Rationale and Strategies for Early Identification

O-3 Brain Research
Strategies
References

O-3 Brain Research

When addressing the potential for the presence of a developmental disorder in children, it is imperative to remind us of the well-publicized data coming out on the newborn developing brain. Using powerful new research tools, including sophisticated brain scans, scientists have studied the developing brain in greater detail than ever before. Five major findings from these studies summarized in the Carnegie Corporation’s 1994 report, "The Quiet Crisis: Starting Points for Meeting the Needs of our Youngest Children," are worth noting:

The brain development that takes place during the prenatal period and first year of life is rapid and extensive
Brain development is much more vulnerable to environmental influences than previously known
Influence of early environment on brain development is long lasting
Environment affects not only the number of brain cells and the numbers of connections between them, but also the ways these connections are "wired"
There is a negative impact of early stress on brain function.

The Carnegie report concluded to utilize these advances in understanding the young developing brain, four key areas that constitute the vital starting points for our youngest children and families must be addressed. They are:

Promote opportunities for responsible parenthood
Guarantee quality child care choices for children under three
Ensure good health and protection of infants and children
Mobilize communities to support young children and their families.

Young children not only have the basic needs for safety, nourishment, warmth and nurturing but also the need for cognitive, social and emotional stimulation. Research, through its stunning revelations about human development from birth to three, confirms the importance of the critical role that parents and caregivers play in a child’s development. The importance of the first three years of life lies in the pace at which the child is growing and learning. In no other period do such profound changes occur so rapidly. The newborn grows from a completely dependent human being into one who walks, talks, plays and explores. The three year old is learning and, perhaps more important, learning how to learn. Brain research indicates that preschoolers are able to learn to:

Interact with computers
Learn foreign languages
Learn abstract thinking processes during the time their brains are still in the growing phase of life.

At age three, children can, given good care and sufficient stimulation, attain a high degree of "competency." Competent three-year-olds are:

Self confident and trusting
Intellectually inquisitive
Able to use language to communicate
Physically and mentally healthy
Able to relate well to others
Empathic towards others.

Many children with these communication and learning disorders have not accomplished these competencies by their third birthday. There is a need to continue to provide them stimulating, nurturing and developmentally relevant learning environment so as to "catch up" to those competencies, which they are expected to have achieved prior to entering a five year old, Kindergarten. Early Intervention Programs need to take into account the relevant information from brain and cognitive research in developing a learning environment, which will enhance and remediate the competencies of these developmentally delayed students.

A group of neurologists have made this bold declaration: "Children whose neural circuits are not stimulated before Kindergarten are never going to be what they could have been" (Newsweek1996). Scientists know the following about the developing brain that:

A baby is born with all the brain cells he/she will ever have, but with relatively few connections--called synapses--between these cells
During gestation, neurons are created at a rate of 250,000 per minute
The average number of neurons a child is born with is 100 billion
Neurons, which are used, are integrated into the brain’s living circuitry. Unstimulated neurons die
Synaptic connections are forged by the growing child’s experience with the surrounding world
In the first year of life, a child generates up to 15,000 connections to each one of the 100 billion brain cells
By age two, the number of synapses reaches adult levels and surpasses them between ages four and ten
A child’s brain has twice as many neurons, twice as many connections between them and is twice as energetic as an adult brain
At six years of age, the brain has reached its full weight of about three pounds, tripling its weight at birth and that the gain is caused, in main, by growth of the cells
The brain remains a work in progress during childhood
The developing brain is so robust that it sometimes can overcome even severe physical trauma.
Neurons physically blossom in response to stimulation like a flower responding to sunlight
The period prior to six years of age is a critical period in which the brain develops vision, language, muscle control, emotional response and reasoning ability
That learning is a powerful enriching influence on the brain’s cells. The brain of an active college graduate may have up to 40% more neural connections when compared to that of a high school dropout
The brain is hungry for stimulation and with proper attention early enough in life, scientists have proven that they can raise a disadvantaged child’s IQ 30 points, cut the risk of some forms of mental retardation in half and correct common learning disabilities
Conversely, denied proper stimulation, the brain atrophies and its neural connections wither like dying leaves (Hotz, 1997).

The developing brain is so malleable it can incorporate behavioral problems into its circuits as readily as it might pick up a love of music. For this reason, preschool programming, which is focused on the children with communications and learning disorders, should provide enough neuron energizing activities as possible to insure that these developing brains do not atrophy. Caine and Caine (1991) detail a number of strategies to utilize the advance in brain research in the restructuring and design of curriculum in teaching students with developing brains. They emphasize learning strategies, which are based on the following concepts:

Engaging the entire physiology
Recognizing that the search for meaning is innate and occurs through patterning
Involving the emotions which are critical to patterning
That the brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes and
That the brain is a parallel processor.

Early Identification Strategies

Children should be identified as soon as possible for assessment of a suspected communications and learning disorder from 12 months of age on if they display any warning signs for developmental delay. It is imperative to have these children receive developmental assessment as soon as possible from developmental specialists. It is clear that at present there are no "cures" for these disorders but when children receive appropriately structured early intervention programs in their early years this can enhance their functioning in later life (Howlin, 1997). In most cases a multidisciplinary approach to early intervention is recommended due to the behavioral and developmental aspects involved in these disorders (Williams & Bloom, 1999). Unique methods of early identification have been researched such as analysis of body movement of infants (Teitelbauum et al. 1998) and analysis of infantile urine (Huang, 1999).

Two forms, which can be used for early Identification,

The Parent Developmental Questionnaire

References:

Carnegie Corporation (1994). The Quiet Crisis: Starting Points for Meeting the Needs of our Youngest Children.

Hotz, R. L. (1996). Deciphering the Miracles of the Mind, Los Angeles Times, October 13.

Howlin, P. (1997). Prognosis in autism: do specialist treatments affect long-term outcome? European Adolescent Psychiatry June;6(2):55-72.

Huang, C. (1999). Urine Test Diagnoses Newborn Cerebral Palsy. The New England Journal of Medicine 341:328-335, 364-365.

Newsweek, "Your Child’s Brain," February 19,1996

Teitelbaum, P., Teitelbaum, O., Nye, J., Fryman, J., & Maurer, R. G. (1998). Movement analysis in infancy may be useful for early diagnosis of autism. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA November 10;95(23):13982-13987.

Williams, P.G. & Bloom, A. S. (1999). Case reports in autism: issues in diagnosis and treatment. Journal of Kentucky Medical Association February;97(2):56-60.

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