6 Must- Know Facts About Your Baby’s Brain

Baby’s brain grows rapidly- After birth, the human brain grows rapidly, more than doubling to reach 60 percent of its adult size by the time the kid is sampling his first birthday cake. By kindergarten, the brain has may not finish developing until the kid is his mid-20s.

Lantern vs Flashlight- Baby brains have many more neuronal connections than the brains of adults. They also have less inhibitory neurotransmitters. As a result, the baby perception of reality is less focused than adults. They are vaguely aware of everything- a sensible strategy considering they don’t yet know what’s important. Few likens baby perception to a lantern, scattering light across the room, where adult perception is more like a flashlight, consciously focused on specific things but ignoring background details.

Babbling signals learning- Within their lantern’s light, babies focus momentarily. When they do, they usually make babbling sounds to convey interest. The nonsense syllables babies spout- is the acoustic version of a furrowed brow. Few signal to adults that they are ready to learn. What makes babies smarter is talking to them, dialogue is best, where a parent responds within the pauses of an infant’ vocalizations.

Brains can be overwhelmed- But their need for human interaction doesn’t mean they should be tickled silly day and night. Babies have short attention spans and can easily be over-stimulated. Sometimes, the interaction they need is simply help calming down. This can be provided by rocking, dimming lights or swaddling flailing limbs that babies have yet to figure out how to control.

Educational DVDs aren’t worth-   Recent research suggests that social responses are fundamental to a child’s ability to fully learn language. Babies divide up the world between things that respond to them and things that don’t are not worth it. A recording does not follow a baby’s cues, which is why infant DVDs, have been found to be ineffective.

They need more than parents-  Researchers theory  that spending time with non-parental caregivers- a doting granny, a daycare teacher, a family friend help infants learn to read different facial expressions and expand their ability to take the perspectives of others. They use adult mental processes for figuring others’ emotions by the time they are seven months old.