The Early Years

Conventional Wisdom

• babies were a tabula rasa i.e blank slate and totally helpless and passive
• young children were little adults who simply did not know much

New Research
1. Infants

• babies are far more able and active than earlier conceptions
• their senses are finely tuned to interact socially with adults so that they will meet their needs
• babies actively explore the environment
• the baby brain has more neurons than the adult but less connections
• the baby brain is plastic and a great deal of pruning takes place as it interacts with the environment
• physical skills develop at a predictable sequence i.e maturation

2. Childhood

• children are qualitatively different to adults
  
• critical periods of development occur when nurture stimulates the development of certain mental processes e.g language development entails exposure to language and a huge increase in neural connections that enable language to develop
• children are intellectually very busy as they sort out how the world works