Brain Research Shows Reading Literature Matters! Some Practical Implications

I've written before about the amazing capabilities of the brain, in particular, the capacity that the brain of the young child has to learn and change rapidly in the first years of life (here). A number of research projects have shown that babies and the very young can know, observe, imagine, explore and learn more than we previously thought possible. In a second post (here) I explored the place of 'deep practice' in learning and the increased plasticity that we now know the brain possesses. In this post I want to comment on a third area of inquiry that has demonstrated some amazing new connections between 'real life' experiences and those encountered via the experiences of human intellectual activities like reading.




Have you ever heard people say things like:

"I was lost in the book"
"I was so moved by that book I couldn't talk about it"
"After finishing the book I simply sat gripping it lost in a moment of devastating pain"
"Books are my escape into a world that is less painful than my everyday life"
"I hated that character"
"The book changed my life"

For many of us, the experience of literature can have quite profound impacts on us. Recent neuroscience research is beginning to give us some sense of why this might be so. This research has used MRI brain scans to help us understand the way the brain reacts when the subjects read certain things. Of particular interest has been what happens to brain activity when we read about experiences, compared to how it reacts when we have firsthand experiences. In short, the weight of various projects suggests that the brain doesn't behave that differently whether we read about experiences, or actually have real life experience. Whether read, or experienced, the same regions of the brain appear to be stimulated. Annie Paul wrote an excellent excellent overview and introduction to this area a couple of years ago (HERE).

In varied research projects brain scans are revealing much about brain activity as we read texts with detailed description, evocative metaphor and event emotional exchanges between characters. Just as readers have experienced while reading, science is showing how stories stimulate the brain and can even change how we act in life.

It isn't a new concept that the language regions of the brain like Broca’s and Wernicke’s are involved in the way the brain interprets written words. Research now shows that narrative activates many other parts of our brains as well. The experience of reading can feel as if it is real life. For example, experiments have shown that words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap” don't just elicit responses from the language-processing areas of our brains, they also elicit those dealing with smell.

Other research has shown that reading tastes and topics impact on how readers self-identify. For example people who read the Harry Potter self-identify with wizards, while those who read Stephanie Meyers 'Twilight' vampire themed fantasy romance novels self-identify as vampires.

Studies on the psychology of fiction increasingly provide the evidence for why we often experience deeply emotional experiences with books. Books influence our emotions and ideas and in fact can change us! It's worth thinking about what we read, as well as what our children read (and as an aside, what they watch).

Novelist and professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto Keith Oatley, suggests that reading can produce vivid simulations of reality. Rich descriptions, emotionally gripping texts and vivid human encounters offer a type of passage into the real world. Fiction he suggests offers a rich replica of life! You can read some of his work HERE.

Applying this research

Most teachers of literature and avid readers will tell you that this all makes sense to them and matches their experiences. But it does underline a few basic things that teachers and parents should note:

1. Reading fiction matters and it must NOT be neglected
2. Variety in fiction is important for children as they learn about their world and themselves
3. Teachers and parents should give attention to trying to connect children to varied and good literature.
4. Persist in trying to connect our children with special books

Some Practical applications

1. Work hard to connect children with varied books that they will enjoy  2. Help children to manage their time so that they have time to read - this might require us to restrict screen time for activities those activities that offer only limited reading opportunities.
3. Provide opportunities for children to experience all forms of literature (novels, plays, poetry as well as film)
4. Show interest in the things children read - talk to them about their reading, ask them to share what they are reading and why, engage with them concerning the content of their reading and their interests.
5. Encourage opportunities for children to share their reading interests - try discussion groups, one-on-one reading conferences, 'dining room table' discussions with small groups of students (as developed by Nancie Atwell).
6. Help children to become writers as well - reading feeds writing and writing feeds reading. Get children excited about both by allowing them to take greater control and by supporting them at every step. Encourage them to write for real readers and try to establish ways for others to read their writing as well.

Is 'Deep Practice' all that matters? Can anyone be a genius?

