Key takeaways for caregivers

• Naps help learning in early childhood.
• Infant sleep is typically distributed across multiple bouts of sleep (morning and afternoon naps) until around 12 to 18 months.
• Multiple naps benefit infant learning while missed naps can harm learning.
• Research suggests the importance of healthy sleep routines for infants and caregiver education to support healthy sleep.

The benefits of  distributed sleep for memory

For adults, naps offer a period of solace, something we typically allow ourselves only on weekends or vacations. We long for these moments to replenish lost sleep due to our busy lives and to reset our minds after being overloaded with to-do lists.

Science supports the benefits of naps. In adults, naps benefit attention, emotion, and cognitive performance. Other researchers and I have shown that these benefits extend to naps in early childhood. For instance, the benefits of naps for memory have been observed in infants as young as three months and extend through three to five years, when children typically transition away from naps.

Why does distributed sleep help memory?

It is tempting to assume that naps help memory just by blocking out other stimuli that interfere with memories. Later in the day, we may forget the name of a person we met in the morning simply because we encountered so many other names and faces during the subsequent time awake.

Distributed sleeping may protect us from such interference. However, the benefits of sleep extend beyond just protecting memories from interference with ongoing learning.

Naps have been consistently shown to support memory consolidation, even in early infancy.

Memories are strengthened during sleep

While we sleep, memories are strengthened through a process called consolidation.

When we learn something, the memories are initially stored in the hippocampus in the brain.

The hippocampus is small and not a very “smart” storage area  –  all memories get put into a single bucket regardless of their content (e.g., memories of family, a book you read, and your work are all in one place).

Memories are replayed during sleep

When we sleep, these memories are replayed. Memory replay is akin to rewatching (or replaying) the “movie” of your day. Just like repeatedly watching a scene from your favorite movie to learn all the words, the hippocampus replays memories while we sleep.

Replaying the memory makes a copy of the memory that is stored in the cortex. The cortex is a much smarter organizing system – more like a filing cabinet where similar memories can be stored together. This makes it easier and quicker to recall memories from the cortex later.

Does distributed sleep help memory in infants?

Parents and caregivers may wonder how often their child should nap during the day and whether having more than one nap makes a difference in their child’s development.

Infant sleep is initially distributed across multiple naps (polyphasic sleep) but by nine months, most infants regularly have just two naps a day (triphasic sleep).

Photo: NICHD. Creative Commons.

The transition to one nap a day (biphasic sleep) typically occurs between 12 and 18 months. The transition to adult-like monophasic sleep (no naps) occurs between three and five years for most children.

Given the presence of multiple naps within a day in infancy, my colleagues and I were interested in whether different naps aid memory in similar ways.

On the one hand, naps have been consistently shown to support memory consolidation, even in early infancy. In this case, naps at any time of day may have significant memory benefits.

On the other hand, sleep physiology has not been compared across distributed naps. The morning nap, which infants “grow out of” first, may not be enriched with the distinct brain waves that support memory. In other words, the morning nap may not have significant benefits for memory.

Missing a morning nap can interfere with babies’ learning

In our study, we assessed memory in nine-month-olds. We used a deferred imitation task, which is commonly used in developmental psychology to assess memory. This task is similar to how parents engage their infants with a new toy.

An experimenter shows the infant an unfamiliar toy and demonstrates a certain set of actions. Then the infant is given another toy, the target toy, and has the opportunity to imitate those actions.

If the infant imitates the actions, this is evidence of their memory for initial demonstration. We also used control procedures to make sure the actions we were looking for were not simply the natural intuition of the infant when engaging with the toy.

Even though they napped in the afternoon, when the infants stayed awake during the morning nap, they forgot more after the afternoon nap than they did when they had had a morning nap.

In our study, 15 infants were presented with four target toys and we measured their immediate recall of the demonstrated actions to find out if they imitated the target actions with the toy. Next, the infants napped during their morning naptime.

After their naps, they were given the toys again to see if they demonstrated memory of the experimenter’s earlier actions by imitating them. To compare the infants’ actions with and without naps, we also carried out the study the week before or the week after the nap study with infants being kept awake during their morning naps.

Distributed sleep allowed infants’ memory to be protected

Infants’ memory was protected when they took a morning nap: They tended to remember just as many items after their morning nap as they did before the nap. However, when infants stayed awake during their morning nap, they forgot some of the items.

The findings on a morning vs afternoon nap

Next, we considered whether staying awake during the morning nap affected infants’ memory consolidation during the afternoon nap. The infants were presented with a new set of toys and then took their regular afternoon nap.

Even though they napped in the afternoon, when the infants stayed awake during the morning nap, they forgot more after the afternoon nap than they did when they had had a morning nap. That is, taking the afternoon nap did not compensate for a missed morning nap.

Photo: ferhat66. Pixabay.

Further research and healthy distributed sleep guidelines for caregivers and practitioners

Our study points to the importance of naps for learning in infants. Memories are protected by naps at this age when learning is vast – from the faces of caregivers to the intricacies of language.

Moreover, later sleep does not compensate for a missed nap. Instead, the effects of a missed nap can be compounded by damaging the function of later sleep.

In our ongoing work, we are manipulating the presence of the afternoon nap to directly compare memory loss when babies are kept awake during the afternoon and during the morning nap.

We are also studying these infants longitudinally to understand how the function of naps changes when the morning nap becomes less essential. By recording brain activity during distributed sleep, we also aim to better understand the relation between memory and brain development.

Promoting sleep health in infancy and childhood is crucial for cognitive development. This is particularly important for families with low socioeconomic status who may lack knowledge about babies’ needs for sleep and resources to provide opportunities for sleep in the middle of the day.

