“The first year of life decides everything!”, “After three it’s too late,” the titles of many books urge parents to intensively engage in child development almost from the first days of life. Why are we convinced that we must hurry? Are the early years really everything?
“In psychology, there is the concept of a “sensitive period,” explains cognitive psychologist Maria Falikman. – This is the most favorable time for the formation of a particular ability. In the development of speech, for example, this is the age of up to three years. If you do not take advantage of the opportunities that a sensitive period opens up, time may be lost. However, the development of many abilities, such as music, is possible at a later time. In addition, sensitive periods are individual for each child. Therefore, it is more useful to look closely at the behavior and needs of the son (daughter) than to despair, that time has passed.” What significantly affects the future well-being and success of our children is the presence in the first years of life of the basic conditions for development.
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This is evidenced, in particular, by the work of economist James Heckman.1 and psychologist Charles Nelson. The basic conditions are adequate nutrition, and most importantly, communication with a close adult, thanks to which vocabulary, emotional intelligence, and ways of knowing the world are formed. “The relationship between parents and a child directly affects its development,” emphasizes Maria Falikman. – However, it is strange to say that the psyche is already formed by the age of three or six. To say so is to deny neuroscience evidence for the plasticity of the brain, its ability to change with experience. Both in an adult and in a child, the development of the psyche cannot stop. For example, studies of the brains of taxi drivers and golfers have shown that when learning a new cultural practice, the brain is rewired in the course of learning, simultaneously with the formation of new spatial or motor skills.2. And it has also been proven that cognitive functions begin to decline not in a year and not at five, but after twenty years, and the vocabulary even increases to almost sixty. Finally, the belief that abilities can be developed makes students more successful than those who rely only on natural gifts3. So adults should remember: everything is decided … all your life!
1 J. Heckman «Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged children», Science, 2006, № 312.
2 L. Bezzola et al. «Training-induced neural plasticity in golf novices, Journal of Neuroscience», 2011, № 31(35); E. Maguire et al. «Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers», PNAS, 2000, № 97(8).
3 C. Dweck, Flexible Consciousness (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2013).