Show notes
Why are the early years of a child’s life so important for brain development? How are connections built in the brain, and how can early brain development affect a child’s future health? This episode of The Brain Architects dives into all these questions and more. Contents Podcast Panelists Additional Resources Transcript First, Dr. Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child, explains more about the science behind how brains are built—their architecture—and what it means to build a strong brain. This is followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Judy Cameron, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh; Debbie LeeKeenan, an early childhood consultant and former director of the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School at Tufts University; and Dr. Pia Rebello Britto, the global chief and senior advisor for the Early Childhood Development Program Division at UNICEF. These panelists discuss the practical side of building brain architecture, and what any parent or caregiver can do to help give children’s brains a strong foundation. Download the episode and subscribe now! Panelists Dr. Pia Rebello Britto Dr. Judy Cameron Debbie LeeKeenan Additional Resources Resources from the Center on the Developing Child Key Concepts: Brain Architecture Video: Experiences Build Brain Architecture Deep Dive: Gene-Environment Interaction A Guide to Executive Function Resources from Our Panelists Dr. Pia Rebello Britto Articles Black, Maureen M., et al., ‘Early Childhood Development Coming of Age: Science through the life course’, The Lancet, series 0140-6736, no. 16, 4 October 2016, p.4.https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)31389-7.pdf Web Resources UNICEF: 29 Million Babies Born into Conflict in 2018 UNICEF: Early Childhood Development UNICEF: Early Moments Matter UNICEF: Pollution: 300 Million Children Breathing Toxic Air Dr. Judy Cameron The Brain Architecture Game Working for Kids Debbie LeeKeenan Organizations Anti-bias Leaders in Early Childhood Education National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) PEPS: Program for Early Parent Support Books Daly, L & Beloglovsky, M. (2014) Loose Parts: Inspiring Play In Young Children, Red Leaf Press. Luckenbill, J. Subramaniam, A. & Thompson, J. (2019) This is Play: Environments and Interactions that Engage Infants and Toddlers, Washington D.C., NAEYC. Masterson, M and Bohart, H. (2019) Serious Fun: How Guided Play Extends Children’s Learning, Washington D.C., NAEYC. Rogoff, B. (2003) The Cultural Nature Of Human Development, Oxford University Press. Transcript Sally: Welcome to The Brain Architects, the new podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host, Sally Pfitzer. Our center believes that advances in science can provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and families. We want to help you apply the science of early childhood development to your everyday interactions with children, and take what you’re hearing from our experts and panels and apply it to your everyday work. In today’s episode, we’re going to dive into the concept of brain architecture and learn a little bit more about the science behind it. We’ll learn why the early years are really important for brain development, and think about how connections are built in the brain, and what a strong or weak foundation in the brain can mean for a child’s future health and development. Here to help us explain brain architecture is Dr. Jack Shonkoff, professor of child health and development, and director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Welcome, Jack. Jack: Hey, Sally. Good to be here. Sally: We have a lot of questions to dive into today, but first, can you explain where the idea of brain architecture came from? I’ve heard you use the metaphor of a house before, which I’ve found to be really helpful in really thinking about that foundation that’s set in the early years. Jack: Almost 20 years ago, the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child realized that we needed metaphors to take very complicated science and present it with a phrase that would capture what it was about, and would be remembered. What came from our early conversations was this very simple fact that brains are built over time. We latched onto this concept of brain architecture, and any building begins with a strong foundation. If the foundation is strong, the building will last a long time, and if the foundation has a crack in it, or it’s weak, the building may not fall apart, but you won’t be able to build on it very much over time without having to deal with some of the weaknesses. Think of the building communities where multiple houses are built, that they’re all exactly the same. But then people move in, and they bring their own decoration, and they’re own style to it, and every house that’s built with the same basic design ends up looking very different. The more we got into the architecture metaphor, the more we realized how powerful it is in terms of understanding this process of brains being built over time. Sally: As I’m listening to you, it’s making me think about the nature/nurture argument. I know that the current science has a lot to say around that. Is brain architecture determined solely by our genes? Jack: I love this question. This