ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

I was disappointed in the article. On the one hand, I completely agree with most of her caveats about misusing and over-stating what we can learn from brain research. Every time some new thing comes along in education, it is fairly typical for this country's popular culture to sew an entire vest on a button. But it is disappointing that the author does not see how much school teachers and early childhood professionals can learn about children, and about ourselves, from understanding how the brain develops in infancy and throughout our lives. True, we can and will learn a lot of new things all our lives. But the early years are important because we can see in brain studies how
young children learn through relationships, connections, conversation, and we can see clearly in brain scans that they are not learning one thing at a time, AND we can see
that their intellectual development is necessarily simultaneous with their social and emotional development.

The author mentions other research findings. I am glad to see that researchers in brain development, education, early education, health, economics and neurology are beginning
to pool their research to figure out what we really do know about children's learning. I don't know what research the author meant, but for myself, I have faith in the 2 oldest longitudinal studies, with control groups, where we have evidence of the outcomes. These studies did begin with young children.
one of them with infants. (Perry Preschool, Abecedarian) If we know that children succeeded in school, went to college, graduated, found employment, supported families, and are leading constructive lives at age 40, we don't need to know what they learned by third grade. how much they
learned by third grade, and we are not very good at measuring what we want to know. Dramatic outcomes can be measured over time, but I don't have much faith in most of our short-term efforts to measure what young children know and can do. We can, however, measure teachers' behavior, qualities that we know from the longitudinal studies will correlate with
positive outcomes. It's relationships,interactions, conversations with children, observation, intentional improvised play relationships, vigorous physical activity, a stimulating environment, math, science, and reading activities, a caring parent and teacher, these we know are important to learning from the beginning. to lay a foundation for lifelong success. The author is right to warn parents not to fall for commercial
gimmicks. But brain development study is not a gimmick.

In my opinion the most important conclusions from recent brain research relate to emotional and relational development, not cognitive development. I certainly know of no research that concludes that videos or other purchased materials are helpful to babies' learning, so I don't know whose research Ms. Mead is rebutting. For many children the missing piece in their ability to learn is not cognitive but emotional. They lack the positive self esteem and positive relational experiences that enable children to focus and attend in a formal educational environment. These are the pieces that are most easily acquired between the ages of zero and three. However, I agree with Ms. Mead that the "window" of learning does not slam shut at age three. It is never too late to intervene in the life of a child. It is simply more difficult to do it later.

As a grandmother and an early childhood consultant I wish copies of this article could be part of every goodie bag new parents take home with their baby!

In a society of "ME FIRST" and children of all socio-economic groups being emotionally, socially, and physically neglected without touch, stimulating environments to explore, and the continued advent of electronic baby sitters. Ms. Mead is not observing the results of these missed years of development. Educators across America regardless of demographics know that children of today come to schools with a large range of abilities and behaviors. Most, if not this entire gap can be traced back to the limited stimulation during critical developmental periods from birth to three. The nutritional impact of poor diets is observable, too. Malnutrition from underweight and nerve damage to childhood obesity, creating several health and social/emotional conditions to be dealt with by the child and educators.

I am not an advocate that the commercial world of stimulating products are the best solution, but in a capitalistic society, where there is a need to educate and show parents what to do with infants and toddlers, these kind of products will arise. The long-term solution to improving birth to three environments is to educate people about quality environmental practices with newborns. Touch, diet, and sensory-motor-perceptual stimulation can be achieved through common sense and practical house hold items. I am sorry Ms. Mead is missing the complete picture here in stating neuroscience is incorrect. Piaget summarized it along time ago, "The fundamental movement experiences are the foundations of higher order thinking skills." Babies, infants, and toddlers need stimulation. Unfortunately, the baby has been thrown out with the bath water in regards to the baby products attempting to do what Mother's/Father's did innately for centuries-care for their young through contact and touch love.

What we know is most important is maternal sensitivity, caregiver responsiveness and the quality of the relationship between adult & child. While Ms. Mead's comments about manufactured products don't break my heart, her perspective on early intervention programs and the value of quality ECE in the earliest years seems to be very uninformed.