Brain Development and Learning

Prevention Summary

Brain Development and Learning

This is a reprint of an article by Judy Briscoe, Assistant Deputy Executive Director of Juvenile Corrections and former Director of Prevention, Texas Youth Commission. An earlier version of this article appeared in the July 1998 issue of Texas Probation, the journal of the Texas Probation Association and is reprinted with their permission.

Having spent a quarter of a century in the juvenile justice field, the last five of which have been focused on delinquency prevention, I am more convinced than ever that we cannot begin too early if we want a society of healthy, productive, pro-social children and youth. Researchers and practitioners used to advocate for pre-school programs as the best point at which to begin working with children. With the advances in molecular biology, genetics, and imaging techniques, we know more in the last ten years about brain development than in all of previous history. With this incredible technology, scientists have discovered that pre-school programs can be too late. The first three years of a child’s life are the most important in terms of brain development.Much of the information provided by the Texas Youth Commission’s A World of Prevention, http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/prevention relates to research studies and programs that promote the healthy development of children and youth. One of the most interesting books that the prevention staff have discovered is entitled Inside the Brain by Ronald Kotulak^1.This book is based on a series of articles on the brain, published by the Chicago Tribune, for which Kotulak won the Pulitzer Prize. The following article is based primarily on Kotulak’s book, with other information from TYC’s A World of Prevention.The most important thing to understand is the first three years of a child’s life are critically important to brain development.

Brain development that takes place before age 1 is more rapid and extensive than previously realized;

Brain development is much more vulnerable than ever suspected;

The influence of early environment on brain development is long lasting;

The environment affects not only the number of brain cells and the number of connections among them, but also the way these connections are "wired";

There is scientific evidence for the negative impact of early stress on brain function.²

Unfortunately, for a growing number of children, the period from birth to age three has become a time of abuse, neglect, stress, violence, and little or no stimulation.To put things in perspective, at eight months, a baby’s brain has about 1,000 trillion connections, which gradually begin to decline. Half of the connections die off by age ten. Twice as many connections are made as needed, to guarantee that a newborn will have sufficient extra wiring to be able to receive input from any environment and adapt accordingly. Scientists have shown that synapses come and go with mental stimulation and synapses are the key to brain power.The brain gets built by using the outside world to shape and reshape itself, by undergoing crucial phases of development during which the presence or absence of appropriate stimulation can have lifelong effects—both good and bad.This tremendous flexibility is called "plasticity" and it is a startling departure from the old concept of the brain as a self-contained, hard-wired unit that learns from a preset, unchangeable set of rules. This new knowledge makes clear how nature and nurture interact to determine the kind of people that children become.

How the Brain Gets Built

Medical researchers and human services and juvenile justice practitioners could see that a child who is loved and given stimulating experiences usually turns out to be a bright, affable person, while an abused child often becomes an abuser. But no one knew what happened inside the brain.

The data clearly shows the correlation between abuse and neglect and delinquency. In fact, Cathy Spatz Widom’s "The Cycle of Violence" indicated that those children who were abused or neglected were

53% more likely to be arrested as juveniles;

38% more likely to be arrested as adults;

38% more likely to be arrested for a violent crime; and

77% more likely to be arrested if females.

A more troubling conclusion was that a child who is neglected is just as likely as a child who is abused to be arrested for a violent crime. And unless there is neurological damage from the abuse, neglect has a longer term, more damaging impact to the development of a child.³

The brain goes through crucial periods in which brain cells must have certain kinds of stimulation to develop such powers as vision, language, smell, muscle control and reasoning. Genes, the chemical blueprints of life, establish the framework of the brain—and then the environment takes over and provides the finishing touches.

Just as the digestive systems of all infants require milk before they can eat solids, the brain requires stimulation: touch, holding, sound and vision.

Let’s consider some of these studies:

Language: Children whose mothers talk to them frequently have better language skills than do children of mothers who seldom talk to them. After about age 12 the ability to learn new languages declines rapidly.

Vision: Lack of visual stimulation at birth will cause those brain cells designed to interpret vision to dry up or be diverted to other tasks, making perfectly healthy eyes permanently unable to see. This has saved the sight of thousands of infants born with cataracts, which are now removed as quickly as possible.

Brain Power: Pioneering studies also show that the IQs of children born into poverty, or of those who were premature at birth, can be significantly raised by exposure to toys, words, proper parenting, and other stimuli.

Aggression: Early exposure to violence, stress, and other environmental pressures can cause the brain to run on a fast track, increasing the risk of impulsive actions and high blood pressure.

Emotions: Animals exposed to unpredictable stresses while still in the womb develop anxious personalities. After birth, a little extra mothering has the opposite effect, instilling them with confidence and the urge to explore.

Touch: Premature infants whose sensory systems are activated by being held and cuddled are more mentally alert and physically stronger than those who are routinely isolated in incubators.

Education: The best time to learn foreign languages, math, music and other subjects is between one and about 12 years of age, yet education is not structured to take advantage of this time.

This article is provided by the Texas Youth Commission. For more information about programs and research relating to children, youth, and family issues, see A World of Prevention at http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/prevention, or telephone the Prevention Office at (512) 424-6336, or e-mail prevention@tyc.state.tx.us.

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4900 N. Lamar Blvd. · Austin, TX 78751
P.O. Box 4260 · Austin, TX 78765
(512) 424-6130

Date Developed: August 1, 2000 | Last Updated: July 9, 2004

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