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James Loy:

This is Reframe, the podcast from the College of Education, Health and Society on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Even before the moment we’re born, how our brains grow and develop will have a profound impact on our entire lives. In fact, most of the abilities we’ll need as adults are directly connected to our earlies years.

But how much do we actually know about how children’s brains develop? What do we really know about the kinds of activities and experiences that can help form better cognitive functions, and lead to better academic progress, social skills, and emotional wellness.

Well, It turns out, we actually know quite a bit.

And now we know even more, thanks to a new book called, Enhancing Brain Development in Infants and Young Children: Strategies for Caregivers and Educators.

Co-authored by four educational researchers, and it not only details the different phases of healthy brain growth, it’s also designed to help parents and teachers understand what they can do with this information.

Today, we’ll speak with two of the authors -- Dr. Doris Bergen, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of educational psychology. She’ll talk about just how critical our earliest years really are – especially up to we’re around seven or eight.

Doris Bergen:

In the past, I don't know if people always realized how crucial that time was. When we’re older, it’s mainly just pruning and shaping the brain. But all the really raw material of what people are going to have in their lives, in relation to how their brain connections are made, and all the various richness of the brain, is really done during that age period.

James Loy:

And we’ll speak with Dr. Lena Lee, a Miami University professor of early childhood education, about other specific aspects of positive brain development, such importance of play.

Lena Lee:

Play is a major crucial way of learning for children. Unfortunately, there has been a decline of play in the schools, at home, in spite of that importance.

James Loy:

Plus, we’ll talk about tips on technology use, and managing screen time, and much more.

James Loy:

So this book is all about having a comprehensive, but also an easily understood explanation of early brain development. And you say in the description that it takes a brain-friendly approach. So Dr. Bergen, what does it actually mean to take a brain-friendly approach to this topic?

Doris Bergen:

Well, there's just been a great growth in information about brain's development and brain theory in the past few years. And although there are many books now being written about the brain and its significance, the brain development in prenatal time period, and the course of the brain development during early childhood, a lot of times it's written in a very technical and not in a way that's easily connected to what educators and parents would like to know about how they can support brain development. So our book is really designed to clearly talk about this brain development and also to link it to ways that adults can be facilitators of that brain development.

James Loy:

And the book covers several stages of development. You cover prenatal, infant, toddler and early childhood up to about age seven or eight. Are any stages the most important or most critical phase? And during these stages and times how differently are children thinking? Is it fundamentally different than the way we as adults think?

Doris Bergen:

Each of the stages is critical. During the prenatal development, children really develop the basics of the brain. The brain is built. The basic structure of the brain is built during prenatal. And then in infancy, the child comes into the world with all kinds of neurons, ready to start getting connected. The brain neural pathways are pretty much not connected at that time. Just really the sensory area's already pretty well-developed and motor areas are beginning to be developed, but the other higher brain processes, the neuronal potential is there, but the connections are not really already set up. So during toddlerhood and preschool age in particular, almost every minute, or at least all the time, the child is learning something just all the time and the connections are being made in the neural pathways. And so the child's brain becomes very, very active, very busily connecting. And so they're not necessarily thinking differently, but they are thinking with a brain that is not as fully structured.

Doris Bergen:

And so they haven't gone through the process of determining which things are more important than other things. So as we get older, when pruning of all these many, many connections occur, we sort of begin to think, well, this is more important to remember, that's more valuable, et cetera, et cetera. So pruning process at the later ages makes us kind of decide what is really important to us to keep and shape as we get older. But the problem is, if a child is in an environment where the child has not had this opportunity to really develop this very full richness of experience so that their brains can be very fully engaged and really, every day, connecting with new ideas and information, they are not going to have as rich a brain structure to use at later ages when you're shaping it more carefully.

Doris Bergen:

Even in the prenatal period, we know that when the basic brain is being built, that there are things such as alcohol exposure or drugs, poor nutrition, things of that sort that could make the brain building process not even quite as well-developed as it could be. And certainly at birth, the infant brain has the potential for this enormous growth in neural connections. And the experiences that they'll have will then have a huge influence on how richly and varied their brain development is.

James Loy:

And when you mentioned some of these negative factors, alcohol exposure, drugs, and poor nutrition, what are some other factors that actually inhibit brain growth or environmental situations that will not lead to the positive outcomes? And if that is the case, what can be done about it? Can that be undone or are there ways to mitigate those factors if parents or teachers realize that kids at certain stages have had to deal with these factors?

