Maine Children's Alliance : MeKids.org

What the New Brain Research Tells Us: How Everyday Experiences Affect Children

All of us have had the experience of wheeling our shopping cart around the end of a supermarket aisle and coming upon a mother and child whose interactions upset us. If the exchange seems unnecessarily harsh to our eyes, we feel uncertain and anxious. We speculate about whether this is a common occurrence between them or whether this is one of those times when the child¡¦s mother has simply run out of steam. It may set off feelings of guilt about those occasions when we have been short tempered with our own children and we wonder about the impact on the child.

By contrast, when we see a mother speaking softly to her child, encouraging his curiosity by answering all of those "why" questions and showing obvious pleasure in his company, we feel a sense of well being and peace.

Our reactions are much the same when we visit different child care programs and witness the range in quality of the interactions between the children and their care givers. Our responses, as we witness these scenes, are deeply emotional. They have much to do with how we, as a species, are wired to take care of our young.

While the emotions we feel may demonstrate an almost instinctive sense of which interactions with young children seem right, that knowledge is hard to convey. Words like "warm", "responsive", "nurturing" and "developmentally appropriate" are too vague. They don't lend themselves easily to hard-nosed discussions about the impact and cost effectiveness of government programs and policies.

Even though great importance is attached to these qualities, there is often a lack of understanding of how public policy can affect these overtly less tangible aspects of a child's world. By contrast, the benefits of immunizations, regular health check ups and good nutrition seem far easier to evaluate and measure and the role of government in insuring that those benefits are provided to children seems so much clearer.

Fortunately, the extraordinary surge in knowledge about brain development, together with new tools by which scientists can examine the physical structure of the brain, are now enabling us to more clearly define the significance of these less tangible qualities of care. For the first time, through new brain imaging techniques called PET scans, neuroscientists can provide visual images of the effects of deprivation, images that validate those instinctive feelings of concern we all feel when we see children who are being emotionally neglected or mistreated. And, research assessing the impact of government initiatives and regulatory policy bolster the assertion that government can and does make a difference in the cognitive and emotional development of children.

How the Brain Develops:

The brain of a newborn baby is made up of trillions of brain cells or neurons. As the baby is stimulated by experiences in her environment, electrical impulses, called synapses, occur between these neurons. When repeated over and over, these connections form the permanent pathways through which we learn and process information throughout our lives. The degree to which these critical connections are made and repeated in a child's brain is heavily dependent on the number and kind of experiences provided to that child, especially during the early years. (For a fuller discussion of the new findings on brain development, see "What the New Brain Research Tells Us", the first in a series of papers by the Maine Children's Alliance on brain development and early education.)

The Importance of Stable Early Attachments in Effectively Coping with Stress:

Other research examining the role of certain hormones in the development of the brain underscores the importance of the quality of the attachment between children and their parents and between children and their care givers. If a child experiences a stable, warm and nurturing relationship with the adults in her life, she will develop the capacity to control her own emotions, a skill critical for later success in life.

If, on the other hand, a child has experiences with adults that cause her undue stress, the child's body will release excessive amounts of cortisol, a hormone which at higher levels can lead to fewer electrical connections being made in the brain. The continued release of this hormone can cause a child to become "stuck" in a "high alert" state even when there is no danger. This state can lead to aggression and emotional and behavioral problems and can undermine the ability of children to take in the stimuli necessary to the development of critical cognitive and social skills.

Is the Damage Irreversible?

Neuroscientists caution that the study of the human brain has not developed enough yet to allow us to draw clear conclusions about the critical times in childhood when different skills are best acquired nor exactly what stimuli is needed to acquire them. Nor do we yet know the degree to which the damage to brain development can be reversed. There is, however, a great deal of evidence to show that some windows of opportunity to correct damage and "rewire" the circuitry of the brain continue to stay open even into adulthood. Yet, certainly, the overwhelming message from this explosion of new knowledge is that we must invest more of our resources in the earliest years, beginning in infancy and even before birth, if children are to have the best chance of overcoming obstacles to healthy development.

What are the Factors That Place Children At Risk?