We've all heard the nature versus nurture debate played out in various forms in the past, but could there be a new twist? Is the environment in which we learn and the extent of our 'deep practice' of anything, the key to making us all outstanding at anything we choose to pursue? One of the more interesting recent manifestations of this argument was stimulated (in part) by Daniel Coyle's book 'The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown' which was published and received widespread attention in 2009.  Coyle is a journalist (not a psychologist, geneticist or educator), who after observing many talented people drew some conclusions that would, on the surface, seem reasonable. The primary thesis of Coyle's book is that anyone can be a genius. This is a VERY convenient truth for every over ambitious parent out there, or any budding sportsperson or musician. The gist of his the argument is seen in the following quote from his book:

'We tend to think of the great Renaissance artists as a homogeneous group, but the truth is that they were like any other randomly selected group of people. They came from rich and poor families alike; they had different personalities, different teachers, different motivations. But they had one thing in common: they all spent thousands of hours inside a deep-practice hothouse, firing and optimizing circuits, correcting errors, competing, and improving skills. They each took part in the greatest work of art anyone can construct: the architecture of their own talent.'

Coyle's book is motivated by the rapidly increasing knowledge of the brain's incredible plasticity. While it was possible once to hold the extreme view that intelligence is dictated primarily (or in extreme cases, exclusively) due to genetic disposition, the weight of evidence from brain research suggests that this is a ludicrous position. However, so too is the view that everyone begins life as a blank slate ready to become a genius if you are in the right environment, with the right teachers and the opportunities to learn and practice. I'm not suggesting that this is what Coyle is saying, but some of his work has been clutched upon by people who would want to believe that this is the case. Coyle's book quite helpfully reminds us that 'deep practice', good teachers and seeing good models for learning and performance are very important for learning. 

A Bit of Background on the Brain Research

As I mentioned in a previous post on early brain development (here) the child is born with more neurons (probably double), and connections between the cells (synapses), than are needed. Every neuron has an output fibre (an axon) that sends impulses to other neurons. Each neuron in turn has many hair-like input fibres (dendrites) that receive impulses from other neurons. As the child grows the number of neurons remains relatively stable, but each cell grows and becomes bigger, mostly because of the massive growth in dendrites that branch out like flourishing trees.

 

Prof R. Douglas Fields NIH

In recent years we have learnt a lot about another component of the brain's architecture, myelin. This is essentially material that forms a sheath around the axons. It is critical for brain development and begins to be produced in the foetous in 14th week and continues to develop until adolescence. Its growth is rapid in the first two years of life (and is helped by a high fat diet). Myelin enhances (speeds) and regulates conduction by the nerves and Axons, so that signals get there at the right time.

Myelin was first studied with people who had brain damage (and reduced functioning), for example, people with multiple sclerosis. The work of R. Douglas Fields and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health (USA) has expanded our understanding of how myelin improves brain functioning. In essence, this work suggests that the more neurons fire signals between one another, the greater the growth in myelin that is wrapped around the axon of the neuron.  And the more myelin that is wrapped around axons, the faster any signal travels; up to 100 times faster, depending on the coating (or lack of it). Apart from the function of increasing signal speed, myelin also has the capacity to regulate signal speed so that signals can even be slowed to reach synapses at the right time. You can imagine how important this is when a golfer swings a club using more muscles, joints and tendons than is imaginable, all in unison with the tiniest margin for error.

This research has expanded scientists' understanding of what might be possible with brain development. It opens the way for the possibility that 'deep practice' might enable greater intellectual growth in the young, as well as repairing and improving the brain functioning of those who have suffered from disease or injury that affects nerve functioning.

Typical Structure of a Neuron & Myelin Sheath (C.G. Morris, 'Psychology: An Introduction', 12th Ed, Pearson)

Coyle and 'Deep Practice' 

Coyle's concept of 'Deep Practice' is very helpful. He defines it this way:

'Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted areas - operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes - makes you smarter. Or to put it a slightly different way, experiences where you're forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them - as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go - end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it.'

The concept isn't new - for example, Anders Ericsson defined 'deliberate practice' well before Coyle came up with the label 'deep practice' for which there is great overlap - but it reinforces much that psychologists, educators and sociologists have been saying for a long time. Anyone who knows the work of Ericsson, Vygotsky and Bruner, will hear echoes of their work in Coyle's book; some of whose work he acknowledges. But what Coyle does is add on the ideas that flow from the recent brain research and popularise the idea that brain capacity isn't simply fixed at birth.  

What I like about Coyle's idea of Deep Practice is that it reinforces a number of fundamental tenets of good teaching and learning that many educators have been promoting for decades. This is my take on what matters.

