Why It Matters

High-quality care and early childhood education services build cognitive, social, and emotional skills necessary for healthy growth and development.

Early experiences that are nurturing, active and challenging actually thicken the cortex of an infant's brain, creating a brain with more extensive and sophisticated structures that determine intelligence and behavior.

Jack Shonkoff, M.D., of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and other child development experts explain how genes and experiences shape the architecture of a child's developing brain: "the active ingredient is the ‘serve and return' nature of children's engagement in relationships with their parents and other caregivers in their family or community...both brain architecture and developing abilities are built ‘from the bottom up,' with simple circuits and skills providing the scaffolding for more advanced circuits over time."

While good experiences help the brain develop well, poor experiences can literally cause a child to have a lower IQ. Children need adult interaction. In fact, children who experience less touch, sights, sounds, and language develop weaker brain architecture. This can lead to a lifetime of problems in learning, behavior and health.

The science is clear: children need responsive care and attention during their earliest weeks, months, and years to build cognitive, social, and emotional skills necessary for healthy growth and development.

To read more about child development and Dr. Shonkoff's work, please visit: http://www.developingchild.net/pubs/persp/pdf/Science_Early_Childhood_Development.pdf