Brain research tells us that children’s early experiences affect the physical architecture of the brain. Playful, loving, language-rich interactions between parents or caregivers and young children have a positive impact on the wiring of the young brain, laying the foundation for literacy and other healthy development. Conversely, toxic stress – stress so unrelenting the body doesn’t return to a calm baseline – has a deleterious affect on children’s growing brains and bodies.

This is the science behind a new policy on toxic stress adopted recently by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Among the authors of the new policy is Dr. Jack Shonkoff, the pediatrician who heads the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard and whose landmark 2000 book “From Neurons to Neighborhoods” helped revolutionize the way we think about the complex relationship between nature and nurture. (See above video of a forum at the Harvard School of Public Health with Shonkoff, AAP President Robert Block, and Roberto Rodriguez, White House special assistant to the president on education policy. Read Boston Globe interview with Shonkoff.)

“Toxic stress might arise from parental abuse of alcohol or drugs,” Nicholas Kristof writes in The New York Times. “It could occur in a home where children are threatened and beaten. It might derive from chronic neglect — a child cries without being cuddled. Affection seems to defuse toxic stress — keep those hugs and lullabies coming! — suggesting that the stress emerges when a child senses persistent threats but no protector. (more…)

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Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

“Healthier students are better learners.” This was the message that Charles E. Basch, a professor education at Teachers College, Columbia University, delivered at a recent Boston Public Schools forum on health and the achievement gap. Basch, the author of numerous articleson the relationship between health and educational achievement, was the keynote speaker at the event in the auditorium of the Boston Public Library.

In determining which health factors are educationally relevant, Basch considers the extent of health disparities, the causal effects on educational outcomes, and the feasibility of school-based programs and policies. Using this lens he comes up with seven “educationally relevant health disparities [that] impede motivation and ability to learn through at least five causal pathways: sensory perceptions; cognition; connectedness and engagement with school; absenteeism; and dropping out.” (more…)

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Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

A new study from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health finds that low-income children who participated in high-quality early education had better health and healthier behaviors as young adults. Researchers looked at data from North Carolina’s Abecedarian Project, one of three “gold standard” studies of the impact of high-quality early education on low-income children. They found that at age 21, Abecedarian participants reported fewer health problems over the previous six years, had lower rates of depression, and had fewer hospitalizations in the past year. Researchers also looked at 11 behavioral risk factors in the areas of traffic safety, drug use and access to primary care. Here, too, participants scored significantly better than non-participants.

The new study, published in the Journal of Public Health, follows the researchers’ earlier examination of data from the Perry Preschool Project, another of the gold-standard studies. The earlier study found, among other things, that Perry Preschool participants were less likely to smoke or use drugs and more likely to use seat belts. Female participants were less likely to become pregnant as teenagers.

“What we have found is that this educational intervention also reduced health risks like smoking and improved health outcomes as early as age 21,” said principal investigator Dr. Peter Muennig, assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman school. “The health benefits were quite dramatic…. These interventions may be more cost effective than many traditional medical and public health approaches to improving population health.”

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A decade has passed since the publication of  “From Neurons to Neighborhoods,” a landmark study from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine that used emerging brain research to present a complex, nuanced portrait of the relationship between nature and nurture in children’s development. Subtitled “The Science of Early Childhood,” it detailed how much of the brain’s architecture is wired in a child’s earliest years and showed how persistent, “toxic” stress, unmitigated by strong and nurturing relationships, can harm this critical wiring process.

Jack P. Shonkoff , a professor of pediatrics and director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard, edited “Neurons” with Deborah A. Phillips, a professor of psychology at Georgetown University. Shonkoff and his center work to educate and influence policymakers to use science as the basis of a public agenda for young children. At the recent Early Childhood Information Systems Strategic Planning Institute at Harvard, Shonkoff summarized the science in a PowerPoint.

“Early life experiences,” the PowerPoint notes, “are built into our bodies (for better or for worse).” (more…)

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