We need to continue our work to understand the function and timing of distributed naps so we can provide guidelines to caregivers and practitioners.

The post The power of distributed sleep: The benefit of multiple naps in infancy appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Key takeaways for caregivers

• Before their first birthday, most infants sleep 12 hours a day and can sleep through the night.
• Infants who had good-quality and sufficient night sleep at eight months had better language development and greater cognitive skills at 14 months.
• Infants with good sleep quality had higher morning cortisol levels than those with lower-quality sleep, which may reflect more mature brain organization.
• Because sleep promotes learning and brain development, caregivers should learn sleep routines and strategies that help babies learn how to sleep through the night.

The sleep-wake circadian cycle and learning

In the early months, newborns sleep about 75% of a 24-hour day. By nine months, they sleep about 50% of a 24-hour cycle.

A circadian rhythm (or inner clock-like signals) develops during the first year to establish an adult-like pattern of being awake during the day and asleep at night. However, after their first birthday, about 20% to 30% of toddlers continue to have night wakings or poor night sleep.

Photo: NICHD. Creative Commons.

Sound infant sleep is important for healthy development. Research suggests that the quantity and quality of infants’ sleep are linked to learning and brain development.

For example, babies who sleep for shorter periods have poorer memories, and infants who have difficulty sleeping at night have trouble remembering new words.

Sleep and stress response cycles

While developing a sleep-wake cycle, infants’ circadian rhythm also develops to respond to stress. When stress is perceived, a cycle starts that releases cortisol, a stress hormone that provides a boost of stored energy to help the body get through the stressor. The extra boost helps the individual deal with the stressor through the fight or flight response.

Stressors are not always extreme or intense in nature.

For example, infants often show distress when crying and fidgeting during a diaper change, when overstimulated, or when hungry or sleepy. Every interaction and change in an infant’s day can be a stressor and can lead to a cortisol response that helps prepare the body to respond to stress.

Optimal sleep (i.e., sleeping sufficiently and soundly through the night) at eight months was associated with higher learning and language skills at 14 months.

Cortisol becomes unhealthy when it is repeatedly released and remains elevated. Such elevated levels have been linked to poor learning and functioning, suggesting that too much cortisol may harm brain development.

In adults, cortisol levels are typically high in the morning, decrease steadily over the day, and are low at night as sleep approaches. Infants are thought to mimic the adult day-night cortisol circadian rhythm; however, few studies have explored the relation between infants’ cortisol and sleep cycles.

Do infant sleep and cortisol relate to later language and learning skills?

We conducted a study to better understand if infants’ quality of sleep relates to their later language development and overall learning abilities. The infants were White and from middle-class families, and they attended a high-quality childcare program in a southeastern state in the United States.

When babies reached eight months and again at 14 months, parents answered questions related to their infants’ sleep routine, sleep environment, and the quality and quantity of their babies’ sleep.

At both time points, the child care provider completed assessments of the infant’s communication and language skills (e.g., nods head to indicate yes, uses sounds/words to get attention) and learning and cognitive skills (e.g., imitates, looks, or points to an object when asked where it is).

To begin to explore the role of cortisol levels in the connection between sleep and learning in the early years, we also collected morning saliva from the babies at both time points.

Infants with better night sleep had better language and cognitive abilities as toddlers

In our study, we asked whether babies who had regular sleep routines and good nighttime sleep developed better language and learning/cognitive skills than babies with irregular sleep routines and poor nighttime sleep.

We found that optimal sleep (i.e., sleeping sufficiently and soundly through the night) at eight months was associated with higher learning and language skills at 14 months. These findings suggest that achieving good quality and quantity of sleep before the first birthday may relate to young infant’s later language development and overall learning.

Photo: hessam nabavi. Unsplash.

Higher morning cortisol stress hormone levels related to better toddler sleep

We also looked at whether morning cortisol stress hormone levels of 14-month-olds were related to sleep at the same age. We found that toddlers who had optimal night sleep also had the highest morning cortisol stress hormone levels.

In adults, cortisol levels tend to be higher shortly after waking. Thus, the higher cortisol levels in toddlers may indicate more mature brain development in toddlers who had better nighttime sleep.

Sleep enhances early brain development

Our findings showed that optimal sleep in infancy was associated with better language and learning skills in toddlerhood. These results are consistent with the idea that sleep enhances early brain development.

One explanation for why sleep helps an infant’s brains develop is that sleep triggers the release of brain chemicals, or neurotransmitters, that build and strengthen the brain’s pathways for forming memories of information an infant learned that day.

Good sleep also prepares infants to learn the next day. Young infant’s learning opportunities typically occur through daytime interactions. When infant’s have slept well, they may wake up more relaxed and ready to engage.

In contrast, infants who have not slept well may awaken sluggish, irritable, and less ready to socialize and learn. Because sleep is important for solidifying past learning and preparing children to learn even more, caregivers should help infants and toddlers achieve restful, continuous sleep at night.

How can parents support their children’s brain development?

Caregivers can help infants achieve restful sleep by establishing routines at home that start at about the same time each day and signal to the baby that nighttime sleep is approaching.

For example, after the last nursing or bottle feeding of the day, parents might use calming strategies to promote greater infant relaxation, such as giving a warm bath, singing a lullaby, reading a quiet story, and providing a massage.

Caregivers should help infants and toddlers achieve restful, continuous sleep at night.

Parents should try to decrease environmental stimulation to help their infant shift from being awake and active to being relaxed and ready for a long sleep. Dark, quiet, screen-free, calm places are considered good sleeping environments for young infants.

