New scientific research is showing that the connections needed for many crucial skills are formed, or not formed, in these first years – skills like motivation, self-regulation, problem solving, communication and self-esteem. The early years of a child’s life are the best opportunity for their brain to develop the connections they need to be healthy, capable, successful adults. Building brain connections is like building muscles: use it or lose it.īy age 4, primary senses, like touch and vision, as well as basic motor skills are almost fully developed.Ĭenter on the Developing Child at Harvard University
This is a normal process, (called pruning), that makes the brain more efficient. Connections that are used more often become stronger, while those that are not used are eventually eliminated. This inner wiring enables a very young child to control their body and start to learn about the world.ĭifferent areas of the brain – which are responsible for different abilities like movement, language and emotion – develop at different rates, and eventually brain connections connect with each other in more complex ways, enabling the child to move and speak and think in more complex ways.īy age 3, neurons get wired to other neurons, forming about 100 trillion connections.Īfter the first three years, the brain begins to fine-tune itself. The early years are also when connections between brain cells are being made at an amazing rate – at least one million new neural connections (synapses) every second, far more than at any other time in life. Incredibly, it doubles in size in the first year and keeps growing to about 80% of adult size by age 3 and 90%, nearly full grown, by age 5. And the early years of a child’s life are a crucial time for making those connections.Ī child is born with about 100 billion brain cells (neurons).Īt birth, the average baby’s brain is about a quarter of the size of the average adult brain. A newborn baby has all of the brain cells (neurons) they’ll have for the rest of their life, but what really makes the brain work – and enables us to move, think, communicate and just about everything else – are the connections between those cells. The human brain, the command center of the entire body, is not fully developed at birth. That’s why your child’s early years are so important. And how a young child’s brain develops impacts their future abilities to learn and succeed in school and in life. Early childhood is when the brain develops faster than at any other time in life.
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