ࡱ> fhex_ WXbjbj .b5\5\WP22 .0$^f       0`/: 0. z z  dzm,  .z2> p: The Importance of the Early Years Narrator: There is a strong relationship between early life experiences and how a baby will develop cognitively, socially, emotionally and physically throughout their lives. This is recognised in the early years framework which states It is during our very earliest years, and even pre-birth, that a large part of the pattern for our future adult life is set. Narrator: More is known about the developing brain now than ever before as a result of advances in technology and neuro-science. It is known that babies are born with a unique personality and an adaptable brain, with a high degree of plasticity, which is ready to be shaped by relationships and experiences. Babies have already started to learn in the womb, particularly in the last trimester. Prof. Vivette Glover: We now know that towards the end of pregnancy babies in the womb swallow the amniotic fluid, which in turn the chemistry of that is affected by what the woman eats. So there has been research showing that if women eat very spicy food the babies when they are born are more likely to the spicy smells they get; they learn to enjoy the food they are going to taste later. It is also known that they can learn to respond to particular music. Again at the end of pregnancy there is one study where women who listened to the soap opera Neighbours a lot, when the baby was born if the tune of the Neighbours was played the baby looked up and alert, and that they didnt respond to other music in the same way. So there is evidence that this is really at the end of pregnancy, the last six/eight weeks babies do start to learn in a way that will prepare them for what they are going to respond to in the world outside. Robin Balbernie: The baby is born hardwired, one of the few things we are hardwired to do is relate. Babies are born exquisitely sociable, and you have only got to pick up a newborn baby to see that they seek out eye contact, and thats hardwired, and to see that they mimic facial expressions, thats hardwired, so all the fun things like sticking your tongue out, or yawning, or holding your hand up, the baby will respond to. Babies are hardwired to make social interaction, and that is because socialisation is so important for humans; we need to be socialised in order to build the right structures in our brain that we are going to need for the rest of our life. We are not genetically set up for any particular environment, we are genetically set up to be adaptable, and what we adapt to is the first care giving environment. Lee Walsh: Within Shotts Nursery Centre we are becoming more aware of the recent research in terms of brain development. We are able to access the new material in terms of the research, the work thats carried out by Robin Balbernie, Dan Hughes, Helen Minnis, and their work on attachments. So its through the work and the ongoing CPD, the work that we have with our psychologists, the work that we have with our learning support teacher, but also in terms of the reflection that we have as a staff team to use within our own development. Because without gaining the information thats out there at the moment we are not going to move forward, we are not going to enable the staff to become confident in their own learning, and to value themselves as practitioners in supporting the early development of the young infant. Narrator: It is estimated that at birth a babys brain contains thousands of millions of brain cells, and some of these are already connected and communicating. For example, at birth the most primitive part of the brain, our brain stem, which is at the base of the brain, is already strongly connected, or hardwired. It is the early experiences in developing relationships that cause the connections in the brain to increase rapidly. Forming and reinforcing connections are the key tasks of early brain development. Babies are born with what is referred to as a predisposition for learning. They are naturally curious about the world around them, and especially the people who engage with them. Whilst babies are eager to learn, they require positive and consistent relationships to support them on this journey. Babies are programmed to look to other people to help them make sense of their world. Robin Balbernie: Relationships are central; we know that relationships affect the growth of the mind in two different ways. If we see the mind as being psychological, you internalise the relationships that you have had with your parents and care givers, and early years staff, and they go into a sort of mental map that you keep with you for the rest of your life. Bowlby talked about internal working models, but really these are just the unspoken assumptions of yourself within a relationship; what will happen when you relate to people, how they will relate to you, your expectations of whether this will be productive, and fruitful, and caring and loving, or not. And within that mental map of relationships are things like self esteem, confidence, cognitive ability, willingness to explore, willingness to take risks, the capacity