The Latest Brain Research
During the last 15 years, scientists have discovered more about how the brain works than in the entire history of neuroscience. They used to think of babies as blank slates. But now they know that babies begin learning as soon as they leave the womb. At the time of birth, 100 billion or so neurons in the brain are already hard at work, keeping the heart beating and the breath flowing. Before long, more synapses begin forming to build the architecture of the child’s brain.

Brain Growth Especially Rapid in the First 2 Years of Life

Even young infants can learn. In 1973, researchers showed 5- to 12-week-old babies a silent color film. While watching it, the infants sucked on pacifiers connected to a pressure switch controlling the projector lens. If they sucked at just the right rate, the movie appeared in focus. The infants quickly learned to do so, demonstrating not only that they could learn, but that they preferred a clear to a blurry image. [1] Another study showed that infants sucked vigorously when introduced to the sound “ba,” but gradually lost interest and stopped. When hearing a new sound “pa,” vigorous sucking started again. [2]

Research On The Importance Of Good Nutrition
And Child Care

Between 1990 and 2006, the World Bank increased its funding of Early Childhood Development programs from $126 million to $1.6 billion a year. According to its World Development Report, “Early interventions can substantially enhance a child’s life chances and loosen the intergenerational grip of poverty and inequality.”[8]  Numerous studies have found that early childhood education programs with nutrition and cognitive stimulation typically improve children’s health, cognitive abilities, academic performance, and ability to stay in school.

Nutrition supplementation alone can make a significant difference. In Indonesia, 334 children under the age of 18 months on rural tea plantations received supplemental food. When the study ended, they had better working memories than infants who did not receive it. [9] In Guatemala, nutritional interventions for poor children from 6 to 24 months old increased their probability of attending school by 5.6 percentage points and led to higher test scores and school completion rates. Focused on children from 9 to 24 months old, an experiment in Jamaica documented lower levels of development in undersized infants compared to those of normal height. After receiving nutritional supplements and regular mental stimulation, the smaller children caught up developmentally in less than two years. [10]

Nutrition coupled with child care can lead to vast improvements. A study of 1,720 households in 15 Rio de Janeiro favelas found that free child care increased the income of poor women as much as 20 percent—and their children’s academic performance improved. [11] Gertler reported in an analysis of the PROGRESA child care program that after 24 months, the illness rate of participating children was 39.5% lower than for non-participating children, a statistically significant difference. [12] In Nepal, a recent study showed that more than 90% of the children who attended a non-formal preschool enrolled in primary school, compared to some 70% of those who had not. By second grade, 80% of the preschool participants were still enrolled compared to only 40% of the non-participants. [13]