Learning begins when the learner has a sense that there is something to be achieved, and a hurdle to be overcome, a skill to be mastered. Parents and teachers can help these moments to occur for children through the experiences they provide and the learning environments that are created.

2. Encourage children to lurk in challenging territory

Vygotsky's work taught us about scaffolding children's learning and encouraging them to learn in the 'Zone of Proximal Development'. By this he meant that learning occurs best when we are tackling skills and knowledge just beyond our current level of competence. Coyle's description of "operating at the edges of your ability" reinforces this same type of thinking (see my earlier post on scaffolding and 'guided learning' HERE).



3. Learn, explore or practice things in discrete units

While this isn't the only way to learn (e.g. approaching some areas holistically can be best) it is an effective way to learn incrementally. Of course, we can't learn everything incrementally, and don't! But you can see the obvious applications of this work for sport, music and manual tasks, but it is also helpful when learning language, mathematical concepts, early reading, or for people with learning difficulties. When I coached junior soccer, cricket, hockey and softball I spent a large amount of time breaking the game into skill areas and having my teams practice over and over, sometimes almost in slow motion to get the technique right. The same thinking is seen in the way we teach children phonics or introduce them to sight words.

4. Practice often

A fundamental element of any area of learning is repetition and practice. This isn't new, but the work of Douglas Field and others helps us to understand why it is so effective. This work suggests that in my junior sporting teams, when I broke individual skills like throwing down into the various movements of the arm and had my teams practice the movements over and over again, the skill became more automatic as myelin developed. One of my cricket teams won a competition based pretty much on their brilliant fielding after lots of 'deep practice', they were okay at batting and bowling but they fielded better that any team of 12 year-olds in the competition. The same idea can be seen in the golfer who hits hundreds of balls at the driving range.

In educational terms, it's why I stress often in my work that if you want a child to read better, that they will need to read more words in the 'real game', that is, reading books and other whole texts. Any strategy that reduces that amount of time spent practising the ultimate aim of the skill should be avoided. 

So, can anyone be a genius, or even a Babe Ruth, Tiger Woods or Don Bradman? 

The short answer is no. It isn't just about 'deep practice', genes still matter. We need to remember that there are alternative views to Coyle that place far greater control of genius in the hands of genetic make-up. But what the new brain research shows us is that practice is very important and that when you view any outstanding individual, their performance will reflect a mix of genetic predisposition, motivation, opportunity and practice.

Leonardo da Vinci's Helicopter

Could any junior cricketer be a Don Bradman or a Leonardo da Vinci, it would seem not. For non-cricket followers, Bradman was an Australian cricketer who is undisputed as the greatest player of all time. In cricket an individual getting 100+ runs in an innings is the key achievement, which few achieve. Bradman averaged 99.94 for his whole career! That's a bit like batting close to a 1,000 for your whole career. He grew up using a cricket stump (a fraction the size of a bat) and a golf ball that he hit against a corrugated iron tank for hours each day. Many see this as the secret of his amazing eye, but how come no one else in the history of the game has come close to his achievements (the next best all time career average is 60.97)? Because achievement isn't just about 'deep practice', our genetic disposition matters too.

This should temper our ambitions with children. While it's good to encourage children to aim high, as parents and teachers, we shouldn't assume that if we just put any child in the best school, with the best teacher and give them all that they need for 'deep practice' in whatever area they choose, that they can achieve. Nor should we assume that if we can just accelerate their learning that they will sustain their achievements and end up better than everyone else. The latter is the folly of programs like 'Your Baby Can Read', which assumes that teaching sight words to a child 6 months old will one day lead to them becoming geniuses.

What the above work also indicates is just how important quality teaching and parenting is. Teachers matter!

Brain Development in Babies and Toddlers: Implications for learning

I wrote a post on 'Brain Development and the Early Weeks of Life' in September last year just after the birth of our 5th grandchild (pictured left aged 8 months). The main thrust of my previous post was to stress just how complex the young brain is and our need to understand this if we are to enhance the development of our children in the preschool years. I wrote at the time that:

• A baby is born with a brain made up of cells with enormous potential that are undergoing massive change right from birth.
• What any child is born with is just the beginning; it's a framework for development and learning. The child's environment has a big impact on how brain cells are connected or “wired” to each other.
• The young child's experiences, sensory stimulation, interaction with others, language, the love and care she receives and so on, will all have a huge impact on development.
• If children are deprived of a stimulating environment the development of their brains suffer.
• Early stimulation establishes the foundations for children’s later learning; it influences how children will learn, and how effectively they will learn.
• Early physical and emotional stress has an impact on brain development.