whole idea of how much is genetic and how much is the result of experience used to be a very fierce argument among scientists. We now know that there’s a very strong genetic and a very strong experience influence. To stick with the architecture metaphor, think of the genetic contribution as the architect’s blueprint, before you begin to build a building. That’s the way genetics contributes. It’s why most children, they sit up at a certain age, walk at a certain age. But how those skills develop, how they’re built, how strong they are, what the design looks like, very little of that is influenced by genetics. It’s influenced by, it’s the world in which kids live, the experiences they have, the environment of relationships they live in, that shape the development of the blueprint for that individual. Genes determine when circuits get built. Experience, individual differences in people’s life experiences determine how those circuits get built. Together, they both explain the development of brain architecture. Sally: That’s so fascinating. I know a lot of our listeners are folks who are working directly with kids. I’m wondering if you can give them some examples what that building responsive relationships looks like, and also how that actually goes into building brain architecture. Jack: Another great question. The key feature of what we mean by “environment,” and what we mean by “experiences” that shape brain development really come down to the nature of the interaction between very young children and the adults who care for them. The brain is wired to expect interaction with other people. It’s not looking for interaction with tablets, or mobile phones, mainly because those stimulus sources are not interactive. This need for interaction is built into our biology, into our genes. It comes from eons and eons of evolution. If there wasn’t a reason for it, it wouldn’t appear over and over again over eons. From a developmental point-of-view, somebody has to be there engaging and interacting, and providing experiences from which you can learn, in order for your brain to build strong circuits. If the brain is getting bad input, the brain struggles to learn how to deal with it. If the brain is getting no input, it’s an all-signal alert that the world is crashing down on you, not because it’s harming you, but because it’s ignoring you. Positive experiences strengthen brain circuits. Threatening negative experiences weaken brain circuits, at the time that they’re being made. Sally: One last question. I can’t help but ask, given what you’ve just described about how detrimental some of these things can be to a developing brain, and I’m thinking about listeners who have either experienced this themselves, or have had children that have experienced this, and that sense that they might have of “This is a doomed situation. My foundation is crumbling and completely weak, and from there on, I’m not able to continue to build my house.” I just wondered if you could address that. Jack: I’m really so glad you asked that question, Sally, because there are no perfect brains. The best parents in the world do a dozen things wrong every day. There’s a lot of science about brain development, but raising healthy, competent children is much more a bumbling art than it is a precise science, right? There’s a core concept in biology about adaptation and resilience over time, so that it is never too late to strengthen the brain’s capacity to do things. Anybody who says, “Past a certain age, there’s nothing you can do,” is ignorant of what science has to say. On the other hand, it’s not true that early doesn’t matter. It’s a balance. Having problems early on, perhaps having a weaker foundation, is not a doomsday scenario at all. It just means that some things are going to have to be worked on a little bit harder. They would have been easier if we had gotten it right the first time, but it’s not too late. The take-home messages here are earlier is always better than later, prevention of difficulties is better than trying to remediate difficulties later. But it is never, ever too late to strengthen capacities. The brain is always trying to get things right. If it goes off-track, it’s always trying to get back on-track. That’s the beauty of the science. It’s also the beauty of the magic of human development. Sally: Thank you so much. I’ll leave you with that. “Earlier is better, but it’s never too late.” Thank you so much. Jack: Thank you, Sally. I appreciate it. Sally: When we come back, we’ll welcome a few special guests. Musical interlude Sally: Here to discuss the implications of the science of brain architecture, we have Judy Cameron, Ph.D. Judy is a professor psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, and the CEO of Working for Kids: Building Skills, LLC. Welcome to the podcast, Judy. Judy: Thank you. I’m really happy to be here. Sally: We also have Debbie LeeKeenan joining us. Debbie’s an early childhood consultant and former director of the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School at Tufts University. Hi, Debbie. Debbie: Hi. It’s an honor to be here. I’m looking forward to the conversation. Sally: Also joining us on the podcast, we have Pia Rebello Britto, Ph.D. She’s the global chief and senior advisor, Early Childhood Development Program Division, at