If babies wake up during the night, parents can use strategies to help infants self-regulate and fall back asleep. Parents should understand each infant’s unique sleep needs and should not assume that all babies will respond similarly to an evening routine.

For example, infants with health conditions, neurodevelopmental issues, and trauma often have disrupted sleep. Caregivers of these infants may need additional help to learn how to develop effective sleep routines for their infants.

In summary, parents’ sensitivity to young infant’s individual needs while developing their sleep routines should help babies achieve good, restful sleep at night so that when babies are awake, they are ready to learn and develop new skills.

Good, restful sleep may lead to more mature brain development in the early years, which may be measured by higher morning cortisol levels.

The post Infant sleep and brain development appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Mothers and fathers show similar patterns of brain activity when exposed to stimuli from their infant.
• The observed brain changes occur in areas involved with reward, motivation, and empathy, and are associated with hormonal changes in moms and dads.
• Brain systems may reflect parental potential available to human fathers and other mammalian fathers when they are more involved in caregiving.

Fathers’ brains respond when they are exposed to stimuli from their baby

The neurobiology of fatherhood in humans seems to be similar to the neurobiology of motherhood, involving two brain systems – a “motivational” system that refers to the drive to nurture offspring, and an “empathy” system that refers to the ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others.

Fathers shown pictures of their own newborns experienced more activation of empathy and reward systems than when shown pictures of unknown newborns.

For example, brain responses of mothers and fathers to pictures or videos of their infants overlap. Increased activity is found in parts of the brain associated with reward, motivation, and empathy. In one study, increased activity in brain reward systems also correlated with the father’s active engagement in caregiving, as reported by the mother.

In another study, fathers shown pictures of their own newborns experienced more activation of empathy and reward systems than fathers shown pictures of unknown newborns. In another study, a new father’s self-reported positive thoughts about his infant correlated with reward system activation in response to his infant’s cries. Future research will look at other brain responses in fathers – to children’s laughter, speech, and movements.

Brain changes are connected to hormonal changes activated by involved parenting

There is growing evidence that these changes are linked with the hormones that are produced when fathers care for their children. The key difference between human mothers and fathers is the degree of variability in fatherhood. After birth, most mothers are actively involved in parenting, but fatherhood is activated only when circumstances require or allow it, and even then it is highly variable.

When fatherhood is activated, neural processes take place in fathers that are similar to those in mothers.

In societies with small family units living apart from extended family networks and in families with scarce resources, paternal involvement is necessary. When fatherhood is activated, neural processes take place in fathers that are similar to those in mothers. It is as if a parental potential resides in all humans and is activated when circumstances require.

In the wild, fathers are actively engaged in caring for their young in only 5% of mammalian species (e.g., some primates, rodents, and canids, in particular). As in humans, this paternal behavior involves similar brain processes as those involved with maternal behavior. But when animals are held in captivity and in non-natural conditions, fathers can become more active. This suggests that parental brain systems may exist in many male mammals, and that they can be activated when an active paternal role is desirable or possible.

The post The brain responses of mothers and fathers are not so different appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• The transition to fatherhood is accompanied by changes in fathers’ brains and hormones. These changes are probably related to new activities and routines that fathers are involved in and develop.
• These brain-related and hormonal changes are functional: They support fathers’ sensitive responses to their infants’ needs.
• A new study using ultrasound imaging and feedback during pregnancy indicates that positive father-child interactions can get a head start before birth.

The birth of a child is the birth of a father

The birth of the first child marks the transition to fatherhood in men’s lives. This is a developmental milestone, a new phase in adult life with unfamiliar tasks and responsibilities. The transition is more striking for most men who become fathers now than it was for their fathers and grandfathers.

Today, fathers in Western, industrialized countries are much more actively involved in child care than fathers were: a three- to six-fold increase in time over what their own fathers typically did. How are men prepared for the life-changing event of becoming a father?

Hormonal changes in new fathers

The changes in hormonal levels in women who go through pregnancy and give birth are unparalleled. These are necessary for housing and feeding a new human being. In the transition to fatherhood, men also undergo hormonal changes, although they are not as significant as those women experience.

From around four weeks before the birth of their first child to around five weeks after birth, men’s testosterone, vasopressin, and cortisol levels decrease, and their oxytocin levels slightly increase. These hormones are involved in many activities.

Photo: Tim Mossholder. Unsplash.

Testosterone is relevant when we are daring and competitive, vasopressin makes us alert, cortisol helps us respond to unexpected situations and is high when we are under stress, and oxytocin is well known as the love hormone but has more functions: It helps us recognize social signals, such as others’ emotions. These hormonal changes in fathers can be considered as functional for gentle interaction with and sensitive care for the baby.

The perinatal period

But it could also be the other way around: In the perinatal period, the new activities and routines of fathers may lead to changes in their hormone levels, which in turn support sensitive parenting.

For example, when fathers spend a few evenings a week on the couch cuddling with their baby rather than playing football, their cortisol levels probably decline and their oxytocin levels probably rise. This, in turn, may make them more patient when the baby protests during diaper changes. This idea of caregiving routines leading to change in hormonal levels is supported by new research on fathers’ brains.

Do men’s brains change when they become fathers?

There are (at least) three different ways to study human brains to measure change:

1. Brain structures
2. Activity of brain areas
3. Brain networks

1. Brain structures

The first is to look at brain structures, which can be seen as the hardware of the brain. Two studies found some change in fathers’ brain structures in the first months after the birth of the baby (Kim at al., 2014; Martínez-García et al., 2022), but another study did not find such changes (Hoekzema et al., 2016).

