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Inventive Minds Media Blog
December 31st, 2009
Baby Brain Cells and Connections
Your baby starts out as a single cell. But during the next nine months, he grows so rapidly that, at birth, his brain contains about one hundred billion cells. He will produce very few cells during his lifetime.
Though brain growth is unsurpassed during the prenatal period, only one-sixth of the brain develops before birth. It is difficult to imagine anything growing at the rate of the human brain during the early years. While the fetus is still in the womb, approximately twenty-five thousand brain cells are produced each minute!
Though brain size is important, it is not the whole story. Cells in the nervous system (neurons) do not actually touch each other. When stimulated, neurons fire, releasing chemicals that cross the tiny gaps (synapses) to neighboring neurons. In this way, they send messages to each other, building networks of connections that form the structure of the brain.
Every time your baby experiences an event or performs an action, the affected brain areas activate and connect to one another to make sense of the entire incident. Memories of these sensory and action episodes are stored and transmitted to other networks.
The more your baby experiences, the more complex these networks become, enabling him to function in increasingly novel, varied, and elaborate ways. The signs of more and more mature intelligence!
This is what we mean when we say that the first years open windows of opportunity for learning and thinking. Windows of opportunity are precisely that… they have a beginning and a gradual end; they open and close. It is during this “window” of time that children should be doing and experiencing certain things. That’s why we speak of critical periods in early development.
Tags: baby activities, baby brains, baby cognitive development, baby development, baby learning, baby mind, baby thinking, brain growth, child play, critical period, intellectual development., parenting young children, smart baby, windows of opportunity
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December 16th, 2009
Reading to an unborn child is, quite simply, an utter waste of time. Better to spend time preparing for her arrival, learning about her physical development, and attending to your own physical, nutritional, and psychological condition. Once she is born, you should concentrate on providing love, care, and social and mental interaction. Young babies have no words. They have perceptions and actions. And it is through these perceptions and actions, and especially combinations of these, that they construct knowledge of what things are. Babies construct knowledge by acting on things, by doing, by playing. This is the stuff that intelligence is made of.
Learning to read is an important component of intellectual development but not at this stage. Much later on, reading takes on great significance. It enables your child to speed up mental processes and accomplish actions symbolically, as opposed to through direct action. It enables the mind to soar, to imagine objects and events that are not physically present to the reader, and thus it frees the mind from the confines of the here and now. So reading is important, but not in infancy.
By all means introduce your baby to books. This is a productive way to introduce the academic “culture” in you household. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the mother of intelligence is action. In the early years, let your child be actively involved in playing with objects, with games that make her think.
Tags: actions, babies, baby, books, child, early development, infancy, infant, intellectual development., intelligence, mental, mother, parent, perceptions, play, read, social, speak, think, unborn, write
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October 17th, 2009
This slide is a scan of a normal child’s brain. As you can see, at birth there are few cell connections, but at 6 months, there are quite a lot, and by age 2, there are considerably more. Imagine this. By the age of three, his brain has formed approximately 1000 trillion brain cell connections. Why is this important? The answer is that these connections are wiring your child’s brain. The real question is: What type of connections are being wired? Most of the information out there emphasizes learning by memorizing words and simple phrases. That’s good, but it is not enough. What is needed is learning that leads to thinking, problem-solving, creativity; connections that a baby can build upon. Your Baby’s Mind: How to Make the Most of the Critical First Two Years does just that. It provides a vast number of play activities that make the child think. The book takes you through the 6 stages of development during the first two years and helps you play with your baby to create the type of connections that enable your baby to be brighter!
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October 1st, 2009
You may be wondering how we know that the first two years are so critical for your baby’s cognitive development.
First, science tells us that your baby’s unparalleled early brain growth opens windows of learning opportunities that set the stage for much of his future development. The first two years are the foundation for everything to follow. They represent the basic ways of learning and knowing upon which a child builds. In the first two years, the child’s actions and his experiences create the neurological and psychological basis for future learning. For example, by the age of three, a child’s brain has formed approximately 1000 trillion cell connections. Since cell connections represent actions and other experiences, early stimulation or deprivation has a disproportionately greater impact on cognitive development than experiences later on in life.
Secondly, early experience literally changes the physiology of the brain, thereby determining the brain’s ability to function. This means that what you do in these critical first few years will impact your baby’s intellect in a profound way.
Thirdly, studies of the effects of early enrichment, or deprivation, show us both the benefits and detrimental effects that environment can have on your baby’s development. Children who have had relatively happy, enriching activities early on tend to do better in school. Conversely, those who had been neglected, like the ones in most orphanages around the world, suffer in terms of their ability to benefit from future learning experiences.
And finally, to develop properly, a baby’s brain needs certain types of experience at critical periods, making the correct timing of those experiences essential to your baby’s future cognitive development.
Knowing what types of activities stimulate the acquisition of thinking skills in young children is key.
Tags: baby activities, baby brains, baby cognitive development, baby development, baby learning, baby mind, baby thinking, brain growth, child play, critical period, intellectual development., parenting young children, smart baby, windows of opportunity
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