for empathy - the capacity for putting yourself in somebody elses shoes which is the biggest single inhibitor against violence that we know of. And the other part of relationships is they physically structure the growth of the developing brain, the brain is an organ exquisitely attuned to the quality of early relationships, and this is designed by nature so we can fit into the early mothering environment, which is our first stage into being humanised. The quality of the early relationships that the baby, and then toddler has will leave an indelible imprint on the architecture of the brain, so that the final shape of the brain, if you like, the way the brain is sculpted by early experience, will reflect the quality of that early experience. So good quality early relationships will give the child the optimum start in life. Prof. Colwyn Trevarthen: Well the child has a very, very strong instinct to find other people because they are the only thing in the world that can confirm their belonging, their need to be part of a community. They have to be a community with people, so they can form a private world. We all have an attachment to the house we live in, or the room we sleep in, or the objects that we possess, and babies can be like that too, but really they cant have companionship with an object. So babies are looking for companionship, they are looking for somebody, you just have to have company, good company, and that company can be of any age. And that is something that I would like to emphasise, that certainly by the time the baby is three or four months old siblings, older siblings can be very good companions, and play with the child happily. And I think that by the time the baby is six months old they can get along fine with a group of other kids of different ages. I agree with Bruce Perry who says that what the human brain is looking for is relationships, or engagements, and its not with just one person, so there is a qualification for an attachment; babies do, especially when they are distressed, want the care and concern of somebody who they know well, and who is affectionate, so they do have a strong attachment to their mother who looks after them. But the companionship, having fun, they like to have that with their mother too, but they can have it easily with lots of other people, including their fathers actually. Because what the baby is trying to do is become a respected member of a community, somebody who knows things, so the main purpose of communication is to belong to a world with other people, with common understanding. Narrator: By the end of their first year, with appropriate care and support, babies vastly overgrow the number of connections they actually need. This is to enable them to test billions of different connections, or neuro pathways, for every action they take. Grasping an object has been mastered by this baby, and the neuro pathway is becoming well established. However, retrieving it when dropped by trying to co-ordinate what she sees with controlling her hands and body is a new challenge. But we know the babys brain has been preparing for this by vastly overgrowing the number of connections she actually needs, enabling her to test billions of alternative pathways for every action she takes; in this case successfully retrieving the lemon. An important process of elimination beings towards the end of the first year, as the babys brain starts to prune itself, thus creating the most efficient structure to suit the environment and culture. The physical, cognitive, social and emotional experiences a child has will determine which permanent connections are made, and which are no longer needed. In the case of physically retrieving the lemon, whenever the baby gets close the best connections carry the strongest signals and survive. Those connections carrying no signal begin to wither and die. This process remains the same for creating permanent connections in relation to experiences of physical, cognitive, social or emotional development. Robin Balbernie: The neurons that fire together wire together, so that whatever a child experiences, and that includes not just the immediate interpersonal experiences, but the whole ambience of the home and the wider culture, will leave an indelible imprint on the circuits of their mind, as the neuronal networks that are responsive to that particular experience wire together. The second principle of brain wiring this is very crude is use it or lose it. What the child is not exposed to tells the brain that these arent circuits I need to keep, and the brain has to whittle down the amount of circuits it has, because there simply isnt enough room in any of our skulls for all the potential circuitry that we are born with, so we have to discard circuits, this is a normal process. But the brain discards them on the basis of use it or lose it, so whats not being used is got rid of, and you can see that most clearly with language development, whereas a child can babble in every language under the sun, they can only talk in one language, and they have got rid of the circuits for recognising and producing the phonemes and