Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • A child's experiences during the earliest years of life have a lasting impact on the architecture of the developing brain.

  • Genes provide the basic blueprint, but experiences shape the process that determines whether a child's brain will provide a strong or weak foundation for all future learning, behavior, and health.

  • During this important period of brain development, billions of brain cells called neurons send electrical signals to communicate with each other.

  • These connections form circuits that become the basic foundation of brain architecture.

  • Circuits and connections proliferate at a rapid pace and are reinforced through repeated use.

  • Our experiences and environment dictate which circuits and connections get more use.

  • Connections that are used more grow stronger and more permanent. Meanwhile, connections that are used less fade away through a normal process called pruning.

  • Well-used circuits create lightning-fast pathways for neural signals to travel across regions of the brain.

  • Simple circuits form first, providing a foundation for more complex circuits to build on later.

  • Through this process, neurons form strong circuits and connections for emotions, motor skills, behavioral control, logic, language, and memory during the early critical period of development.

  • With repeated use, these circuits become more efficient and connect to other areas of the brain more rapidly.

  • While they originate in specific areas of the brain, the circuits are interconnected. You can't have one type of skill without the others to support it.

  • Like building a house, everything is connected and what comes first forms a foundation for all that comes later.

A child's experiences during the earliest years of life have a lasting impact on the architecture of the developing brain.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it