2. Activity of brain areas

The second way to study brains is to look at the activity of brain areas in response to child-related stimuli. Much of this research focuses on the sounds of infants crying because that is such an intense and meaningful sound. In their first period of life, it is the only way babies can attract their parents’ attention when they need something.

The transition to fatherhood is accompanied by changes in behavior, hormones, and the brain.

Indeed, many brain regions are activated when we hear crying sounds. But having children does make a difference: Adults without children show more activity in brain regions involved with cognitive processing when they hear infants crying, while adults with children show more emotional processing (Witteman et al., 2019).

3. Brain networks

While this second type of brain research focuses on separate brain regions, the third type of brain research looks at brain networks. For example, the parental brain network is a system of regions that are supposed to collaboratively support caregiving behavior.

New research shows no differences in this network between fathers during pregnancy and new fathers with a first-born baby of about 2 months, but a remarkable finding for fathers in the postnatal period emerged: The more fathers were involved in their children’s care, the stronger the connectivity in their parental brain network (Horstman et al., 2021). In other words, it does not matter whether or not men have a baby, but it matters how much caretaking they do.

Play helps fathers connect with their babies

Fathers and mothers are both similar and different in the ways they engage with their children. In general, mothers do the lion’s share of caregiving, such as feeding and bathing. When it comes to play, fathers and mothers are more similar in the amount of time they play or read stories with their child. This implies that when fathers and infants interact, it is often in the context of play (Amodia-Bidakowska et al., 2020).

Play is a perfect way for fathers to get to know their child, and to see what they like, what fears they may have, and how they overcome these fears with daddy’s help. This is as rewarding for fathers as it is for children, and it stimulates the attachment relationship (Monteiro et al., 2010).

Positive parenting in fathers starts with prenatal care

We stated earlier that the birth of a child is the birth of a father. Actually, being a parent starts before the birth of the child. Fathers are influential during pregnancy – they affect prenatal development through their own health, and they influence expectant mothers’ mental and physical health.

New research also shows that unborn babies are ready to interact with their fathers. Using ultrasound, we recorded how babies between the 21^st and 32^nd week of pregnancy responded when their fathers softly massaged mothers’ abdomen, read from a children’s book, or sang for their child (De Waal et al., 2022).

Babies can hear voices coming from outside the abdomen and can recognize their father’s voice. They can remember rhythms and music during pregnancy and even after birth when they heard them regularly during pregnancy. As pregnancy progresses, the skin of mothers’ abdomen thins, there is less amniotic fluid, and the babies’ nervous system develops, enabling them to feel and respond to touch.

Fathers’ caretaking of their baby may promote the hormonal and brain changes that support high-quality fathering.

In our research, we offered fathers three sessions with ultrasound-based interaction with their unborn baby. We saw on the screen how the babies responded when their fathers read to them from a children’s book or sang a lullaby. We used video-feedback reviewing of the ultrasound images to help them interpret their babies’ states, responses to the interaction (e.g., thumb sucking when dad read), and own initiatives (e.g., pushing against the wall of mother’s womb).

Fathers who received such prenatal video feedback were more sensitive during play with their babies after birth (Buisman et al., 2022). The video feedback may have made these dads more attuned to their babies, and may have spurred them to habitually check their baby’s face and other signals to adapt their own behavior or pace to the infant’s needs.

How to support new fathers during the prenatal period and after the birth

Fatherhood has many dimensions. The transition to fatherhood is accompanied by changes in behavior, hormones, and the brain. The intensity of these changes depends partly on sociocultural norms and expectations for fathers.

Sometimes fathers feel at a disadvantage: Prenatal and perinatal care is focused on mothers, and fathers can seem to be at some distance. While it would be a great opportunity for medical check-ups to extend the focus of ultrasounds to include possibilities for father-infant interaction, fathers can also create their own moments of togetherness at home, talking to their babies and softly massaging their babies through their partners’ skin. Getting to know each other can start before birth.

Photo: Amina Filkins. Pexels.

Societies with parental leave for fathers stimulate paternal involvement in early child care, giving fathers more opportunities to interact with their babies. In such contexts, changes in brains and hormonal levels will probably be more extensive than in contexts where fathers have few opportunities to be actively involved in child care. Paternal leave enables fathers to develop a relationship with their children from the beginning, which is just one of the arguments for paid paternal leave.

In some families, opportunities for fathers to engage are limited by mothers’ reluctance to trust fathers’ caregiving capacities. Called gatekeeping, this occurs when mothers want to take complete care of the baby themselves. It may be good to realize that fathers can be excellent caregivers, just like mothers, and that fathers’ caretaking of their baby may promote the hormonal and brain changes that support high-quality fathering.

The post Becoming a new father – The transition to fatherhood appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Sex differences are extremely subtle and variable. Instead, what emerges from a large body of research is a mosaic of countless brain attributes that differ in unique patterns across all individuals. There are far more similarities between female and male brains than differences. Brains are more like the heart and kidney than like reproductive organs.

“At birth, the total difference in brain volume between boys and girls is 6%, and this increases to 11% in adulthood. However, the difference in average body mass starts at 4% and increases to 18% over the same period. Therefore, it appears that larger bodies require larger brains.”

When pondering male-female differences, it is customary to refer to sex as the inflexible biological component and gender as the psychosocial manifestation. But with brains, the two are mixed because brains are plastic and alter around experience. So for brain science, the term sex/gender is used and assigned based on how a person identifies themselves.

However, there are small differences between girls and boys and between women and men. A comprehensive review of neuroscience research led by Lise Eliot, author of the book Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps – And What We Can Do About It, explains the differences found from birth onwards.

