There was a time, when infants were thought to be capable of little more than crying, sleeping and feeding, unable to see things including the people around them or to distinguish sounds or voices. It is surprising how long such beliefs have perished!!
Over the past two decades, infant’s research has advanced by leaps and bounds to reveal amazing newborn capabilities. Long before they can talk, your baby recognizes faces, see colors, hear voices, discriminate speech, sounds and distinguish basic tastes. Your little one’s brain is working overtime, processing information and building neural connections that will serve as a foundation to their emotional, social and intellectual development throughout life. Science has actually discovered that a baby’s early experience helps to shape the physical structure of the brain. Stroke a newborns cheek – brain cells fire and connections are made. Sing a song to a three month old – more connections are formed. New experiences produce increasingly more complex neural links and strengthen existing ones.
Up until a few years ago, it was thought that genetic contributions from mother and father joined together, at the moment of conception to create their offspring’s brain, complete with its predetermined wiring design. What scientists have now learned is that mom’s and dad’s genes may determine only their baby’s main brain circuits – those that control main basic functions like breathing, heartbeat, body temperature, and innate reflexes. That leaves trillions of complex connections to be determined by the stimulation that the child’s brain will encounter during its early years.
Early environmental experiences like hearing music, for example, stimulate certain brain cells and cause them to develop connections to other brain cells. As the baby hears more and more music, more and more brain activity is generated in the music (auditory) part of the brain, stimulating increasingly complex circuitry. What’s even more interesting is the new data suggesting that the benefits of stimulation to one specific section of the brain also benefit other, seemingly very different areas of the brain. For instance, exposing young children to piano/keyboard lessons stimulates not only areas of the brain devoted to music, but also areas critical to certain kinds of mathematical thinking.
Thus, it is very clear that children have untapped developmental potential – potential that can be realised through fun interactions and challenging experiences during the earliest years. Parents can relish those hours of “quality time” and delight in knowing they are providing a solid foundation for future learning. And as more and more parents become aware of all this good news, fewer and fewer children will miss out on the opportunity for optimal growth.
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