Word: braine
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...rushing out to buy the latest in high-contrast black-and-white toys purported to stimulate neurological development. Musical crib mobiles playing Beethoven were suddenly the rage. Even videos claiming to help prepare four-month-olds for reading appeared on the market. The new data about the complex brain-wiring process that begins right after birth seemed to suggest that simply cooing and cuddling with Baby was not sufficient...
...many of the researchers whose work contributed to the frenzy are worried that their findings are being misinterpreted by the public. "The breathtaking PET scans of babies' brains have fueled a kind of anxiety that is unwarranted," says Craig Ramey, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Alabama, referring to the imaging technology that vividly depicts areas of high and low brain activity. "Parents may be conveying to their children a franticness about doing everything right." University of Chicago psychology professor Janellen Huttenlocher, who reported correlations between the size of toddlers' vocabularies and how much their mothers talk to them...
...sure, there are children in real peril. Many kids are living in unstable homes amid conditions that truly threaten brain development. What is more, the growing strains on the child-care system, especially since welfare reform, give child-development experts particular cause for worry. Without meaningful intervention before they reach school age, neglected or abused children may struggle with learning for the rest of their lives. "If they're not getting the nurturing they need in the earliest years, their synaptic development shuts down, which in turn shuts down the foundations for learning and being a human being," says Matthew...
...technologies are helping scientists understand more about how children's brains suffer because of insufficient stimulation or stimuli of the wrong kind. Dr. Bruce Perry of Houston's Baylor College of Medicine found that kids who hardly play--or who aren't touched very much--develop brains 20% to 50% smaller than normal. Infants in the care of mothers with severe depression show reduced brain activity as well as prominent effects in the parts of the brain associated with the expression of feelings. "This may result from such mothers' inability to relate affectionately and responsively to their infants," writes...
...great majority of us, however, the latest news about the brain did little more than remind us of other ways we can screw up--only this time it isn't just diaper changing on the line; it's the emotional and intellectual growth of our newborns. Cathy Smith, my daughter's teacher at Sing 'n Dance, says lots of moms seem preoccupied with the social and cognitive development of their babies. More than ever, they're asking to sign up two- and three-month-olds to be in classes with six- to 11-month-olds, believing that their infants' cognitive...