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Children’s ability to learn from birth to age eight is
astounding. In fact, the learning experiences children have
during these years largely determine their future abilities and
the way they will learn, think and behave for the rest of their
lives.
Everything we DO in a child's life, from birth to age 5, is
critical to that child's future. 85% of brain development occurs
between birth and age five. Science has proven that there is a
direct correlation between positive interaction and learning
experiences of babies and their actual brain formation and
development. (This is crucial to the future capacities,
abilities, behaviors, attitudes, and success of our children).
Parents and other care-givers are the primary source of a
child's development. Get Ready wants to work with parents to see
that every child is ready to enter kindergarten, ready to learn
and ready to succeed.
Facts about Brain Development and
How Children Learn
- Brain development begins soon
after conception.
- At birth, a child has 100 billion
brain cells (neurons) and 50 trillion
connections (synapses).
- Early childhood experiences exert
a dramatic impact and physically
determine how the brain is "wired."
- In the first months of life, the
number of synapses increases 20 times
to more than 1,000 trillion synapses.
- Growth continues and a single
neuron can connect with as many as
15,000 other neurons.
- A three year old child has twice
as many connections as an adult.
- The number of connections could
easily go up or down by 25 percent or
more, depending upon whether a child
grows up in an enriched environment.
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Ron Kotulak, cited in "Unlocking the
Mind," Chicago Tribune, 1993 |
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Did You Know? |
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Most brain development occurs before
the age of four, starting
before birth and accelerating
immediately after, establishing
the foundation on which
learning depends.
That a child's
ability to learn can increase or
decrease by 25% or more,
depending on whether he or she
grows up in a stimulating
environment.
If we feed the hungry infant brain
good things (attention, caring,
reading, and stability), it
grows strong and pliable. Feed it
"junk
food" (neglect, abuse, instability,
and isolation), and a child's
learning capacity is stunted,
perhaps irreversibly.
Statistics provided by the South
Dakota Department of Social Services |
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