A key risk in reviewing the literature is bias driven by medical and popular interest. The public has a strong desire to find differences, so studies that find differences are more likely to be published than studies that do not. Similarly, studies that find differences are more likely to be found in literature searches that use terms like “gender differences” and “sex differences.”

Overall brain size

Overall brain size is unambiguously larger in males. Nevertheless, once the size of the individual is considered, sex/gender alone accounts for little difference. At birth, the total difference in brain volume between boys and girls is 6%, and this increases to 11% in adulthood. However, the difference in average body mass starts at 4% and increases to 18% over the same period. Therefore, it appears that larger bodies require larger brains.

Consider differences by sex/gender of other organs: While the average size of women’s and men’s brains differs by 11%, the size of human hearts differs by 17%, lung size differs by 23%, liver size differs by 14%, the size of the pancreas differs by 18%, the size of the kidney differs by 19%, and thyroid size differs by 25%, with all of these organs larger in men.

Boys and men have a higher proportion of white matter than grey matter in their brains, but this proportion correlates with brain size. Men and women matched for brain size exhibit no difference in the grey matter-to-white matter ratio.

Photo: Ketut Subiyanto. Pexels.

Size of particular parts of the brain

The biggest sex/gender size difference in the human brain is in a tiny component of the anterior hypothalamus, the INAH-3, which is only 0.6 mm in diameter and 60% larger in human males. But even this is a very small difference compared to other animals. In rats, the similar structure is five times bigger in males, so big that it has been named the “sexually-dimorphic nucleus.”

Sex/gender differences in the size of the hippocampus and the amygdala have been a topic of popular interest, given that they are linked to sex/gender differences in learning and emotion. But the differences are tiny – no more than 1% in either case.

The volume of the caudate volume appears to differ between boys and girls in early adolescence, but not before or after that time. This difference could just be a fleeting effect of girls’ earlier entry into puberty.

Studies of sex/gender differences in the average size of the pallidum, thalamus, cerebellum, and nucleus accumbens have found nothing significant. Studies of the thickness of the cortex and of individual regions within the cortex have yielded similar results. Only in the larger putamen has an average size difference been found, but this is less than 3%.

Brain connectivity

There is minimal support for the popular idea that the left and right hemispheres of the brain are more connected in women than in men. This notion has been subject to extensive analysis over decades. These connections have been measured in clinical research, such as studies of aphasia following damage to the left hemisphere. The research has been carried out while men and women were engaged in various auditory, visual, tactile, and dual-task activities, as well as in situations where the subjects were resting. In all cases, sex/gender differences were trivial or non-existent.

“The brain circuitry for emotion processing, like that for language and spatial recognition, shows overwhelming similarities between women and men, and even more similarities between girls and boys.”

A difference in the size of the corpus callosum has been invoked to argue that women have stronger left-right brain connections than men. Researchers have looked for differences in fetuses and children but have not found any.

Predicting sex/gender by measuring brain activity

Researchers have applied artificial intelligence to observing brain structure and activity through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and efforts to predict if the subject is a woman or a man. The accuracy of such predictions is high, at 80%-90%, but most of the differences identified have been based on brain size. Even efforts to measure brain activity while women and men were doing tasks in which behavioral sex/gender differences are most frequently recognized, such as language or spatial skills, have found little difference. In one study, no differences in brain activity were found in 8-year-olds during spatial tasks.

The behavioral differences between women and men must have a neural basis, but researchers have not found evidence that these differences originate at birth. This supports the idea that these differences are learned through practice and socialization in childhood and beyond. When the brains of men and women military pilots with similar training in spatial skills were compared via MRI scans, no sex/gender differences were found.

There has been a huge interest in finding sex/gender brain differences associated with emotional processing. Objective measures of empathy, such as the ability to identify emotion in photos and video clips of faces, suggest that a female advantage is learned through childhood and adolescence since the differences are small in early childhood. However, there is little consensus in brain research results across hundreds of studies. The brain circuitry for emotion processing, like that for language and spatial recognition, shows overwhelming similarities between women and men, and even more similarities between girls and boys.

The authors of the review conclude: “Scholarly interest in brain sex differences is as old as Aristotle…. these findings can be interpreted as rebutting the popular discourse about the “male brain” and the “female brain” as distinct organs.

Challenges to these conclusions

The conclusions reached by Eliot and her colleagues are not universally accepted and were criticized in a commentary published after their paper appeared (Hirnstein & Hausmann, 2021). Similarly, another recent research report noted that the sex differences were indeed small, as Eliot and colleagues showed, but suggested they might in fact be important (Williams et al., 2021).

The post Is there a male brain and a female brain? Science says no appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Where are the teachers? Although they remain in the background, they have an important role: to be close and attentive observers who document the ongoing learning processes by taking pictures or videos. This documentation is later combined with drawings by the children expressing what they found interesting during the day so they can reflect together about the experience. Importantly, this practice is child directed, that is, it is driven by the children’s interests and fascinations.

Problems with reflective practices at school

This exercise in child agency – known as the progressive pedagogical approach “Anji Play” – highlights how children can learn about the world and test their capabilities in a self-directed manner. In doing so, the learners enhance their proficiency in a skill that is a central human challenge – understanding how to survive in an uncertain and often volatile world. The reflective practices aid in consolidating experiences and making sense of surprising events. Such skill development is helpful for children at any age.

“Reflection is triggered by an unusual or perplexing situation or experience . . . the element of surprise is of critical importance.”

Contrast these experiences to those in most schools, where reflective practices look very different. At a typical school, students are often bored by questioning at the end of an exercise which asks them to write what they have learned during the day. In our research, we find that such reflection prompts rarely lead the student to wonder about issues that have yet to be resolved. Instead of eliciting meaningful reflection, these prompts often result in a guessing game where students try to gauge what the teacher might want to hear from them. For many students, the word reflection becomes a term with negative associations.

