Abstract
The 1990s have been called the decade of the brain; indeed, we are faced with more and more opportunities that highlight the interface of neuroscience with facets of human learning, behaviour, and effect. All aspects of our adaptive life, including thought, perception, language, and emotion, as well as fine and gross motor skills, are mediated by the brain. Most developmental disorders of childhood are attributable to some brain-related event.
The human brain holds amazing mysteries, especially during the early childhood years: it reaches 70 per cent of its adult weight by two years of age, nearly 90 per cent by age six, and its full weight by puberty. It consumes twice as much glucose, the brains source of energy, as the adult brain from age four to until about puberty. Researchers think that young brains are as primed as they will ever be to process new information.
As neuroscience unfolds to inform us of some of its wonders, we come to realise how indispensable it is to understand and apply this knowledge to our practice with young children, for in no other period in development is the brain as responsive to environmental input as in early childhood.
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