Page 15 - Electronic Summary Toolkit
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Brains are built, not born.
The brain starts to develop before birth and carries on into early adulthood.
The early years of childhood are an important time for brain development
with more than a million neural connections created every second!
Simple connections and skills are built first with more complex ones created later.
Building strong foundations
Early basic connections create foundations for later connections.
Positive, responsive caregiving supports the development of these strong early connections.
When babies and young children receive lots of positive attention from adults
around them and are given varied experiences - from books and games to music
and walks, a strong foundation of neural networks is built.
Early Skills
This foundation includes the early development of skills such as flexible thinking, attention control,
emotional and energy regulation and impulse control.
If a child does not receive care which is consistently responsive and positive
or their experiences are very limited, these early connections do not develop
properly. This can lead to differences in learning and behaviour.
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