The First Three Years

Submitted by James Kenny, PhD on Tue, 12/13/2011 - 10:00

Research over the past two decades has provided compelling information on brain development in the pre-school years.  A newborn’s brain is only about one-fourth the size of an adult’s.  By age three, the brain will have grown to almost eighty percent of its adult size.  This means that the brain is far more impressionable in early life than in maturity.  The brain is activity-dependent, very vulnerable to its environment.  Brain pathways are being hard-wired by experience.  

Genes and environment interact at every step of brain development, but they play different roles.  Generally speaking, genes are responsible for the basic wiring plan – for forming all of the cells and the general connections between different brain regions.  Experience is responsible for fine-tuning these connections, helping each child to adapt to his or her particular environment. Connections between neurons are being set in ways that are irrevocable.  Disruption of attachments in the first three years is a very serious matter, akin to brain surgery.