The Amazing Ways a Child's Brain Develops

It has been said that while genes provide a blueprint for the brain, it's a child’s environment and experiences that carry out the construction. Today, research by child development specialists is giving us a clearer understanding of early brain development.

The development of the brain begins in the first few weeks after conception. At birth, the child's brain already has about all of the neurons it will ever have. 

New born babies can recognise human faces, which they prefer over other objects, and can even tell the difference between happy and sad expressions. The brain continues to develop at an amazing rate throughout a child's first year. Children experience a rapid development in motor skills at this age and their sight develops into full binocular vision. 

Often a toddler's language abilities will suddenly surge between his first and second birthday - sometimes called the vocabulary explosion. Concepts like self-awareness are developing around this time and a child will begin to recognise their own reflection in a mirror. 

Between ages 2-3, complex cognitive abilities such as understanding cause and effect are already being developed. By age 3, their brain reaches 80 percent of its adult volume. 

Staff at Learning Tree Childcare understand that positive early experiences have a huge effect later on in a child's life.