenment brought John Locke, who viewed the child as a tabula rasa, or blank slate, and his thoughts eventually served as a precursor to the theory of Behaviorism. Essentially, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 184.205%; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> at one time the brain was thought of as inconsequential at best, with children's learning and personalities thought to be entirely an extension of their souls, which consequently were believed to begin as evil. Later, the brain was seen as a sponge, waiting for environmental input, but without any biologically predetermined qualities or mechanisms. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 86.4%; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 132%;"> <span style="color: #ff0009; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16.9pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 128.7%; line-height: 115%;">Jean Jacques Rousseau regarded children as noble savages, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 143%; line-height: 115%;"> o <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%;">r imbued with moral instincts, that could only be poisoned by the harmful and inaccurate training of adults. From the late nineteenth century on, the field of child development began to explode. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution strongly influenced scientific fields of study, but over time, many aspects were also adopted in the field of child development. Even more importantly, Darwin's study of the prenatal growth in various species actually sparked the insurgence of child development as a field (Berk, 2005). The normative period and the mental testing movement also added to the field, as tests were developed to compare children to one another (measuring a child against the 'norm'), as well as to gauge their cognitive growth and potential (think of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale). <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> Clearly, the field of early childhood development, and our recognition of the brain as a fluid and ever-changing super organ, has evolved significantly over the years. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 90%;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 206.7%;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 159%;">As <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Newberger (1997) explains, advances in brain-imaging technologies have really begun to help provide those within the social scientific study of development with concrete and rigid scientific evidence that our brains are not merely genetically dispositioned to develop in a particular way (though certainly certain conditions or disabilities will exert an influence on development), but that the brain is also environmentally affected just as much. Newberger goes on to identify three main areas that the research can now conclude rather definitively as being influential in the healthy development of the brain:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Strong prenatal care
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Secure attachments emulated by warm and loving interactions between children and adults
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Positive, developmentally appropriate stimulation from the time of birth on

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Where the schools once disregarded the importance and the influence of the home environment and the relationships children had outside of the classroom, there has been a steady and indeed exponentially astounding increase in the appreciation professional development programs, school districts, and teachers themselves have had on providing a more family-based and student-centered education. This has been fueled in large part by the growing research base on the need for a focus on families, which in turn was in recognition of research in the field of brain development. The focus on families is a huge achievement for the field, for families, and for children. However, if we take a moment to consider the three universally identified factors for healthy brain development listed above, and we then think of the lack of healthcare and therefore prenatal care many mothers struggle with, as well the lack of quality preschools and other early childhood institutions, it begs the question: why do we as a society continue to ignore a mounting body of research? Parents, researchers, and educators must continue to advocate for these changes, practices that would do no more than adhere to the evidence-base such as doctors do when they treat a patient, so that we may ensure our youngest generation of children, and therefore the future of our society, is given every chance for success. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">

**<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 170%;">References **

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2009). //Right hemisphere brain damage.// Retrieved April 3, 2009 from the ASHA Web site: []

Bates, E., & Roe, K. (2001). Language development in children with unilateral brain injury. In Nelsom, C. A, & Luciana, M. (Eds.), //Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience// (pp. 281-307). Cambridge: MIT Press.

Berk, L. (2005). //Infants and children// (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education., Inc.

Hawley, T. & Gunner, M. (2000). //Starting smart: How early experiences affect brain development.// Zero to Three & The Ounce of Prevention Fund. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 103%; text-align: left;">Hess-Robbins, S. (2009). //Infants and children: Chapter 1// [PowerPoint Handout]. <span style="color: #ef0101; display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Howard, V. F., Williams, B. F., & Lepper, C. (2005). //Very young children with special needs: A formative approach for today's children// (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Kuhl, P. K., Stevens, E., Hayashi, A., Deguchi, T., Kiritani, S., & Iverson, P. (2006). Infants show a facilitation effect for native language phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months. //Developmental Science, 9//(2), F13-F21. Retrieved November 7, 2009 from <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__https://typical-atypical-development.wikispaces.com/file/view/native+native+language+phonetic+perception.pdf__ <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Newberger, J. J. (1997). New brain development research- A wonderful window of opportunity to build public support for early childhood education. //Young Children, 52//(4), 4-9. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Shonkoff, J. P., & Phillips, D. A. (2000). //From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development.// Washington, D. C.: National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved November 07, 2009 from [|https://typical-atypical-development.wikispaces.com/file/View/124-162+Communicating+and+Learning.pdf]

Walker, J. P., Pelletier, R., Reif, L. (2004). The production of linguistic prosodic structures in subjects with right hemisphere brain damage. //Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 18//(2), 85-106.

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