The factors in a child's environment which can negatively affect her cognitive and emotional development include maternal depression, exposure to toxins in utero, under-nutrition, lack of stimulation, domestic violence and abuse, and poor quality child care. While the effects of these influences, as described in the new research, seem frightening, the good news is that public policy can and has made an important difference in countering these negative influences. The challenge to state policy makers is to take the findings of this new research and apply them to the problems facing Maine's children. For example:

*In 1996, 4,656 Maine children were victims of child abuse and neglect substantiated by the state. Almost 4,000 domestic assaults were reported to police in Maine. The new research shows that the stress of abuse and neglect, and the experience of witnessing violence in the home, has a biological effect on a child's brain that can seriously harm a child's emotional and cognitive development. Early intervention programs that help educate and support families in their child rearing responsibilities, starting even before a child is born, have proven to be highly effective. For example, in our own state, a study of the first five years of a Parents Are Teachers Too (PATT) program in Waldo County found only two incidents of substantiated child abuse among PATT families in an area with the highest rate of child abuse in the State. Yet in Maine, because of under funding, only about 1,000 families in need of these services are able to receive them.

*It is estimated that between one in seven and one in five Maine children suffer from mental health problems serious enough to require treatment. One of the most exciting developments to come out of the brain research is the discovery of new methods for identifying problems and working with families to help children overcome these difficulties earlier in life than was ever thought possible. Yet to take advantage of these new discoveries, effective systems of community-based mental health services must be available to all children. Maine lacks such an infrastructure. Because of a lack of community-based intervention services, Maine hospitalizes children at twice the national rate and spends three quarters of its child mental health expenditures on the most restrictive settings.

*Low-income women are at greater risk for clinical depression. A study of participants in a Georgia JOBS program for AFDC recipients found that almost half (42%) reported depressive symptoms high enough to be considered clinically depressed. The stresses of poverty and the higher incidence of under nutrition among low-income families contribute to a higher incidence of clinical depression. Researchers have found that maternal depression has grave effects on the cognitive and emotional development of children. Babies whose mothers suffered from clinical depression were more likely to have cognitive and behavioral problems by age three. However, if a mother's depression was treated by the time the baby was six months old, the babies were not damaged. Yet in Maine almost 15% of nonelderly adults lack health care insurance. Even among those low-income adults who do have coverage, access to an adequate number of mental health providers is lacking, particularly in our rural communities.

*Maine's laws regulating care in family child care homes permit a provider, by herself, to care for three infants, three preschoolers and two school aged children, not counting the providerƒs own children. Regulations like these affect the amount of individual attention and stimulation children receive in child care settings. Researchers have found that in states with the toughest child care regulations, regarding such important determinants of quality as group size and staff/child ratios, children in child care are more advanced in language skills. These children also demonstrate better social skills than children in child care settings in states with weaker controls. Poor quality child care, which is often the only child care low income families can afford, has a particularly deleterious impact on disadvantaged children. Maine's system of regulation and enforcement needs to be strengthened. More funding for training programs needs to be appropriated and greater subsidization of child care needs to be provided in order to hold down parents' fees and make it financially viable to pay staff fairly and maintain good staff/child ratios. All of these measures would have a beneficial impact on the quality and affordability of child care provided to Maine's children.

Addressing the High Incidence of Poverty among Maineƒs Children:

One reason why there has been a special emphasis on the importance of this research for disadvantaged children is that the risk factors associated with poor brain development are also so closely linked with poverty. We have long known that there is a much higher incidence of mental retardation and behavioral and learning problems among children living in poverty. Now neuroscience is helping us to understand why in far more concrete and specific terms.

While neglect and excessive stress occur in families across the income spectrum, the challenges of poverty place low-income families at particular risk. When parents are so overwhelmed with the struggle to survive, when they are worried every day about whether they will be able to feed their children and keep them housed and safe, the stress involved can sap the energy they need to nurture and stimulate their children. Children who are not spoken to often enough and do not have opportunities to explore and discover are denied the chance to develop to their fullest potential cognitively and emotionally.

In Maine, almost 16% of our children under eighteen live below the federal poverty level. Many more live in families where parents work hard at low wage jobs that place them above the poverty line, but still don¡¦t offer them an adequate income to meet basic needs. In 1996, more then one third of Maine¡¦s children under five received WIC benefits and almost one third of school aged children received free and reduced price school lunches. While the new research on the brain certainly highlights the need for early interventions to address the specific risk factors scientists have identified, it should also give a new urgency to efforts to improve the economic status of Maine's young families with children.

Conclusion:

The physical pictures now available to us of the development of the human brain provide us with tangible proof of the complex interaction between heredity and environment that we now know determines the emotional and cognitive abilities of children. Once exposed to these pictures, they remain with us as we consider our own parenting and as we consider the impact on children of the family policies we adopt as a state and as a nation.

With the child and family policies we adopt as a state, we can serve as an extraordinary model of commitment and vision for the rest of the nation. Our children will be stronger and our future more secure if we take bold action now to nurture our smallest citizens and enrich the environment in which they live.

May, 1998

Updated: Sep 4th, 2008 - 15:24:01

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