“I really hate doing , they are boring, and usually formatted in an uncreative way,” explained one student. “And sometimes these are questions that are extremely hard to answer or formulated in a weird way. Too many questions!”

Reflection has become a key concept in formal education

Student antipathy to such “reflections” may seem ironic since reflection has become a cornerstone of education in the 21^st century. Across the world, numerous commissions, organizations, and state educational boards have highlighted reflection as a standard and a skill toward which students, as well as teachers, should strive. Yet there is little agreement over what reflection really is and how best to facilitate it.

The scientific literature on reflection (and especially the work by Russell Rogers) offers a couple of key insights. It suggests that reflection is triggered by an unusual or perplexing situation or experience and requires active engagement on the part of the individual. It involves examining one’s responses, beliefs, and premises in light of the situation at hand and results in integrating the new understanding into one’s experience. We believe that the first of these insights – the element of surprise – is of critical importance.

Photo: caterooni. Creative Commons.

The brain as a prediction machine

In recent years, researchers in computational neuroscience have approached the question of how the brain works in new ways. They start with the premise that the brain is a prediction machine. An essential function of the brain is trying to predict the future – what will happen next. As the brain makes predictions about the world and takes note of whether these predictions match what actually happens, it gradually learns about the world, getting better at predicting it.

“We need to create opportunities for learners to be genuinely surprised . . . Play and open-ended activities are great ways to do this.”

This is where play and reflection come in. When children (and also adults) play, they experiment and test options at the edges of their knowledge. In doing so, the brain and play enhance proficiency in a skill that is a central human challenge – understanding how to survive in an uncertain and frequently volatile world. Being better at prediction means that we expend as little energy as possible trying to interpret a world that sends an exhausting stream of information to us. This is a central element of reflection: the conscious processing of surprise.

How can we use these insights to facilitate meaningful reflection? Our research offers five lessons:

1. Invite surprise into the classroom

If surprise elicits reflection, we need to create opportunities for learners to be genuinely surprised. This entails shifting agency toward the learner by designing learning environments that are open ended. Play and open-ended activities are great ways to do this because they allow for easy entry points to get started. They also provide an opportunity to reach sophisticated levels of complexity. For inspirations on how to begin, see Mitch Resnik’s book “Lifelong Kindergarten” and the Pedagogy of Play website.

2. Be clear about the purpose of reflection

Ask yourself why you want students to reflect in the first place. Are you trying to gain access to their thought processes or do you want students to consolidate their knowledge on a given subject matter? Remember that asking students to share their thinking with you will alter their reflective processes.

3. Think about reflection as an ongoing process

Surprises occur all the time, not just at the end of a lesson. Think about reflection throughout the learning process, not just as an exit-ticket exercise. To help students reflect in a more ongoing manner, at the beginning of class, you might ask students about what they already know and what their expectations are. This can also help make changes in their thinking visible and allow them to revisit their earlier assumptions later. The “I used to think – now I think” thinking routine, developed by Project Zero, is a useful exercise in this regard.

4. Recognize that students can reflect in more than one way

Reflection can be facilitated beyond language. Reflection exercises can also involve drawing or building things. Nonverbal reflection practices can support second-language learners, who may struggle with constructing the past, present, and future sentences needed to talk about changes in experiences.

5. Work with your learning community to define reflection

It is helpful to develop a shared understanding of reflection — and language around it — in your community. Consider the word ‘reflection’ as a group and make your individual and shared understandings visible. Remember that reflective practices, as well as play, are embedded in the larger cultural context. Norms of how, and what, we reflect upon are set by our local community. Bringing people – especially those from a diverse background – together in a shared understanding of reflection is a vital nurturing ground to develop meaningful reflective practices.

The Project Zero Thinking Routine Toolbox provides helpful starting points for facilitating such a conversation. For younger learners, be sure to look into the Teaching Tool “Cracking Open Words.”

The post Creating effective environments for learning reflection through play appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Consider fathers’ health behaviors as well as mothers’,
• Assess and treat fathers’ mental health as well as mothers’,
• Treat family stress and attend to the couple relationship, and
• Provide access for fathers to family leave.

Much research focuses on how mothers-to-be influence babies’ health and development before and during pregnancy – touching on mothers’ environments, emotions, and behaviors. Mothers-to-be are often advised to alter their lifestyles accordingly.

Less attention is paid to fathers, but there is sufficient evidence to make a case for practice and policy to change in this regard.

This research review sets out seven ways fathers influence children’s development during pregnancy, providing a useful tool for planners of prenatal services and policies.

1. Epigenetic and genetic changes: Prior health behaviors

• Obesity is associated with epigenetic changes that predict restricted growth in childhood.
• Alcohol affects the sperm epigenome and is a risk factor for alcohol use and alcohol sensitivity in offspring.
• Fathers’ diabetes and fast-food consumption predict earlier births.

2. Epigenetic and genetic changes: Exposure to environmental toxins

• Exposure to workplace welding fumes is linked with higher prevalence of congenital abnormalities (Egyptian study).
• Fathers exposed to pesticides (e.g., nematocide, dibromochloropropane, ethylene dibromide) are more likely to have suboptimal sperm quality.

3. Epigenetic and genetic changes: Early life stress

• Children of fathers who survived the Holocaust and fathers with post-traumatic stress disorder show epigenetic differences, namely increased DNA methylation in a promoter region of the glucocorticoid receptor. These are linked with increased prevalence of psychiatric illness and reduced cortisol levels in the children.
• Studies of mothers have shown links between their exposure to disasters (e.g., natural disasters, terrorist attacks, COVID-19) and outcomes for their children. No such research exists for fathers but it would likely reveal similar links.