Professor Alison Gopnik (UC Berkeley) has just written a helpful opinion piece in the New York Times (15th August 2009) titled 'Your Baby Is Smarter Than You Think' that raises similar issues and shares some recent research support for her arguments.

She suggests that "new studies, demonstrate that babies and very young children know, observe, explore, imagine and learn more than we would ever have thought possible." She cites three recent pieces of research including one she has been responsible for with colleagues. These three studies use some of the many new methodologies designed to assess the learning and attention of babies.

Study 1 - Researchers Fei Xu and Vashti Garcia (Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia) hypothesised that children as young as 8 months could understand probabilities. When babies were shown a box full of mixed-up Ping-Pong balls (mostly white but with some red ones mixed in), they were more surprised and looked longer and more intently, when four red balls and one white ball out of the box which would be unexpected given the greater number of white balls in the box.

Study 2 - Professor Laura Schulz and Elizabeth Baraff Bonawitz at M.I.T. demonstrated that when young children play, they are also exploring cause and effect. They introduced preschoolers to a toy and effectively showed one group how it worked but not the other. When the experimenters gave the toys to the children those who had seen how it worked played less with it than those who hadn’t. They concluded that this demonstrates the desire of babies to explore things.

Study 3 - Alison Gopnik and Tamar Kushnir discovered that preschoolers could use probabilities to learn how things work and that this let them imagine new possibilities. They demonstrated this by using yellow and blue blocks that appeared to make a machine light up when placed over it. When given the chance to choose a block, children who couldn’t yet add or subtract, were more likely to choose the high-probability yellow block (the one that they'd seen light the machine up more) to try to light the machine.

Professor Gopnik concludes that it is easy to take the wrong lessons from this research. Some will assume that this means we should be pushing babies and toddlers faster, providing them with lessons, programs, focuses and structured learning environments. But the brain and the intelligence of the preschooler is different to that of adults who do learn well (often) in focused, planned and systematic ways, with goals, outcomes, KPIs and so on.

But babies are different. When we say young children can’t pay attention for long, we really mean that they can’t concentrate on the things that we want them to or think they should focus on. Professor Gopnik reminds us that babies have trouble concentrating on just one thing and shutting the rest out. As a result we tend to underestimate what babies can do, but now we know that babies are actively engaged thinking and solving problems without being goal-oriented. She comments:

“Babies are captivated by the most unexpected events. Adults, on the other hand, focus on the outcomes that are the most relevant to their goals….Adults focus on objects that will be most useful to them….children play with the objects that will teach them the most. In our study, 4-year-olds imagined new possibilities based on just a little data. Adults rely more on what they already know. Babies aren’t trying to learn one particular skill or set of facts; instead, they are drawn to anything new, unexpected or informative."

You can read Professor Gopnik's complete article (here)

Other Resources

I've written a lot about play and other ways to stimulate children in the early years. The labels on the sidebar of the blog will help to find these, but you can access a series of posts I did on play here.

For a more detailed discussion of the brain's development as well as problems with development, there is an interesting introduction that I found helpful - Fertile Minds, by J. Madeleine Nash in Time magazine, Feb 3, 1997.

Dr Kim Oates gave a series of three public lectures that I hosted at New College in 2006 that might also be of interest, especially the first talk titled "The amazing early years of life" that can be downloaded as a pod cast here. I also found these very helpful.

Early Childhood Cognition Lab at M.I.T. (here)

The dangers of television for young children

General research on the impact of new media

As I have written previously on this blog, a study conducted by researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Yale University has analysed the more general effects of new media across 173 research studies. It considered studies across a period of 30 years that addressed the impact of television, music, movies and other media on the lives of children and adolescents. Many studies showed that there is a significant relationship between time devoted (i.e. excessive time) to new media and a variety of health or behavioural problems, for example:

• 83% of studies found a relationship with obesity
• 88% found a relationship to sexual behaviour
• 75% found a relationship to drug use
• 80% found a relationship to alcohol use
• 88% found a relationship to tobacco use
• 69% found a relationship to ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)

In releasing the report one of the researchers, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, of the NIH, commented that:

"The results clearly show that there is a strong correlation between media exposure and long-term negative health effects to children. This study provides an important jumping-off point for future research that should explore both the effects of traditional media content and that of digital media -- such as video games, the Internet, and cell phones -- which kids are using today with more frequency."

