To Promote Brain Development in Early Childhood... "Keep Talking to Them"

Research Team at University of East Anglia, UK
"Affects Early Brain Structure Formation
Helps Develop Sophisticated Language Processing Skills"

A study has found that talking frequently to infants and toddlers promotes the development of the brain's language-related areas.

On the 15th, Professor Son Spencer and his team at the University of East Anglia in the UK stated in the 'Journal of Neuroscience' that conversing with young children is very important for early brain development, based on an experiment conducted with 2.5-year-old infants.

[Image source=Pixabay]

The research team collected a total of 6,208 hours of language data, including adult speech, conversations, and infant vocalizations, from 163 infants and toddlers using small recording devices worn for up to 16 hours a day over three days.

They then used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the infants' brains while they were sleeping, investigating changes in myelin, a substance that surrounds nerve cells and helps signal transmission between neurons.

Myelin wraps around the axons that make up neurons in multiple layers, facilitating efficient signal transmission between neurons.

Professor Spencer explained, "If we imagine the axon as a hose with many holes, myelin acts like tape wrapped around the hose to block the holes, allowing water to flow smoothly. We aimed to uncover how myelin is involved in early brain development, particularly whether conversations with infants promote myelin formation."

The study found that infants who heard more speech from adults in everyday environments had more myelin present in the brain's language-related areas.

Professor Spencer noted, "Children's brains develop very rapidly during the first two years of life, reaching about 80% of adult brain size by age two. The promotion of myelin formation during this period may help develop children's sophisticated language processing abilities." This indicates that language input is related to the formation of early brain structures.

The research team explained that although similar correlations were previously observed in children aged 4 to 6, the current results show that such correlations appear from the very early stages of brain development.

Professor Spencer said, "There is still much to uncover about this process, but the clear message to caregivers is to 'talk a lot with your children.' Not only do children hear words, but your speech literally shapes their brains."

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