4. Neurobiological and hormonal changes

• First-time fathers with a higher prenatal testosterone level report less effective and positive parenting six months after the birth.
• First-time fathers with a higher prenatal oxytocin level endorse a more nurturing parenting philosophy after the child’s birth.

“This research review sets out seven ways fathers influence children’s development during pregnancy, providing a useful tool for planners of antenatal services and policies.”

5. Influences on expectant mothers’ health behaviors

• Alcohol use by an expectant father is linked to higher alcohol use by pregnant mothers (Ukrainian study).
• Expectant mothers engage more in prenatal health actions such as stopping smoking when their male partners do more caregiving (e.g., listening to baby’s heartbeat, purchasing items for baby, attending prenatal classes).

6. Influences on expectant mothers’ mental health

• A higher quality of couple relationship is associated with expectant mothers’ lower distress, which in turn is associated with more positive temperament of the baby (U.S. study).
• More relationship conflict correlates with greater incidences of medically complex births. Much research links prenatal stress in mothers to premature birth and low birth weight.
• Depression in expectant fathers correlates with depression in expectant mothers. Joint mental health symptoms in two parents prenatally predict the same symptoms in the parents 12 months after the birth, which in turn correlate with children’s executive function problems at 7-8 years (Finnish study).

7. Influences on mothers’ hormones

• A couple’s hormonal levels tend to synchronize and follow similar patterns. Lower testosterone levels in both expectant parents predict greater investment by the father in the parenting relationship after the birth.
• When cortisol levels are lower in both expectant parents, there is likely to be less conflict between them before birth and less depression on the part of the father after the birth.
• Hormonal changes in mothers can affect fetal development and children’s long-term social and emotional development.

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Based on years of research, the framework – called the Intergenerational and Cumulative Adverse and Resilient Experiences (ICARE) model – identifies 10 types of ACEs, as well as 10 protective and compensatory experiences (PACEs) that build resilience.

The ICARE model also recommends a wide set of interventions that address the many ways ACEs can harm children’s development. At the heart of the approach is supporting the protective factors that are already in place in families and helping families become stronger.

The ICARE model shows the pathway by which ACEs can disadvantage children’s future and harm the next generation.

Neurobiological and epigenetic impacts of ACEs

Prolonged activation of stress responses that are typically used in brief crisis-response situations results in biological and neurobiological changes that can become embedded in a child. The body’s immune system can be harmed, as well as the development of brain structures and functions. Epigenetic changes to DNA as a result of adversity – the methylation of certain genes that change how they function – embed the impact of ACEs, influencing how the child responds to stress later in life. Epigenetic changes are heritable, passed from mothers and fathers to their biological children.

The ICARE model shows the pathway by which ACEs can disadvantage children’s future and harm the next generation.

Developmental impacts of ACEs

The most significant developmental system in early childhood is attachment. Secure attachment evolves when an infant’s needs are consistently met, creating a safe and predictable place where caregivers can be trusted. Attachment also has a biological/neurobiological dimension, for example, with the action of the hormones dopamine and oxytocin. ACEs can disrupt attachment, which is associated with a wide range of behavioral, social, and emotional problems later in life.

ACEs can also damage cognitive development. Skills associated with executive function, such as working memory, inhibitory control, and focused attention, can be harmed in children who have experienced adversity. This can lead to problems with learning during education and training.

Intergenerational transmission

ACEs can disadvantage the next generation in two ways: Parents who have been adversely affected by ACEs in their own lives are more likely to struggle with parenting. And parents may pass to their children epigenetic changes that affect the child’s biological response to stress.

Strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of ACEs

The foundation of the strategic approach proposed by the ICARE model starts with assessing and mobilizing protective factors that already exist or could exist around the child. Researchers point to successful support programs in five categories:

1. Supporting parents and caregivers with their own psychological and emotional well-being
2. Supporting parents and caregivers with attachment and parenting skills
3. Supporting children directly, for example, by encouraging their participation in sports, hobbies, and friendships
4. Psychological therapies for children that address the past traumas
5. Play-based therapeutic activities for children and parents together

The authors of the framework explain that the ICARE model “suggests new opportunities to design and implement multilevel prevention and intervention programs across the various pathways by which adverse and protective experiences influence outcomes.”

The post How to protect children from the negative impacts of adverse childhood experiences – a comprehensive approach appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

It might sound strange to encourage children to spend more time on their phones, laptops, or computer consoles. But a large body of research has identified nothing intrinsically damaging about these activities, provided they do not displace sleep, exercise, schooling, and healthy eating. In short, screen time does not in itself turn children into gambling addicts or overweight, uneducated zombies. And provided children are kept safe, using social media is also okay.

Bad outcomes are much more likely to be caused by eating poorly, missing out on learning, spending too much time on the sofa, or not resting enough. So a parent’s most productive focus should be to encourage physical activity, sleep, good nourishment, and learning – and make sure that time online is not getting in the way of those healthy activities.

Fears of digital media unjustified

Research has failed to justify the understandable fears of many parents who are concerned by the sudden changes over the past two decades in how childhood is lived. It is difficult to identify any clinically relevant impacts of the increased use of screens or social media. Where slight effects are found, they are drowned out by the established effects – such as genetics, socioeconomic circumstances, time adults spend with children, and parental education – that we have known, for 50 years, determine child development.

