Everyone has heard that children are like sponges, that they absorb everything they hear. This is very true when it comes to early childhood development. Children experience their most formative years from the early stages in the womb to the age of five. These years are essential to setting patterns and instilling desirable qualities in our children. What is it that makes children so susceptible to nearly every physical, emotional, and environmental influence at such a young age in life?

Building a Brain

The brain is moldable like a piece of plastic during these early childhood years, and at its highest development potential for learning visual and auditory sensory concepts during the ages of two to three. This is the time when the brain forms more than 700 sensory connections per second. Sensory connections arethoughts which form the concepts and ideas that a child will carry with them for the rest of their lives. This time period is when the child is most receptive to new ideas. Following the high point, the brain begins to limit acceptance of new visual and auditory perceptions.

How does an adult help a child develop during this critical time period? Children learning in this stage exhibit actions such as babbling, extreme facial expressions, and gestures. It is at this stage that adults respond to children’s actions with similar responses. When adults respond to the children in a positive manner, this improves their development. Constant encouragement and introduction of new words and sounds opens the child up to new sensory connections. We must stop and consider the impact of the fact that by age two or three, a child has already gained the ability to differentiate speech patterns of the language which the child has been exposed to. If we were to expose children to different languages from birth to this critical two and three year old range, think of the cognitive connections the child would form at more than 700 neural connections per second.

Stress

It seems impossible that a child between the ages of birth and five would encounter stress. However, studies indicate that early childhood development is, indeed affected by environmental stress such as poverty, abuse, or a mother’s depression. Children react to this stress, which is considered toxic, in a way that inhibits their neuron development. We must learn to protect the children from environmentalsources of stress because they have not choice to do so on their own. Their only resource is for the brain to shut down reception of these neural synapse, or to create damaged synapses.

Environment is Everything

We are a product of our environment. This is especially true for children in the early childhood development stage. Create an environment that exposes young children to different language experiences. Always create a loving, caring environment for children, making them feel emotionally connected and secure, regardless of their environment. Never let them know they are suffering from poverty. Remove them from abusive situations before they are permanently damaged on an emotional or physical level. Placing a young child in a positive, nurturing environment sets him up for future success with unlimited potential. This amazing article was brought to you by the men and woman from School science workshop - https://www.littlehouseofscience.com  Littlehouseofscience is UK based out of school workshop where young mind can understand and enjoy math’s and science.