Brain Child: Early Brain
Development Key for Future
by Chris Peck, Scripps
Howard News Service, May 28, 2003
Advocates for building better brains in children are doing nothing less
than trying to start a revolution.
It is a revolution, they believe, that must be central to any discussion
of homeland security because this is a revolution that can profoundly
affect the future of this nation.
"Forget having a viable social security system for retiring baby boomers,"
says Lise Eliot, assistant professor of neuroscience at the Chicago
Medical School. "If we don't address this issue of early brain
development, who do we think will be paying into the system down the
road?"
Today, 30 percent of young people entering kindergarten already are
woefully behind in their readiness to learn. They are behind because their
brains have not evolved in the most productive manner. The environment in
which they were raised has impeded their innate ability to think, read,
and socialize. And once behind, always behind, research shows. Eight in 10
kids who enter school not ready to learn mostly don't catch up by 4th
grade, or 8thgrade, or 12th grade. Then, they enter adulthood and the
workforce unprepared — for life.
"Birth to age three is the critical period for social and emotional
development," says Dr. Jane Wiechel, president of the National Association
for the Education of Young People in Washington, D.C. "If you aren't
exposed early in life to experiences that will enhance brain development,
it is an unfortunate fact of life that your brains' plasticity declines
throughout the rest of your life."
Brains must be shaped and formed early. We know this. Yet there is
reluctance in our society to intervene early in the lives of children and
their often ill-prepared parents to try to train both mother and child the
skills they need. "We are more concerned about fixing the holes in our
streets than we are about fixing the minds of our children," says Wiechel.
We build prisons, reform schools, and spend millions on special education
in the upper grades. And most of this is money spent too late to change
many lives.
Brainpower that slips away early means millions of children have lost
their best chance at becoming doctors rather victims of violence.
Brains that suffer stunted social development are far less likely to
evolve into the minds of lawyers and far more likely to evolve into the
minds of defendants in juvenile and criminal court.
Young brains that don't learn the essentials of human emotion will have a
far more difficult time becoming functional, caring parents to their own
offspring.
This is why the early childhood development champions believe their
efforts can, and must, begin to take shape as a broad, social movement not
unlike the civil rights movement, or the drive to stamp out polio.
But how does a revolution begin?
What can those who so want to change the fates of at-risk children do in
their own communities to create a tipping point where the care of young
minds becomes a top of mind priority?
The good news is that much can be done.
The movement now taking shape to nurture and save young brains begins with
a single, bedrock belief: Change is possible.
"This is a fixable problem," says David Lawrence, President of the Early
Childhood Initiative Foundation in Florida, and the person largely
responsible for that state's recent approval of a voluntary
pre-kindergarten training for every child. "The power to fix this rests at
the local level, with local people."
Already, the outline of a national movement can be seen taking shape. In
communities from California to Texas, Illinois to Florida, exceptional
people are championing the cause of saving young brains. For example:
Phyllis Wyne, president of the Board of Education in Birmingham, Alabama
now spends her time getting books into the homes of those who don't them.
She keeps the issue of early childhood education on the front burner of
the local school board. She goes anywhere and talks to anyone about the
need for tending to the development of young children. "People need to be
inundated with this stuff," she says.
Dr. Douglas Wood, president of the Tennessee State School Board, is now
urging the state legislature to shift from a traditional emphasis on K-12
classrooms to give more money and attention to pre-kindergarten programs.
Money for that shift likely will be included in this year's Tennessee
state budget.
David Lawrence, former Publisher of The Miami Herald and now president of
Florida's Early Childhood Initiative Foundation, led the effort in Florida
to get voters to approve funding so that every young child in the state
will have access to pre-kindergarten education.
Where these efforts are most successful, both public and private sectors
have been involved. Public schools and state and local governments have
been players. But issues related to early childhood development also
resonate within the business community. A functional workforce and the
costs of remedial education and criminal justice directly impact the costs
of doing business.
For this revolution to be complete, the activists say, good ideas need to
spread fast. When one community finds success in teaching parenting skills
to single mothers or improving local day care, the successes need to be
shared and copied.
Above all, activists say, opinion leaders, information providers and
caring parents must recognize the critical importance of this movement to
all children and the entire nation. "It's not about those kids, but about
all of our children," says Florida champion Lawrence.
Activists believe their early childhood development movement will lead to
a revolution in the way our nation addresses the needs of young brains
when mainstream civic leaders, politicians and parent groups see it as a
local opportunity that has national implications.
