Brain research drives push to educate zero- to five-year-olds
9th May 2016 · 0 Comments
By George White
Contributing Writer
(Special from New America Media) – Speaking at a forum promoting parental awareness of early childhood education, education advocate Ernesto Saldana literally illustrated the stakes by displaying a hand-drawn picture of a house.
Early childhood education is “the foundation, K-12 (education) is the house and college education is the roof,” said Saldana, a senior education policy advisor at The Advancement Project. “Most people believe early childhood education begins in school but it really begins at home.”
Saldana’s drawing was a visual metaphor of the connection between achievement and the brain architecture that develops during the first few years of life.
Researchers in the growing field of early childhood cognitive development have validated that connection. At the April 25 forum organized by New America Media, Saldana and four other prominent early childhood education advocates discussed early brain development and the crucial role of parents and other caregivers in stimulating mental connections during those formative years.
For example, the panelists noted that researchers have determined that parents and other caregivers can promote vocabulary development by frequently talking to infants about everyday events, such as folding laundry or grocery shopping. That talk can be in any language because children have a higher capacity to learn multiple languages during the zero-to-seven age range, said Saldana. Conversely, babies who have little interaction with adults have developmental deficits that can last a lifetime, panelists said.
“Primary relationships – parents and grandparents – have the greatest impact on child development,” said Barbara Andrade Dubransky, director of program development at First 5 LA, a funder of health, safety and early childhood education programs for families. “Learning begins before school… and there are links between the home environment and learning skills.”
If that environment is stressful due to domestic conflict or poverty, infant and toddler brain development can suffer, said Dubransky, who also cited “nutrition, health, fitness and safety” as other development factors.
Many low-income families have difficulty providing a healthy learning environment and need assistance obtaining early childhood care services, said Jackie Majors, CEO of Crystal Stairs, a Los Angeles-based Head Start education provider that also refers parents to child care centers with learning programs.
Early childhood education has become “‘early care’ and early education,” Majors said. “There are resources, but if people don’t know about the resources, they can’t be helped.”
The need for more awareness about the value and availability of these programs has been documented by the American Institutes for Research. It found that about 137,000 three-year-olds and more than 33,000 four-year-old children in California are not enrolled in any publicly-funded school readiness programs. The study said Southern California – Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and San Diego counties – has the highest number of unserved children.
The need for more awareness is especially acute in Los Angeles County, according to a 2015 report produced by Harder + Company Community Research with support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment. The county has 800,000 children aged zero to five, but 90 percent of them are cared for by families, neighbors and friends, according to the report.
“While the county has considerable resources, it is difficult for families to engage with formal systems and navigate what stakeholders describe as a ‘fragmented region’ with ‘complex, siloed systems,’” the report found. It encouraged the early childhood education community to be responsive to families’ “cultural and linguistic assets” and meet families “where they are.”
One organization, the LA Best Babies Network, conducts home visits to provide low-income parents with nutrition and health information as well as education-related parenting skills.
“Los Angeles has the highest child poverty rate in the country,” said Dr. Margaret Lynn Yonekura, executive director of the network. “Latino and African-American children are far more likely to live in poverty – double the rate of Asian-American and white children.”
However, Dr. Yonekura said, low-income parents can and should assume a role in their children’s mental development.
“Parents are brain builders,” she said. “The more you talk to your baby, the more the child will learn.”
Several parents who attended the forum with their young children endorsed that assessment. Among them was Gesele McGlothlin-Muhammad, who brought her two youngest sons – five-year-old Mikal and one-year-old Aqil – that she and her husband are raising.
She said she learned a parenting lesson as a single mother when her first-born, a daughter, was not keeping pace with elementary school classmates. She said she addressed the problem by spending more “learning time” with her daughter.
McGlothlin-Muhammad said her learning-focused engagements with her sons are generating positive results. For example, she said Mikal could write his name at age two and is currently reading and writing at higher levels than other five-year-olds.
“I was determined not to make the same mistake,” she said. “As their children’s first teacher, parents can make a big difference.”
This roundtable is part of a New America Media project sponsored by The David and Lucille Packard Foundation and The LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment.
This article originally published in the May 9, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