Doris Bergen:

Well, there's two things about it. Obviously those periods are very, very important. So even prenatally, as I said, there are issues that can affect how children's brain develop. But what is interesting is many of the ways parents and teachers always have interacted with young children are really great facilitators of their brain development. Good food and good care, loving care, a warm and loving kind of touching, social interactions, all kinds of different experiences and encouraging children to explore and try things and do new things and so on, and giving what we might call age appropriate challenges, which would be things that we would know they would be ready for. And we sort of indicate when they're ready for those things. All of those things enhance early brain development.

Doris Bergen:

So what happens in ... with some children, if they're in environments where either they are lacking the really basic food, shelter, safety, those sorts of things, their brains cannot be as open to those new experiences and really reach out for them the same way. And what we really know is that the main thing young children need is to have this ability to really engage with life and really see as many things, do as many things, within a very safe and loving kind of environment. So if, especially preschool teachers, have children that they feel are not gaining that at home, then it's up to them to even do more and more when they're in the preschool setting, to be sure these children feel comfortable, have a chance to have many different experiences, be encouraged to think and do, and have playful and safe kinds of ability to interact with as many different experiences as possible.

Doris Bergen:

So one of the really great things about early childhood education is the teachers can provide many of those things within the classroom environment if the child is not getting those same types of things. And so, many parents, if they don't realize how important it is for children to have this ability to engage with the world, that's why the early childhood teacher is so important.

James Loy:

Yeah, absolutely. And Dr. Lee, as an expert in early childhood education, can you speak to that as well?

Lena Lee:

Yeah, I'll just say, like Doris has said, prenatal environment is very important. In addition to that, I am thinking that the domestic violence and poverty are really detrimental for not only plain development, but also I think in general children's wellbeing. So these two are the examples that give young children tremendous stress. So too much stress is not really helping children's brain development at all. So of course we can get rid of that environment, of course, but it's very difficult, complicated, and almost impossible to do that in a day, or at once. That's why the young children's caregivers or teachers or social workers or any other adult of that community are very important. So we have to think about what we can do for better alternative circumstance for our young children.

James Loy:

It almost makes me wonder how much of an active role do parents and teachers and caregivers actually play? Is it mostly about just creating the environment that facilitates this kind of development and then letting nature take its course or do they have to get really hands-on in a more directly engaged way? Is there a balance there?

Doris Bergen:

Well, in my view, you have an environment with many yeses and very few nos, so that you know that the child can go and explore and do things and try things and so forth. And you do want a few nos. You want a few things that you say, "No, don't touch X or Y," but only a few things like that. Mostly you want to have an environment that is very safe and open for their exploration. Parents don't really have to "teach" a lot of stuff to young children. What they have to do is respond to the children's interests and suggest things, read to them, sing songs, play with them, even pretending with the child, if the child wants to pretend. So it's more like a responding to what the clues are that the child is giving you.

Doris Bergen:

And so it's not so much that you have to have a big agenda of things that you're going to "teach" the child. What you want to do is have a lot of interesting things that the child can do and be responsive to the child's questions, to the child's interests. And obviously within it, the safety concerns, being sure that the child can "do it myself." I can follow my child's lead. I don't have to be deciding everything for my child. What I have to do is be responsive because my child is going to tell me when he's ready for this and that and the other thing, just because of the way that he behaves in different situations.

James Loy:

So the ways we interact and support children have a profound impact on healthy brain development. Some of the greatest facilitators are not only basic needs like good food, warm living care, safety, and security. It's also very much about creating the kinds of rich environments, both at home and at school, that foster social interaction and encourage exploration. And this all goes a very long way to developing the kind of brain structure that is full of the literal raw material that will eventually be carefully shaped and pruned later in life. Dr. Lee, I love Dr. Bergen's example of creating an environment of many yeses and very few nos. That seems like such a wonderful and clear way to better understand what to do. So I want to pose this question to you. Are there other things that are just as easy to consider or that should be just as obvious, but for whatever reason rarely are?

Lena Lee:

Yeah, definitely to me, play. Play is a major crucial way of learning for children. Unfortunately, there has been a decline of play in the schools, at home, in spite of that importance. So at the same time, the young children's play is going along with the creativity too, and then their social skills and the relationship and the potential ability to build up on their academics as well. So we are losing all those parts at the same time, as we are having less time of play for young children.

Doris Bergen:

I'd like to second what Lena said, because we do find that we... I've studied adults' memories of their childhood play. And if you ask most adults, almost immediately, they can think of something they loved playing as a child. And almost always it's something they did sort of outside of the direction of adults. Maybe they did it outside or in their room or in the basement and adults were not directing it at all. It was open. The children really created their own play environment. And what we see today is that children have often many lessons. After school, they go to piano and they go to dance and they go to sports and they go to whatever.

Doris Bergen:

And so really that sort of long periods of time where they just were in charge of deciding what to do themselves is often missing in children's lives today. And if you add to that what we're going to talk about a little later, the whole influence of technology, what you find is those long "I'm in charge of my own play experiences" that we all recall having had as children, many children today are not getting as many of those opportunities.