The impact of media and technology on very young children

While there are many wonderful benefits of new media, the upshot of the above studies is that too much exposure to 'new' media appears to be harmful. There has also been more recent research into the impact of media on very young children, particularly the impact of television in the preschool years. This research has raised very serious questions about the potential impact that video games, television and related technology mediated images may have on children's learning. In fact, some researchers have suggested that too much exposure to television may have an impact on the developing brain (see my introductory post on early brain development here). We know from the research of neuroscientists that environmental experiences can shape brain development due to the plasticity of neuronal connectivity in the young brain. They suggest that significant and repeated exposure to specific stimuli may have an impact on the child's intellectual and emotional development. This they believe can occur by setting up specific "habits of mind" or by depriving the child's brain of other significant experiences.

The same experts suggest that language rich environments with lots of interaction with adult caregivers, stimulating opportunities for play and other forms of stimulation to learn, enhance brain development. However, they conclude that in contrast, those that encourage passivity and limit social interaction, creative play and problem solving "...may have deleterious and irrevocable consequences". As a result of such findings the American Academy of Paediatrics has recommended that children under 2 years of age do not watch television and that children over two should have no more than two hours of media (e.g. TV, computers, gaming) use per day. This recommendation reflects the repeated identification of varied effects from too much television viewing, including those listed at the beginning of this post.

What does this mean for parents of toddlers?

The first thing to note is that the potential damage caused to the young child's intellectual development is caused as much by what the child isn't doing as the screen-based stimulation itself. If, for example, lots of television viewing replaces, play, story reading, interaction with adults etc, then this is problematic and could have a negative effect on your child's health, development and learning.

The second thing to note is that in a multi-child family where there is a television that it's hard to stop toddlers from watching. As well, children do learn many things from television and this can stimulate other worthwhile activities like storytelling, creative activity, literacy learning etc. TV isn't all bad! It's simply a problem if uncontrolled and over-used.

The third thing to note is that small amounts of televisions seen around the edges of family life should not be a major concern. This type of inadvertent viewing is not likely to cause significant harm if in limited amounts. There may be issues with children seeing adult content, but this is another topic and once again, it requires parent care and control.

Finally, I'd stress that the first 12 months of life is the most critical period. I can't see any good reason for television viewing as a planned activity at this age. If you do allow your toddler under 2 to watch television I'd argue for it to be strictly limited. Short sessions of 5-10 minutes with your active participation are a very low risk. Choosing the right programs is important. I see value in programs that invite the active participation of the child (e.g. actions, dance, singing, clapping etc). If television can be avoided for the first two years it may well be wise, but in many families this won't be practical. For me the key is to emphasise play, language stimulation, story telling and reading, physical activity, problem solving, manipulation of objects, real life experiences etc. Don't allow television to become a baby sitter for children under two years where they sit transfixed for long periods. This is what research is showing to be problematic and potentially harmful. I've listed some of my previous posts that relate to this type of stimulation below.

Related links

My previous posts on play (here)

My previous posts on learning (here)

My posts previous posts that address the impact of TV (here)

My previous posts on language experience (here)

American Academy of Paediatrics policy on 'Children, adolescents and television' (here)

'Understanding TV's effects on the developing brain' (here).

Media Awareness Network article, “Television’s Impact on Kids” here

Brain wave: How technology changes our thinking, by Gerard Wright

Brain development and the first weeks of life

A new grandchild!

My daughter Louise and her husband Jonathan had their second child this week, a little girl who they have named Evelyne Adel (that's her on the right 1 say old with the doll her Nanna Carmen has made for her). She is our 5th grandchild. Little Evelyne has been born like other children with the most amazing brain of all living creatures. But this week her little brain is made up of cells with enormous potential that are undergoing massive change. The genes she has inherited from her family will have some impact on the number of brain cells, their initial arrangement and their potential (far too early for me to take much credit!), but her environment will also have a huge impact on her brain’s development. On Monday (15th September) when she was born, her brain contained about 100 billion neurons (i.e. as many nerve cells as astronomers tell us there are stars in the Milky Way).

