Focus 580; How Parents Affect Intellectual Development in Young Children

Good morning welcome to focus 580 This is our telephone talk program. My name is David inch. Glad to have you with us this morning in the first hour of the program here will spend some time talking about things that parents can do to affect the intellectual development of their young children. And we have two guests here in studio with us both of them from Carle Clinic in Urbana Dr. Gail Kennedy. She's a pediatric neurologist and Julia Spitz. She's an occupational therapist and as we explore the topic here we encourage you to call in if you have questions of course we always do. The number here in Champaign-Urbana is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us. And that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so at any point you can pick up a telephone and give us a call if you have questions. Thank you both very much. Thank you for being here. Just a little bit I have looked at this area and I know that you have looked at a lot more what seems to be striking is that even though we have learned a lot about how the brain develops and things that either can effect that positively

or negatively it seems to me as if we still have a better idea what the bad things are. It's easier for us to say don't do these things than it is on the other side to say do these things. There's that. I saw the case. I think that's exactly right. We we do know a lot of this not only from working with animal models but to a limited degree from also observing human models of children who have been put into different situations or adults who have had brain injuries and and been affected by those. But it's hard sometimes to take that information and generalize it not only taking animal information and saying well how relevant is this information to the development of a child's brain. But also looking at one child or a small group of children with a certain type of brain injury and saying well how much does that really relate to the general development of normal children. Certainly a lot more is known. Like you said about what injures the brain and what the what there is to avoid.

We're starting however to get a better idea not only of normal development but starting to get some inklings in to what may be helpful in fostering normal development or encouraging you know better than normal development. Well what do we talk a little bit about the things that we can say right away. These are real areas of concerns particularly before a baby is born. And it seemed that the the leading things here are alcohol consumption by my use of other drugs. Possibility of also exposure to talk environmental toxins things that we really know these are serious problems and can effect the functioning of the baby after the baby is born. I think probably the leading factor out there is is alcohol and how much that can in fact developing brain. And many of the studies

have been done looking at specific factors timing of when alcohol can affect brain development and looking at differences between early fetal life the first three months of gestation or the first three months of pregnancy versus the middle three months or the end three months. And there are differing affects on the developing brain. Based on those timings that reflects what the brain is doing during those times the development in the first three months there's the basic formation of the brain from a small plate as it starts out as an embryo in a bunch of cells that organize into a tube and begin to Peru proliferate and develop the next stages where the the brain cells start to migrate into where they need to be. Further stages where they start to actually interact with one another when alcohol is when the brain is exposed to alcohol at any of those stages. There can be a differing effect of how the how the brain is injured.

But so overall we want to make sure that people know the recommendation is that during No alcohol any time during pregnancy that's really what that's what it boils down to there's really no ability to say that there's a safe time or our safe amount of alcohol that can be consumed during a pregnancy that that. That allows us to say all what's OK to do this or do that at certain times it's just not out there the safest thing that we as physicians can say is the best is don't expose that developing brain to alcohol at all. What I think they're also the recommendation is that women not smoke either. What do we know about exposure fetal exposure to nicotine. I think the nicotine expects Boesch or has more to do not only with growth of the brain but overall growth of the infants. Children who have been exposed to nicotine in utero here have lower birth weights than children who weren't exposed. That's probably an defer or diverse effect but the most I've seen is

that it does have an effect on the transmission across the placenta of normal nutrients to an infant so that's not only going to affect brain development but affect the total body development as well. There was a recent study out too that just said cocaine was no worse than smoking for the babies and unfortunate think that diminishes that smoking can be a problem too it makes it sound like most people don't really think of smoking still so uncertain. In addition alcohol we want to say about other drugs as well. And the advice is in pregnancy that before you would take anything prescription medication over-the-counter medication and anything that that you would always want to run that by your doctor. And in many cases we would think we would say if you can get along without this it would be better not. Rather than to Although again I suppose it also does depend on what point in the pregnancy it is we're talking about right and that's correct and I think that's in very important for a woman to be able to have that kind of relationship with her physician to be able to ask

those questions him and be open about him. But another thing that this brings up is is that there's so many things to worry about when you're pregnant. You know you worry about well do that one drink of champagne and New Year's Eve when I was six months pregnant is that going to affect brain development the fact that I smoke cigarettes a few times before I found out I was you know I was pregnant. How is that going to affect it. I think that brings up the issue of how much stress can affect a pregnancy or a developing brain. And there's been some very interesting information available on that mainly through once again looking at animal studies. But it is suggested that even these types of stresses the hormonal changes that go on in the mother's body from those stresses can really affect the development of the infant or even once the infant is born affect the development of the child and how they react to the mother. Well what I have seen references to this too and the