the vowel sounds of their other language. Well just as children do that with language, so they do that with an emotional language, and children will keep the emotional language that they are born into, and they will lose the potential emotional language that they have not been exposed to. Narrator: Brain development takes place through interactions with others, being active and involved, and learning through exploration and discovery. As babies and young children revisit and practice skills and language they return to previous connections in the brain. Every time the pathway is revisited it is strengthened and the link speeds up. These pathways are strengthened by fatty sheaths being laid down, a process known as myelination. More commonly this process is known as hardwiring, and ninety per cent of the hardwired connections will be complete by the age of three years. Dr Suzanne Zeedyk: Basically brains are born with all the cells they are going to have. Around the edges a bit it looks like you can create new cells, but for the most part its not cells that are being created in brain development, it is cells talking to each other. So, a cell looks a little bit like an upside down hand, and so you get a number of these cells in your brain, and you are born with those, and what happens is that those cells learn to talk to each other, they are forming something called synapses, and its the synapses that for the most part arent in our brain there are synapses, but a lot more synapses are going to be generated. I like to think of it as motorways in the brain. So if you walk across a green field that has grass in it, you will lay down the grass, and if you turn around and look behind you, you will be able to see that grass thats been laid down, but in a few hours it will pop back up and nobody will be able to see that someone has been walking across. But if you go across it regularly a path gets established, and then if you continue to go across it the council mind need to come along and cobble it in order to prevent erosion. And then before very long perhaps motorcyclists and cars will come along it, and then they will need to tarmac it, and we will have an A class road. And before very long we will have so many cars across it that they will think, we had better put a motorway in here. So its like a transport system; thats whats happening with messages, is that they are getting sent. And if they get sent over and over and over again, along that road, it gets more and more robust; so myelination and other processes happen in the brain to really make that a robust pathway, a robust road that can sent messages really fast. But if the council were to have come along and said, we shouldnt have put the motorway here, we should have put the motorway here, it will cost a lot of money to change the motorway, it will be very hard to do that, it will take a long time to do that; brains are just like that, once your motorway system is in place, once its sending the messages that it has figured out it needs to send to survive in this environment, ie, an environment where there is lots of shouting, and environment where adults come quickly when you are upset, an environment dont come quickly when you are upset, we can cope with all of this because we are developing a motorway system to cope with the particular world that I got born into. But once the motorway system is in place it is very hard to change it, and that motorway system is in place, for the most part, by the time the child is three. Many people havent realised up until now how sensitive the brain is in relation to the environment; that it is really developing in relation to that environment. We are getting brains to develop particular motorway systems, we should be asking ourselves what kind of motorway system do we want our children to develop. Narrator: Research has shown that external influences, such as the mothers experiences during pregnancy, can adversely affect the development of the babys brain, and the connections being made. Prof. Vivette Glover: Research over the last ten years has really shown that how the baby develops in the womb has a big effect on their health for the rest of their life. And this is true for the physical health we know that babies that are born smaller at birth are more likely to have vulnerability to cardio-vascular disease, and actually die of cardio-vascular disease in their seventies but we also know that there is a big effect on neuro development, the emotional state of the mother whilst she is pregnant affects how the babys brain develops in the womb. There is research showing that if the mother is more stressed, more anxious, her foetus develops in a way that makes the later child more likely to suffer from anxiety or depression themselves, more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, more likely to have conduct disorder, more likely to have cognitive problems; a whole range of different problems that the child will be more at risk from if the mother is stressed while she is pregnant. Narrator: Babies are born ready to adapt and create connections in the brain to suit the