Early Experience: Brain Development

Early Experience: Brain Development
Brain development is most rapid during the first 2 years of life. During the last two months of gestation and throughout the first year after birth the brain grows rapidly through the production of synapses and dendrites.

The dense branching and outreaching of dendrites fibers links billion of individual neurons and, on a broader scale, the different regions of the brain.

This integration of the circulatory of the brain along with myelination of nerve pathways makes possible the development of sensory, perceptual, emotional, regulatory, motor, and cognitive functions.

After birth, brain growth and the particular ways brain functions are organized are subject to the influence of the infant’s environment. Experience which neural pathways will be strengthened, which will remain available, and which will atrophy.

Appropriate care-giving and stimulation enhance brain development, whereas under-stimulation and poor or traumatizing care-giving retard or shape brain functioning in maladaptive ways.

From the perspective of brain growth and its effect on subsequent development, the transactions between infants and caregivers take on critical importance.
Early Experience: Brain Development