Positive influences on childhood brain development
The earliest stages of life are a crucial time for child development and have a particularly important impact on the brain. More than 80% of a child's brain is formed during the first three years of life, and what they experience in this window can greatly affect how their brain develops and, in turn, behaviors down the line.
Dr. Audrey Brewer, advanced general pediatrics and primary care physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, provides a foundation to understanding brain development in children and what families can do to reinforce and support it.
“The brain is most flexible early in life, accommodating a wide range of environments and interactions,” Brewer said. “Therefore, early life experiences have the capacity to impact the quality of brain architecture (whether the brain's foundation becomes sturdy or fragile), directly affecting how a child learns, as well as how the brain may influence their physical and mental health outcomes.”
Brewer notes that one of the biggest factors to be aware of during early brain development years is the presence of stress. While a certain amount of stress is expected and even healthy, the persistence and severity of it are what can actually “weaken brain architecture.” Doctors refer to these more threatening events as adverse childhood experiences, or “ACEs.”
The amounts of ACEs a child is exposed to is important and can look like:
• Threatening events such as abuse, bullying or disasters
• Ongoing chronic hardships such as poverty (lack of access to healthy and nutritious foods, housing instability)
• Racism, discrimination, neglect (emotional and physical)
• Abuse (physical, emotional and sexual)
• Household dysfunction (mental illness, incarceration of a relative, substance abuse)
• Exposure to community violence
• Lack of educational and economic opportunities
A child's environment, and the quality thereof, is especially important to consider when thinking about brain development influencers. The presence of things like community violence, poor or unaffordable housing conditions, lack of educational opportunities and lack of economic opportunities can all influence the way a child's brain develops. Brewer explains that this is especially true when there are no buffers or protective factors to combat the adversities and toxic stress that a child may experience early in life.
“Early childhood experiences are invaluable,” said Brewer. “They have the ability to change the way our genes work, change the way our brains form and function, affect our resilience to toxic stress, affect both cognitive and social-emotional development, and affect health and well-being into adulthood.”
The more severe stressors mentioned above could be categorized into what's known as “toxic stress.” These are also thought of as unmet needs, which causes our bodies to react in more permanent ways, and it can be more challenging to recover physiologically. Contrastingly, there is also “tolerable stress” (severe stressor but limited duration, such as loss of a loved one or broken bone), and “positive stress” (child getting a vaccine or first day of school), which will cause a physical response in the body, but it's much milder and more manageable.
Research also shows that lack of sleep may affect brain structure and function, impacting different health outcomes.
“When a child has limited or insufficient sleep, this can impact the overall structure of the brain in particular areas that are responsible for attention, memory and inhibition control,” said Brewer. “If children do not consistently get adequate sleep this can eventually lead to impairment in cognitive functions such as decision making, problem solving, memory function and learning. In addition, if insufficient sleep persists into later childhood and early adolescence, children may be more likely to have mental and behavioral health challenges such as problems with impulse control, stress, depression, anxiety, aggressive behavior and comprehension.”
The most effective way parents and caregivers can support healthy brain development, and even combat whatever stress a child might be exposed to, is to build resiliency by practicing positive, nurturing and responsive parent-child interactions. This is best achieved from a place of physical and mental wellness on the family's part. When a parent is well, they are better equipped to provide stable and safe environments for children.
“This is the antidote to adverse childhood experiences,” Brewer said. “The goal is for children and their families to flourish and thrive despite the adversities they may experience.
Positive interactions might include things like:
• Reading regularly to a child to stimulate optimal patterns of brain development and strengthen parent-child relationships. Home reading routines have been found to be an important predictor of children's oral language and socio-emotional skills.
• “Serve and return play,” or adult behaviors like engaging with an infant or young child as the child is babbling, making different gestures or cries and the adult responds in a positive and appropriate manner through eye contact, and offering words or a hug to provide a safe, stable and nurturing interaction. These interactions nurture and support the child's unique personality, sparking the child's interest to grow and develop.
Despite our understanding of early brain development, children continue to grow and learn beyond 3 years old. Even if a child experiences adversity at a young age, it does not mean that they will absolutely develop different physical and mental health disorders in later childhood and into adulthood. Supporting positive relationships that help to build resiliency and hopefully leading to the capacity for children to thrive are crucial.
• Children's health is a continuing series. This week's article is courtesy of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. For more information, visit www.LurieChildrens.org.