environment they meet. This ability also makes humans vulnerable when placed in less positive circumstances, where the negative impact may last a lifetime. Babies and young children who have positive emotional bonds with adults produce consistently lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, it is therefore important that staff recognise the potentially powerful impact that their practice can have in supporting children, so that they can go on to develop positive and healthy relationships throughout life. Robin Balbernie: The only relationships that the baby is automatically forced to adapt to by nature, and this has happened to all of us, will tell the brain that these are important circuits, these are circuits you need, or these are circuits you dont need. So that a baby who has been brought up in loving caring relationships will keep the circuits associated with love and care, and empathy; a baby brought up with secure attachments will keep the circuits to do with making relationships, with being able to explore, being able to be curious, being able to make the best use of their brain. Whereas another baby that has been surrounded by maltreatment and when I use the term maltreatment I am referring to all forms of neglect as well as all forms of abuse provide the antithesis of a loving environment, and the brain is forced to adapt to that quality of care giving, so that they will keep the circuits needed for immediate survival, such as hyper-vigilance, a well activated stress response. They wont need the circuits for empathy, or love, or care, because they havent experienced them, so the brain wont recognise them, and these circuits will be discarded. Narrator: Babies and young children need secure and nurturing relationships. It is essential that staff working in early years settings recognise the need for all service providers to work together with families, in order to get it right for every child. Dr Suzanne Zeedyk: The fact that babies are so tuned in to other people, and need other people so much to help them interpret the world is actually quite exciting. Sometimes I think we have not valued how important parents are to their children. Because we think that what they want is this independence in looking out at the world; they do want that, but they want to share that with their parents, because its their parents facial expressions, and their parents giggling, and their parents sharing with them that helps them to make sense of that world. It is exciting to understand that babies come into the world not just wanting us, but actually needing us, and that that will influence their brain development. Narrator: All babies and young children are individual and unique, they have distinctive temperaments and behaviours. This is due to a combination of genetics and learning, which is started in the womb. Tuning into babies and developing a special relationship with them means that staff are able to recognise each individual childs needs and be sensitive and responsive to them. Adults can support brain development in babies and young children by: Developing warm, caring relationships with them Being responsive to their unique needs, rhythms and personalities Upholding their rights Encouraging exploration and play, while being companionable and attentive Promoting health and wellbeing, and encouraging good nutrition Working in partnership with parents, carers, families and other agencies Surrounding them with stimulating experiences; singing, talking, telling stories Establishing routines and providing consistency and stability. Robin Balbernie: Relationships are central to all the work we do with young children, and the relationship that the mother has with her baby, of course, beings in utero. So it is really important that staff think through relationships, both the relationships that they can form themselves with the children in their care, and also looking at how they can promote, and aid, and capitalise the relationships that the care givers whether they parents or somebody else have with the very small children that they are looking after. I think its paramount for practitioners to realise that the relationships they make with the parents, and the relationships they make with the children, and the relationships that they encourage between the parents and the children are the most important thing that they can do. And to do that is very easy to say, but it is very difficult and needs a lot of skill; it is not something that comes easy, people need skill, they need reflective supervision, and they need support, and they need time. Narrator: All adults working with Scotlands youngest children must demonstrate, through their practice, their awareness that every child has the right to a positive start in life, through respectful relationships which show responsive care. In this way Scotlands youngest children can be nurtured to develop a capacity for love, empathy, respect, resilience, positive relationships and the chance to succeed. !"++VXWXh=W hxnKhxnKhhhhh5hh5",  ,  89CD] # #C%&&&)++^1h1i13gdh33<6S9>\?f? @!@7@(D2DFFK&KL.LNNcPPP#Q>QQQRqRRgdhRRTVVWXgdh,1h. 