James Loy:

Yes. Technology is something I absolutely want to talk about it, especially since there is a section of your book that talks about the future of education in relation to the positive and/or negative impacts technology can have. And specifically, one of the things I want to ask is about screen time, because that is of huge concern. It is one of the biggest question marks of our age, it seems, especially as screens are becoming just ever more increasingly ubiquitous. What can you tell us about screen time? How and when should children be introduced to screens? What are some of the positive and/or negative impacts or what can you tell us about that technological impact in regards to brain development?

Lena Lee:

First of all, there are many things between the brain development and technology uses and screen time unknown in terms of negative or positive impact of technology. So, but so far we have a pretty significant body of research about brain development or children's development and technology. So based on that, I would recommend you should introduce a screen as late as you can, and try to avoid any screen time for infant, toddler, particularly, because based on what we have been saying earlier, they really needed to interact with the human beings. They have to explore their environment by playing, better than having the screen in front of them. So I know it's really difficult, particularly for younger parents currently, but I just want them to know screens or technology is not a nanny or substitute teacher. You have to get involved in their viewing. So I recommend the co-viewing many times to the parents they ask. So if they have to watch, co-viewing, even though that's extremely hard for some parents, that is one of my recommendations.

James Loy:

So when it comes to technology, especially regarding screens and screen time, try to introduce screens as late as possible. And once that's no longer an option, Dr. Lee recommends co-viewing or watching together. For preschoolers and early elementary grade school children, she also suggests no more than one hour per day of high quality educational programs. And for older children, like upper elementary students, it's important to set rules and boundaries that the parents also follow. And that's key because it builds trust. At her house, for example, Dr. Lee talks about using a technology station where everyone has to put their phone before dinner time, adults included, and then the phones go back on the technology station at 9:00 PM, right before bedtime. And also, again, one of the biggest rules for all parents to remember is to try to avoid whenever possible, using a screen as a babysitter, or a nanny, correct.

Lena Lee:

Exactly.

Doris Bergen:

Although that's very tempting to do.

Lena Lee:

Yeah.

Doris Bergen:

I think if you think back to what we talked about earlier, about how young children learn, they learn through their active engagement in the things in their environment. And if you think of a toddler sitting with a screen, the toddler is sitting there looking at this screen, the screen, the activity, the playfulness came from whoever designed the program. It's not playfulness for the child. The child is not doing any of the things we said earlier were essential for good brain development. And so what you're seeing with a screen for a child who's under four probably is that this child is just going to be almost mesmerized by the screen and not really have any very great brain engagement other than just the staring at the screen. So we really, I think, are pretty clear about the fact that they're not really helpful for children's brain development.

James Loy:

This question might be a bit outside the scope of your book slightly, but I find it a very interesting problem of our modern society, especially when it comes to either things like social media or cell phones, or just the rapid pace of technological evolution. It seems to be a curious, modern problem that new parents today are dealing with things that their parents or grandparents never had to consider, or at least didn't have to consider it so often or profoundly or dramatically as new parents today are forced to. So what advice do you have for them, any strategies or tips on how to continue to navigate and manage the changes that are almost assuredly going to continue to happen, and likely even more frequently?

Doris Bergen:

I have one thing I'd like to say, and that is that I think parents should remember what was important to them when they were children, and to be sure that they provide those kinds of same experiences for their children, time to play outside, time where you're not being pressured to do anything, but you can just on your own think of something to do, time where you have a lot of tactile materials to work with, things that are physically involving where your whole body is involved or your whole experiences. And so I think it isn't so much a case that some exposure to technological devices and so on is harmful. It's that if those take over and the experiences of human development, which we have known have occurred through centuries, are lost, is when we are going to change from being the kind of humans that we have been.

Doris Bergen:

So I think that that's one of the biggest messages that parents need to know, and that they should be supporting teachers that provide the kinds of activities that we have in the book that are playful, fun, but are also related to helping children, cognitively and socially and emotionally and helping their brains become richer. And similarly in the family life, continuing to do things like play board games with your child, or help play building with blocks with your child, or going outside and running around on hills or running down the street or whatever, or riding your bike or doing things that engage the whole child in the activities. Because that's what humans need. And I think that the time for that type of play is what is really what parents need to be sure they don't have their children lose.

James Loy:

Dr. Doris Bergen is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of educational psychology, and Dr. Lena Lee, is professor of early childhood education at Miami University. Their new book is called: Enhancing Brain Development in Infants and Young Children: Strategies for Caregivers and Educators.

The book is available now at most major retails bookstores. You can also find it online, on Amazon, or through the Teachers College Press website, at tcpress.com.