What you can do
You can do a number of things to promote children’s healthy development and school readiness. Review these criteria and evaluate your practices.
1. Be warm, caring, and responsive with each child. Infants will cry when they are trying to communicate with you. Respond to each cry in a way that tells the child, “I’m here for you.” Your responses to an infant’s cues help to build trust and security.
2. Talk, sing, and read to children. You can make up stories and songs and talk about daily activities, describing what is going on and what will happen next. Avoid television and videos with infants and toddlers. Television can’t teach a child language or communication. Instead use the time to interact face-to-face with babies—playing games, talking, reading, and singing together.
3. Encourage safe exploration and play. Children need opportunities to develop motor skills and to gain a sense of the environment around them.
4. Discipline children with love and understanding. Be consistent with rules and routines. Crying infants can be frustrating, but remember that crying is a baby’s means of communicating needs. If you feel frustrated or angry, get help from another caregiver. Trading jobs may make both of you feel relief.
5. Recognize that each child is unique. Children all have different temperaments and grow at different rates. Children’s ideas and feelings about themselves often reflect your attitude toward them. They feel good about themselves when they master the challenges of everyday life, and especially good when caregivers acknowledge the effort put into these accomplishments.
6. Establish routines and rituals. Repeated, positive experiences help to form strong connections in the brain. Daily routines such as mealtimes and naps should be associated with positive experiences. Mealtimes are excellent opportunities to promote language and communication skills (I Am Your Child, 1997).
Research shows a connection between sleep in infants and their brain development. As the brain develops and becomes more mature, infants develop more regular, predictable sleep periods. Infants must have a consistent, comfortable sleep location. Cribs, mats, or cots are acceptable sleep arrangements for infants depending on their developmental level (Zero to Three, 1999).

Evaluation
If you want to provide appropriate, brain-building experiences for babies, evaluate your program. Evaluation is the process of making judgements about the merit, value, and worth of your program. Start by looking at the environment; the curriculum; the materials and equipment; your assessment process; and scheduling procedures (Phipps, 1999). Use the materials in this article to help you. Contact early childhood professionals in your community for assistance and training. Remember, the first years last forever.

What have I learned?
From a child’s perspective, every important caregiver is a potential source of love and learning, comfort, and stimulation. Children need experiences with caregivers who are sensitive to their emotional and physical needs. By providing consistent and responsive caregiving, you can ensure that a child will have the best opportunity for healthy emotional and social development (I Am Your Child, 1997). Starting from birth, a child’s ability to learn can be dramatically improved if you offer these “Ten Things Every Child Needs:”
1. Interaction—Consistent, long-term attention from caring adults actually increases children’s capacities to learn.
2. Touch—Holding and cuddling does more than just comfort babies. It helps their brains grow.
3. Stable relationships—Firm attachments with parents and other caregivers buffer stress.
4. Safe, healthy environments—Areas are free of lead, loud noises, sharp objects, and other hazards.
5. Self-esteem—Children need respect, encouragement, and positive role models from the beginning.
6. Quality care—Trained child care professionals can make a difference.
7. Play—Children explore and discover through play.
8. Communication—Talking to babies builds the verbal skills they need to succeed in school and later in life.
9. Music—Rhythmic songs and rhymes expand the world, teach new skills, and offer a fun way to interact with children.
10. Reading—Build language, enhance thinking skills, and create a lifelong love of books by reading. (Adapted from the McCormick Tribune Foundation and WTTW-TV, 1997).
Quality care and early education are vital components of each child’s life. The types of experiences received in these programs can produce long-term, positive effects for our children (Texas Kids Count, 1999).
Use the following questions to test your knowledge about early brain development. They can be used on an individual basis or as talking points for a group discussion.

Discussion questions
1. Discuss how synapses are formed in the brain.
2. What effect does repetition of activities have on these synapses?
3. How does the concept of secure attachments apply to the child care setting?
4. Discuss the impact of the five senses on the child during the “window of opportunity” for visual development, language development, and motor coordination.
5. What are some ways that you can encourage visual development?
6. What are some ways that you can encourage language development?
7. What are some ways that you can encourage both small and large motor development?
8. What are some characteristics of quality child care you can identify within your program? What are some areas that can be improved upon?
9. Discuss how giving children the opportunity to play relates to helping a child’s brain to grow.
10. Why is it important to evaluate your program for infants and toddlers?
11. Describe what a classroom or group care setting for infants or toddlers would look like if you met the “Ten Things Every Child Needs.”
12. How will you apply the research findings regarding early brain development on a daily basis?