Early development of the brain

Before birth, the brain produces many more neurons (probably double) and connections between the cells (“synapses”) than are needed. Every neuron has an output fibre (an “axon) that sends impulses to other neurons. Each neuron in turn has many hair-like input fibres (“dendrites”) that receive impulses from other neurons. As Evelyne grows the number of neurons will remain relatively stable but each cell will grow and become bigger, mostly because of the massive growth in dendrites that branch out like flourishing trees. It is these dendrites that will be stimulated when her parents (and her Grandad!) play with her, talk to her, show her new things, as she listens to new sounds or old familiar ones, as we cuddle her and care for her. As she encounters her world in her first year of life Evelyne’s brain will undergo huge change, it has already undergone great change since Monday!

Above: Image courtesy of University of Maine Cooperative Extension

But what Evelyne has been born with is just the beginning; it is a framework for development and learning. The environment that she lives in will have a big impact on how her brain cells will be connected or “wired” to each other. Her experiences, sensory stimulation, interaction with others, language, the love and care she receives and so on, will all have a huge impact on development.

During the first days, weeks and years of life, her brain will undergo a series of extraordinary changes. The biggest change will be in the connections between her brain cells. There will be constant growth in new connections and the loss of those that are rarely or never used.

Scientists tell us that that there are key times, critical periods, when specific forms of learning take place and with it brain development and change. We also know from research that if children are deprived of a stimulating environment the development of their brains suffer. For example, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, have found that children who experience little play or who are rarely touched develop brains that are 20% to 30% smaller than is normal. So we know that stimulation is critical and it started for Evelyne on Monday. She started attending to her world on day 1.

The importance of stimulation

We have known for a long time that early stimulation establishes the foundations for children’s later learning. It has an influence on how children will learn, and how effectively they will learn. Recent research has taught us new things and has underlined just how important the first days, weeks and years of life are for learning. The early experiences of the child (whether good or bad) have an influence on the development of their brain and the ‘wiring’ of their nervous system. We know that loving interactions with caring adults stimulate brain development, strengthening connections between brain cells and causing new synapses to grow. Those connections that are used become permanent, whereas a lack of stimulation will retard the development of synapses and as a result, the brain will have fewer connections.

The child’s emotional stability and emotional security is also very important. More recent research on human stress-sensitive systems shows that early stress has an impact on brain development. Physical or emotional stress and trauma can lead to the release of the hormone cortisol and higher levels of cortisol reduces connections and can lead to the death of brain cells. So babies with good emotional bonds with their parents or caregivers will have lower cortisol levels in their brains and hence a better chance of good brain development.

So, as Evelyne’s grandad I’m already on the job with my 5th grandchild (and so is her Nanna). I’ve been talking to her, trying to gain her eye contact, stimulating her senses, cuddling her, patting her and making those soothing sounds that only parents (or grandparents can make), those sounds that let the small child know that someone is there, that they are loved and that they are safe. I’ll bombard little Evelyne with stimulation (sensory stimulation of all kinds), I’ll get her far too excited (sorry Lou) and give her experiences that will make her squeal and search for words to express her joy and happiness. I'll also cuddle when she's hurt or sad and talk to her about important stuff as she grows. And as I do this I’ll be helping her amazing brain to reach its potential. I thank God for the wonder of life and the precious gift of families and children.

Above: Mum Louise with brother Samuel doing his bit for brain development when Evelyne was 1 hour old

Other resources

I've written a lot about play and other ways to stimulate children in the early years. The labels on the sidebar of the blog will help to find these, but you can access a series of three posts I did on play here.

For a more detailed discussion of the brain's development as well as problems with development, there is an interesting introduction in Time magazine that I found helpful.
J. Madeleine Nash, "Fertile Minds", Time magazine, Feb 3, 1997.

A basic introductory article from the University of Maine might also be of interest (this draws on the above).

Dr Kim Oates gave a series of three public lectures that I hosted at New College in 2006 that might also be of interest, especially the first talk titled "The amazing early years of life" that can be downloaded as a pod cast here. I also found these very helpful.