UNICEF. Welcome, Pia. Pia: It’s a pleasure to be on. Thank you for inviting me. Sally: I’d like to start by asking why is it critical for parents, teachers, and even policy makers to understand the importance of brain architecture? Judy: It’s important that people, all people who interact with children, understand brain architecture, and how brain architecture is made. Because experiences play a really strong role. The brain is genetically programmed to make connections, but whether those connections stay, become strong, and are permanent and there for the child to use their whole lifetime, depends on having experiences that strengthen them. You want parents to strengthen children’s brain circuits. You want teachers to do that. At the policy level, you want policy makers to vote for things that will give all children that opportunity. Pia: To complement Judy, I want to focus a bit on the policy makers, in terms of their understanding of brain architecture. Ultimately, as we know, for these positive experiences to occur between children and their caregivers or parents, these adults in the child’s life need time. They need resources. They need services. All of that enables them, then, to be able to engage with their children in a meaningful manner. Policy makers, employers in the business sector, all of them create the right policies and enabling environment to then give the parents that time, that space, the resources they need. Their understanding of brain architecture, and the value it holds and how it occurs, is very important, then, to enable parents to engage in what they love the most, to engage and interact with their children. Sally: Great. Debbie, I know you’ve been in the field for quite some time, in a variety of roles. I think our listeners would like to know what are some specific things that teachers, parents, and caregivers can do to actually help build a healthy brain? Debbie: We know that young children learn through everyday play and exploration in safe and stimulating environments, and with relationships with their families, teachers, and caregivers. Young children learn when they’re using their whole body and senses. Giving opportunity for young children to explore open-ended materials that can be manipulated and combined in different ways, these provide unlimited play and learning opportunities. We’re talking about blocks, little figures, animals, toy cars, balls, spoons, buckets, pans, baskets, or recycled materials. Through all of that, the early childhood brains are opened to new experiences, and children are testing new theories, and changing old theories when they learn something new. This kind of constructive play allows experimentation, problem solving, higher-order thinking, and as well as language development and social skills. They develop new ideas and schema. It helps them with language development, cognitive skills, problem solving, and taking on other perspectives and self-regulation. All of these things are a way that teachers, parents, and caregivers can help the brain develop from very young ages. Judy: I think that what Debbie has said is exactly right, and one thing parents are always asking is “How can we fit this into our everyday life?” Giving them examples of what they can do while they’re cooking dinner, what they can do while they’re driving in the car, what they can do when they’re just hanging out with their kids, so that they can begin to be creative. They have ideas that anytime can be a learning time for a child. Sally: Great. Judy, you were part of a team that created a whole game around the concept of brain architecture. Could you tell us a little bit more about that game? Who plays it? What do you think people actually learn from it? Judy: The Brain Architecture Game, people work in small groups. They have a task of building a brain. They roll the dice to get their genetic background. That gives you the structure of the base of the brain. And then, they draw Life Experience cards, and the Life Experience cards might be a good experience, a really bad stress, which we would call a toxic stress, or a tolerable stress, a stress that can be good for the growth of the brain or not, that it could be toxic, and it really depends on how much social support. A key issue in the game was to get people to understand that social supports are really important. They build their brain out of pipe cleaners with the supports being straws, and they debate with each other, “Okay. Where am I going to use this support? How tall can we get it? Do we need a little bit more of a sturdy base?” Sally: Yeah, Judy, I’ve facilitated that game a few times, and I’m always struck by how many times I hear the term ” that’s not fair” when people are watching their brains collapse. Judy: That’s true. I’ve played it with over 12,000 people. I remember playing it at a legislature at one point where the whole legislature decided to take an hour out of their day. One legislator came in the room, and he said, “I’m going to build a fantastic brain. I really care about children, and I’m a good architect.” And I said, “Excellent.” And then, his brain collapsed. And when I asked him what happened, he said, “Oh. It wasn’t my fault,” and I didn’t say anything. I just looked right at him, and he said, “Oh, my gosh. T…
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