This is how your baby's brain works

The early learning It is not a whim of pedagogues and teachers. It is a tangible and effective reality, from the moment in which the baby brain, its enormous possibilities and its neurological bases.

As science advances in knowledge about the brain, reinforces the idea that its development and the neurological connections that develop it, go in proportion to the stimulations that it receives. The golden age in education is from zero to eight years and within this period, the first three years are the most important.

Educating early means, therefore, taking advantage of the moments in which psychobiologically is in the best conditions to establish neural circuits. It consists of offering a rich and organized stimulation that makes it possible to reach each child, according to their personal conditions, levels of neurological maturity, optimal learning and development. Early education, by achieving higher levels of performance, gives the child greater security, self-esteem and social acceptance.


The genetic inheritance and the baby's brain development

Genetic inheritance imposes conditions of brain development, a point of departure and a glimpse of possibilities. But without an adequate education, these possibilities would not come to fruition.

For this reason, encourage in our small the largest possible number of connections, circuits and networks of your brain through learning practices, surround him with affection that provides security and provide appropriate models to imitate is simply stimulate early.

And how can we do it? Well, as the expert Glen Doman says: "young children have five ways to learn things from the world. You can see it, hear it, touch it, smell it and taste it. No more. Five laboratory tests to learn about the world. "


How does our baby's brain work?

The brain is a physical organ that occupies the human skull and spine. It weighs between 1,500 and 2,000 grams and is responsible for us to talk, walk and to some extent think. It contains more than 10 million neurons of which we use a very small percentage. At three years, the brain has matured and developed 50% of its capacity and at 8, 80%.

The newborn already has about 100 billion cells. It is like a jumble of neurons waiting for all to be woven. We can compare a neuronal connection to a light bulb: if stimulation occurs, the affected cell is equal to a lit bulb; if not, the cell is equal to one off. If the neuron is stimulated, it is excited and connected with another neuron (neuronal plasticity). That is when learning and memory take place. In the years of development there are twice as many neurons as in adulthood.


When a neuron is activated by stimulation, it opens its sodium and calcium channels and generates an electrical impulse that is transmitted chemically (neurotransmitters) along the prolongation of the neuron, (the axon) and is transmitted to another neuron with which it contacts. This contact is called synapsis. The synapse is the functional unit of the nervous system. Learning and memory involve a modification of the strength or number of synaptic connections.

For this reason, the exercise is necessary. When a small child, a baby, throws an object into the air hundreds of times and always falls, children are rapidly expanding their knowledge if they have the opportunity to practice many times. During learning, the practice produces a modification of the connections between the neurons that remains in time (memory).

The functions of the hemispheres of the brain

The functions of the two hemispheres of the brain have also been discovered:
LEFT HEMISPHERE: explain words; language memory; processual thinking; emotional control; work with data; analyze; logic reasoning; structured activities; organize.
RIGHT HEMISPHERE: explain visually; memory of images; globalized thinking; expression of emotions; work with images; synthesize intuitively understand; open activities; improvise.

The two hemispheres are in permanent communication. There are specialized structures in various cerebral regions, in a non-symmetric and lateralized way. But the transmission of information between both hemispheres allows a global action that makes it difficult to perceive this functional lateralization in everyday life.

The left hemisphere, who is aware, performs all the functions that require a analytical, elementalist and atomistic thinking. It receives the information data to data, processes it in a logical, discursive, causal and systematic way and reasons verbally and mathematically, in the style of a computer where every "decision" depends on the previous one; his way of thinking allows him to know one part at a time, not all or the whole; it is predominantly symbolic and abstract, possessing a specialization and almost complete control of the expression of speech, writing, arithmetic and calculation.

The right hemisphere, however, that is always unconscious, develops all the functions that require a thinking or a synthetic and simultaneous intellectual vision of many things both.Therefore, this hemisphere is endowed with an intuitive thought that is capable of structural, syncretic and geometric perceptions, and can compare schemata in a non-verbal and metaphorical way. His style of procedure is complex, not linear. This allows him to orient himself in space and enables him to think and appreciate spatial forms, the recognition of faces, visual forms and tactile images, pictorial comprehension, musical structures and, in general, everything that requires a thought visual, imagination or is linked to artistic appreciation.

Boys and girls, a different development

In response to these investigations, the hemispheres of children develop differently than those of girls. Thus, males present more dyslexia, more aphasia (silence, muteness), more autism, functions are more localized and have more spatial efficiency.
On the contrary, girls have less language delays, brain functions are more distributed and have more verbal efficiency and there is a lesser percentage of left-handedness.

Marisol Nuevo Espín
Advice: José Antonio Alcázar Education Consultant

It may interest you:

- Prepare your baby to learn to talk

- 10 exercises of cerebral gymnastics for children and adults

- Stages of baby language

- How children learn: this is how your brain works

Video: PBS The Secret Life of the Brain - The Baby's Brain (mini).wmv


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