However, research does demonstrate that children are more likely to respect family rules about good ways to live when those rules are developed though sound and shared reasoning, and when they respect children’s perspectives and as well as adults’ preferences. Children can recognize parents’ wishes for them to have enough sleep, keep fit, learn and eat properly, and spend family time together. However, very strict rules, focussing on a prescribed number of minutes for this or that activity, can lead to added secrecy on the part of a child. They can also damage a child’s trust that their parents will be able to help and understand them, should they, for instance, encounter distressing experiences online.

As a trained neuroscientist, I want parents to follow the science. However, unevidenced “neuro-myths” – often really fears masquerading as science – are now used to justify concerns about screen time and child development. This is understandable. In just a few years, the digital world has disrupted traditional childhood by taking a distinctive place – and considerable time – in children’s upbringing. We did not have iPads in the home until 10 years ago. Internet bandwidth could not support online gaming 15 years ago. Seemingly overnight, gaming has become a cultural mainstay. Social media are everywhere. People are understandably worried about the impacts.

Inevitably, scientific research has lagged in providing reliable evidence about the effect of this dramatic shift. How do scientists prove the long-term impact of something that has not existed for very long? It takes time and science has been predictably slow to reach a conclusion.

The foundation of “neuro-myths”

As a result, people initially sought answers in other fields that seemed relevant. Alert to the psychological rewards computer gaming offers children, they explored studies on outcomes for children who are unable to defer gratification – the so-called marshmallow experiment. They also looked to more gloomy studies of children’s television viewing back in the 1980s and 1990s, and to research on rats allowed to administer dopamine-stimulating drugs to themselves. This work appeared to justify fears that exposure to digital media undermined children’s capacities to concentrate and led them to live more sedentary lives.

But time has demonstrated that these analogies are false and misleading. It turns out that children’s attitudes about marshmallows and lab rats doing drugs do not offer useful insights into the impacts of screen time. Research has not identified the kinds of screen time used today, in itself, as correlated with diminished general cognitive control, capacities to concentrate, or physical well-being. A recent review found the effects of screen time today to be quite similar to those of television time in the 1950s.

Moreover, scientists now better understand that the research into high levels of television viewing was not particularly instructive about the impacts of television viewing, even back in the 1990s. Closer examination showed that this research really told us more about the socioeconomic circumstances of different families: The prevalence of high levels of viewing was skewed toward low-income families. These families tended to have smaller homes, less outside space, a culture of having the television on more often than more privileged groups, and fewer alternative activities. Poverty and lack of opportunity were preventing healthier childhoods; TV usage was largely a symptom, rather than a cause, of the deprivation.

It is difficult to identify any clinically relevant impacts of the increased use of screens or social media.

Research does not find brain damage

Studies also show few, and only slight, correlations between children’s use of social media and their general well-being or mental distress symptoms such as anxiety and depression. Research has found nothing of this nature for boys. In girls, there is a slight relationship between time on social media and psychological distress. But it is small – as a comparative example, wearing glasses seems more damaging to a female teenager’s social well-being than spending a lot of time on social media, according to the same datasets.

Photo: Emily Wade. Unsplash.

Young children’s low exposure

Our research should also reassure parents who may be concerned that young children are exposed to high levels of screen time. We measured the time children are on digital media in Danish kindergartens, where they typically spend about five to eight hours each weekday between the ages of 3 and 6. In general, children were exposed to digital media about five to 10 minutes on these days in the kindergarten environment, which we generally view as a good thing. Technology is part of the world in which children live and provides teachable moments, even for the young ones.

Let us assume that, on weekdays, some children spend another two hours a day of digital time at home, perhaps in the early evening when they are tired, allowing parents time to finish housework and emails. This means that, on most days, these young children’s lives are about 90 percent free of digital inputs. It is understandable that parents might still be worried because much of that time is during the few hours in the evening when children are at home – probably feeling cranky and tired – before they go to bed. However, our research, which looked across the children’s days, suggests that parents should worry less about minutes and hours; young Danish children still have ample opportunities to develop in other ways.

Risk of gambling addiction

Some parents are concerned that their children will become addicted to gambling through their exposure as children to digital media and gaming. Studies have not found causal connections between such use and a greater risk of gambling addiction in typical populations. However, we studied children whose parents were worried about the general effect of gaming on their offspring, and then compared them with children who parents were not worried. We found that the brains of the two groups of children were indistinguishable. But the children with worried parents experienced more stress and conflict between their wishes to game and their need to sleep, do homework, and have dinner with their parents.

It makes sense to worry about preserving lifestyles that we know are good for children – playing, time with friends, being outside – but unwise to confuse this desire with unjustified and unevidenced arguments about the dangers that digital media pose to children’s brains.

Encouraging rather than controlling children

Other research shows that the more restrictive and reactive parenting styles are around media use, the less children internalize and respect parents’ reasons. A more effective strategy is one in which children feel that their wishes and interests are being understood, and they can share their parents’ reasoning about the need for exercise, sleep, and education rather than be part of a strategy based on a groundless fear of digital media.

In a study at the Interacting Minds Centre in Aarhus, Denmark, my colleague Stine Strøm Lundsgård and I found that the parents who were the most worried about digital media were those who placed the most value on different kinds of play. The parents who were most concerned that their children enjoy a traditional upbringing – for example, playing outside with other children – tended to be the ones most worried about screen time. These parents had a strong sense of what constitutes a good childhood and they feared that screen time was displacing it.

This is a very reasonable concern. It makes sense to worry about preserving lifestyles that we know are good for children – playing, spending time with friends, being outside. Parents are right to focus of the importance of these aspects of childhood; they should concentrate on the merits of such childhoods and encourage those shared values in their children. But they would be unwise to confuse this desire with unjustified and unevidenced arguments about the dangers that digital media pose to children’s brains.

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