References
American Association for Gifted Children. “Current News and Resources—Activities From Birth to Five.” http://www.aagc.org/.
Bower, Don. Building Baby’s Brain: Prime Times for Learning and What Child Care Can Do. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, 1998.
Gramann, Jacqueline. Early Childhood: Brain Development Research Brief. College Station: Texas Agricultural Extension Service, January 1998.
Brain Facts—video. Beverly Hills, Calif.: I Am Your Child, 1997.
The First Years Last Forever—CD-ROM. Beverly Hills, Calif.: I Am Your Child, 1997.
Quality Child Care: Making the Right Choice for You and Your Child. Beverly Hills, Calif.: I Am Your Child, 1997.
Kotulak, Ronald. Inside the Brain. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1996.
Oregon’s Child. “Brain Research Findings and Suggested Actions.” Everyone’s Business/Straight Shooting Exhibit, February 1997.
Perry, Bruce D.; Duane Runyan; and Carrie Sturges. “Bonding and Attachment in Maltreated Children.” CIVITAS Academy Caregiver Education Series. 1:5, January 1998.
Phipps, Pat. “Is your program brain compatible?” Child Care Information Exchange, March 1999.
Shore, Rima. Rethinking the Brain. New York: Families and Work Institute, 1997.
Stephens, Karen. “Primed for learning: The young child’s mind.” Child Care Information Exchange, March 1999.
“Measuring up the state of Texas education: Early childhood education.” Texas Kids Count. Austin: Center for Public Policy Priorities, 1999.
Ten Things Every Child Needs—video. Chicago: The McCormick Tribune Foundation and WTTW-TV, 1977.
Brain Works—2-6 months. Washington, D.C.: Zero to Three National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 1998.
Starting Smart—How Early Experiences Affect Brain Development. Washington, D.C.: Zero to Three National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families and the Ounce of Prevention Fund, 1998.

About the author
Paula Wiggins, M.S., is a Child Care Licensing representative for the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. She is also an adjunct instructor in the child development department at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas.

Resources for teachers and parents
James, Dorothy E. Helping Young Children Learn: Promoting Early Brain Development. Texas Agricultural Extension Service, 1998.
First Impressions: Ready For Life—video. Dallas: KERA-TV, 1999.
Nash, Madeleine. “Fertile minds.” Time, 149:5, Feb. 3, 1997.
Newberger, Julee J. “New brain development research—A wonderful window of opportunity to build public support for early childhood education!” Young Children, 52:4, May 1997.
“Your child from birth to three.” Newsweek, Spring/Summer 1997.
O’Donnell, Nina Sazer. “Using early childhood brain development research.” Child Care Information Exchange, March 1999.
Pratt, Martha. “The importance of infant and toddler interactions.” Young Children, 54:4, July 1999.
Ramey, Craig T. and Sharon L. Ramey. Right From Birth. New York: Goddard Press, 1999.
Schiller, Pam, “Turning knowledge into practice.” Child Care Information Exchange, March 1999.
“The Amazing Brain.” Scholastic Early Childhood Today, March 1999.

Internet Resources
American Association for Gifted Children
http://www.aagc.org/
First Impressions
www.firstimpressions.org
I Am Your Child
www.iamyourchild.org
National Association for the Education of Young Children
www.naeyc.org
National Child Care Information Center
www.nccic.com
National Zero to Three Organization
www.zerotothree.org
Parent Partners
www.parentpartners.com
Parenting Information Center
www.parentinginformation.org
Dr. Bruce Perry and the Civitas Academy—Baylor College of Medicine
www.bcm.tmc.edu/civitas/
Take Time for Kids—Texas Department of Health
www.tdh.texas.gov/ttfk/takehome.htm
University of North Texas—Center for Parent Education
www.unt.edu/cpe/

Video resources that are free or low-cost
First Impressions: Ready for Life
KERA
3000 Harry Hines Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75201
(214) 740-5476
I Am Your Child—The First Years Last Forever
P.O. Box 15605
Beverly Hills, CA 90209
(310)-285-2385
www.iamyourchild.org
Ten Things Every Child Needs
McCormick Tribune Foundation
Attn: Ten Things
435 N. Michigan Ave, Suite 770
Chicago, IL 60611
1-888-683-2224
The Whole Child: A Caregiver’s Guide to the First Five Years
Contact your local PBS Station