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Brain Development

Over the centuries, surveyors of the brain have tried to determine how this vital and mysterious organ grows and develops. Recent advancements in brain imaging technologies have allowed neuroscientists to watch activity in the living brain, providing more clues about its organization and development. The purpose of this entry is to discuss some basic findings about how the young brain grows, including neuron development, motor and emotional control, and language acquisition.

Neuron Development in Children and Adolescents

Nerve cells in the brain, called neurons, start developing in the embryo about 4 weeks after conception and proceed at an astonishing rate. In the first 4 months of gestation, about 200 billion neurons are formed, but about half will die off during the fifth month because they fail to connect with any areas of the growing embryo. This purposeful destruction of neurons is genetically programmed to ensure that only those neurons that have made connections are preserved and to prevent the brain from being overcrowded with unconnected cells. The characteristic walnut-like folds in the brain begin to develop around the sixth month of gestation. Any drugs or alcohol that the mother takes during this time can interfere with the growing brain cells, increasing the risk of fetal addiction and mental defects.

The neurons in a child's brain make many more connections than those in adults. A newborn's brain makes connections at an incredible pace as the child absorbs information from its environment. The more interactions the child's brain has with language, numbers, and other enriching experiences, the greater the number of interconnections that are made. As the child approaches puberty, the pace slackens and two other processes begin: Connections the brain finds useful become permanent; those not useful are eliminated as the brain selectively strengthens and prunes connections based on experience. This process continues throughout life, but appears to be most intense between the ages of 3 and 12 years. During adolescence, spurts in brain development lead to the physical growth and sexual maturation that begin to significantly affect behavior. Neural networks are establishing new links between more complex ways of thinking and new emotional and social experiences. Thus, at an early age, experiences are already shaping the brain and designing the unique neural architecture that will influence how it handles future experiences in school, work, and other places. Teachers play an important role in providing these learning-rich experiences.

Learning Language

Because the human brain appears to be genetically prewired for language, babies start uttering sounds and babble nonsense phrases as early as the age of 2 months. By the age of 8 months, infants begin to try out simple words like mama and dada. The language areas of the brain become really active at 18 to 20 months. A toddler can learn 10 or more words per day, yielding a vocabulary of about 900 words at age 3 years, increasing to 2,500 to 3,000 words by the age of 5 years. Researchers have shown that babies whose parents, especially fathers, talked to them more had significantly larger vocabularies. Knowing a word is not the same as understanding its meaning. Children who know the meaning of most of the words in their large vocabulary will start school with a greater likelihood that the crucial task of learning to read will be easier and quicker.

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