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ZDG$6 Rt:   d.@"Calibri--- =2 m`!cThe Importance of the Early Years   2 m/c  @"Calibri--- 2 ` cNarrator:   2 c   2 `ZcThere is a strong relationship between early life experiences and how a baby will develop      2 `jccognitively, socially, emotionally and physically throughout their lives. This is recognised in the early    2 `cyears  2 c  z2 Jcframework which states It is during our very earliest years, and even pre     2 :c- )2 ?cbirth, that a large   \2 `6cpart of the pattern for our future adult life is set.  2 c   2 ` cNarrator:   2 c   2 `YcMore is known about the developing brain now than ever before as a result of advances in     2 3`ctechno  2 3clogy and neuro  2 3c- |2 3Kcscience. It is known that babies are born with a unique personality and an     2 G`dcadaptable brain, with a high degree of plasticity, which is ready to be shaped by relationships and     n2 Y`Bcexperiences. Babies have already started to learn in the womb, par   ;2 Y cticularly in the last trimester.   2 Yc   +2 w`cProf. Vivette Glover:    2 wc   2 `]cWe now know that towards the end of pregnancy babies in the womb swallow the amniotic fluid,           2 `ccwhich in turn the chemistry of that is affected by what the woman eats. So there has been research       2 ` cshowing t  2 Vchat if women eat very spicy food the babies when they are born are more likely to the       2 `icspicy smells they get; they learn to enjoy the food they are going to taste later. It is also known that     m2 `Acthey can learn to respond to particular music. Again at the end o   :2 cf pregnancy there is one study   2 ``cwhere women who listened to the soap opera Neighbours a lot, when the baby was born if the tune         2 `acof the Neighbours was played the baby looked up and alert, and that they didnt respond to other     ;2 ` cmusic in the same way. So there    %2 $cis evidence that   2 c  2 c  U2 1cthis is really at the end of pregnancy, the last   #2 0`csix/eight weeks    2 0c  2 0c  2 0Tcbabies do start to learn in a way that will prepare them for what they are going to       ;2 C` crespond to in the world outside.   2 C#c   #2 a`cRobin Balbernie:  2 ac   A2 `$cThe baby is born hardwired, one of t  k2 :@che few things we are hardwired to do is relate. Babies are born      2 `dcexquisitely sociable, and you have only got to pick up a newborn baby to see that they seek out eye    2 `\ccontact, and thats hardwired, and to see that they mimic facial expressions, thats hardwir     2  ced, so all   2 `acthe fun things like sticking your tongue out, or yawning, or holding your hand up, the baby will     2 `ecrespond to. Babies are hardwired to make social interaction, and that is because socialisation is so     R2 `/cimportant for humans; we need to be socialised     Y2 4cin order to build the right structures in our brain   2 `ecthat we are going to need for the rest of our life. We are not genetically set up for any particular     2 `fcenvironment, we are genetically set up to be adaptable, and what we adapt to is the first care giving        2 `ce 2 h cnvironment.   2 c   2 7` cLee Walsh:   2 7c   2 V`acWithin Shotts Nursery Centre we are becoming more aware of the recent research in terms of brain         2 j`^cdevelopment. We are able to access the new material in terms of the research, the work thats         J2 }`*ccarried out by Robin Balbernie, Dan Hughes   ^2 }f7c, Helen Minnis, and their work on attachments. So its       2 `bcthrough the work and the ongoing CPD, the work that we have with our psychologists, the work that         2 `gcwe have with our learning support teacher, but also in terms of the reflection that we have as a staff      2 `acteam to use within our own development. Because without gaining the information thats out there         2 `_cat the moment we are not going to move forward, we are not going to enable the staff to become          k2 `@cconfident in their own learning, and to value themselves as prac   >2 "ctitioners in supporting the early   ;2 ` cdevelopment of the young infant.   2 +c  "Systemw %w@(w% ,--ccbbaaTDp /The Importance oem AccountSystem Accountns:ds="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/customXml"/>as.microsoft.com/office/2006/metadata/longProperties"/> ?@BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\}_`abcdmgjlknopqrstuvwyRoot Entry F5 i1Table2zWordDocument.bSummaryInformation(A@8DocumentSummaryInformation8CompObjrMsoDataStore 5 5 D4CV5S2USZLMHF==25 5    F Microsoft Word 97-2003 Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89qDocumentLibraryFormDocumentLibraryFormDocumentLibraryForm "" ma:contentTypeName="Document" ma:contentTypeID="0x01 This value indicates the number of saves or revisions. The application is responsible for updating this value after each revision. > cumentation> This value indicates the number of saves or revisions. The application is responsible for updating this value after each revision.  Education Scotland).P  Title0$,4\7display_urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Editor7display_urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Author Syst