Growing the Mind

Baby's Brain Development

By Teri Brown

In a world obsessed with faster, better and stronger, it is no surprise that the "do more" philosophy has moved to include our children. The top preschools have waiting lists, toys abound that promise to make your child smarter in the womb and flashcards for babies are commonplace. But do these gimmicks really work? Just how much can babiesyounger thana year old learn beyond the basics of sitting up, chewing and, in some cases, walking?

Ann Friedrick, a mother of two from Portland, Ore., wasn't sure just how much her children would learn before they were a year old, but she figured enrichment couldn't hurt. "At that time I didn't know if the activities I was doing would have any effect on my child, but I figured it was a mother's job to try," she says. "I played classical music, offered visually stimulating toys and did a lot of face-to-face verbal engagement."

Friedrick, like most mothers, wasn't trying to create a genius; she just wanted to enrich her child's life in any way she could. But just how much enriching sticks to an infant before age 1?

Janet Doman is a specialist in child brain development and infant stimulation and the author of How Smart Is Your Baby? Develop and Nurture Your Newborn's Full Potential (Square One Publishing, 2006). In her 35years of experience, she has noted just how much the infant brain is capable of.

"At birth, a newborn baby is functionally blind, deaf and insensate," Doman says. "These sensory pathways grow and develop based upon stimulation. The sensory pathways grow when appropriate visual, auditory and tactile stimulation is given with the proper frequency, intensity and duration."

As an example, Doman says a newborn baby usually has a less than perfect light reflex. "The light reflex is seen when the baby is exposed to light and the pupil constricts in response to that light," she says. "The sooner this reflex matures and becomes consistent, the sooner that baby will develop the ability to see outline and then detail. This is very easy to do and takes very little time, but it means that the baby gains the ability to see detail weeks or months earlier than he would have done if we had relied upon accidental stimulation. This is purposeful stimulation rather than accidental stimulation."

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