Psychology

I have been asked to help a young mother choose an infant care center that will most likely to stimulate her one year old son’s brain development.

The number of dendrites and synapses increases after birth. Although different areas of the cortex sprout at different rates, the number of synapses can increase tenfold in the first year after birth. In fact, by the time children are six or seven years old, their brains have more dendrites than those of adults, and they use twice as much energy.

I believe in finding a day care center who uses flashcards to stimulate children’s brains. Overproduction of synapses, especially in the frontal cortex, may be essential for infants to develop certain intellectual abilities.

There are many intricate and codependent processes going on during the course of growth and development of a human being. The individual and collective processes can be easily disrupted and consequently malfunction at any stage, that it is miraculous that many of us survive to functional adulthood at all. Developmental research has determined that there are "developmental windows of opportunity" for different brain functions.

We learn and develop through interaction with our environment, and through the special senses of proprioception, nocioception and the vestibular system, the brain is able to ascertain the status of the body and make relevant adjustments in relation to its environment. The ability to classify, organise, store, recall and utilise this information provides the basis for learning.
“Behavioral expression of sensory processing must be considered in terms of the child’s self-regulation of arousal, attention, affect, and action” (Williamson & Anzalone, 1997). The child’s sensory status moderates, and is moderated by, the child’s state of arousal. Arousal is a child’s level of alertness and the ability to maintain and transition between different sleep and waking states. The state of arousal is usually decreased with a prolonged latency or an inability to attain focused attention.
Every movement is a sensory motor event, and movement reinforces our learning capacity - to truly store something mentally, some type of movement activity is required - either speaking out loud, writing or other physical action such as gesticulation. By putting it into 'muscular memory' it is more likely to be remembered than something simply thought about and not 'acted out'. Movement actually promotes good health in many ways. The day care center should have a schedule for outdoor activities.
Therefore, I would suggest to do a lot of research on day care centers and I would choose the one that has a variety of the above mentioned teaching abilities/capacities for infants.