fact that it's something that you want to think about and you could be doing everything else right. Good good prenatal care generally good health and good nutrition and not doing these other things we say you know don't don't smoke don't drink. Stress is one of those things that are part of everyday life. Many women now continue to work through their pregnancies. That can be very stressful. What exactly are we talking about and what level of stress is problematic there. That's the rub. Trying to find out what level it is is very hard I think a lot of these have focused on very extreme degrees of stress where there's normal. Physiological response it's going to ry that that's gone too far. Extremes of dip deprivation particularly maternal deprivation food deprivation with a lot of the animal research studies is one thing that's been

looked into. Now of course when the baby is still in the womb it's obvious to see that food deprivation of a mother is going to affect an infant it's a little harder to see that to understand that effect but it is seen when a mother is deprived of food and how that if causes stress in her how she's reacting to the infants and how that causes a change in the way those infants are developing. So it's pretty extreme that we're talking about we all have stress in our lives stress is a phenomena that is kind of talked about a lot and overly used as a Knick as maybe an excuse for a lot of normal daily living situations in a stress response is important to normal ability to adapt to your environment. So we're talking about very extreme things here when we're talking about stress affecting an infant. Maybe I should introduce Again our guest here we're talking with Dr. Gail Kennedy. She's a pediatric neurologist and

Julie Spitz. She's an occupational therapist at both of them at Carr clinic we're talking about things that parents can do to affect the intellectual development of their kids. And if you have questions comments you can certainly give us a call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 just 1 for the thing here or maybe a couple for the think two words. Still talking about the time before the baby is born. Nutrition moms and obviously very important. But once you get past the point of saying that a mom is having a good diet. All of the various nutrients and minerals and stuff that you would think that she would have to do that she should have. Is there is there any idea that. By emphasizing particular things or perhaps by supplementing particular things that will have an effect on the baby that that goes beyond just basic nutrition.

No there's not a lot of information on that. There's a whole load of information on you know if this is missing from the diet or this isn't this exposure isn't given to the infant that that will cause problems with development. But actually saying if nutrient X is given in higher amounts we see that there's increased brain development that leads to increases in mathematical abilities at five years of age. There's nothing out there that really shows that science right now isn't at the point where we can explain or are start to make recommendations about what is going to cause increased or super intelligence or give you give you a lift up. What we do know is more about what we can do to foster normal development and growth and what those processes are that really injure or hinder that normal growth and development. So is there anything that we haven't touched on so far that's important.

I think one of the interesting things about neonatal prenatal life to kind of bridge is into neonatal life are all the things that an infant can actually do. Immediately after they they've been born the exposure to a mother and a father's voice from inside the womb. You wouldn't think that maybe that's something that an infant can hear or understand but obviously there is some ability for an infant to to hear maybe not understand but to hear and recognize voices even shortly after birth. If an infants exposed to two different women one its mother and one another female voice talking in very similar tones and saying very similar things. The infant will then shaly turn towards the mother suggesting that there is a recognition of the mother's voice. The same thing has been done with fathers although it isn't quite as strongly built probably into the infant's brain as it is with mothers. Probably because the exposure isn't quite as as as

broad. For an infant to hear it's Father is it as it is to hear its mother. And also the eye. Being able to pick up on scents and smells. Being able to recognize its mother's body in particular the breast and turn and suckle to them based on smell rather than turning to another caregiver is another interesting thing that shows us that even in the womb. Well the brain is still going through the massive put together process of basic brain development. There is that ability to start learning and start building on experiences that's present right at birth. I think there are also some bonding issues to work in on the neonatal intensive care unit it's very common the babies that bond pretty well are the babies that were really wanted and I think there's the emotional attachment to the baby too compared to the mother that maybe really didn't want to be pregnant and you know wasn't emotionally attaching to the baby in utero you can kind of see a difference in the baby's even

picking him up and how much they'll cuddle and do some of that so I think emotional a lot of research has been done on that as much by I think I see that clinically of which kids in utero were wanted and which ones weren't. Well certainly there have been plenty of studies showing about showing the importance of physical contact. We have the studies. That have been done for example in orphanages where children wear all of their physical needs were seen through they were fed they were bathed their diapers were changed but no one no one cood to them no one coddled them. There was very little physical contact with the caretakers. And you can see then that definitely has an effect on the way that those children develop. That's right and I think that as well as the loss of a single primary caretaker that often but not always falls to the the mother to be that person in that role. So yes those effects have been seen but then the next step is when those children go out of orphanages as many of them have done. We can

start to see or have started to see that some of those effects not all of them but some of them can actually be reversed by good nurturing caring and loving environments. So that gets into the idea of critical periods are there critical periods of time that the children need to be exposed to certain things whether it's a loving caring environment whether it's language whether it's visual experiences auditory experiences whatever it may be to be able to develop those areas of the brain. There's a lot more. That's not known about what those critical areas are and specifically that it you know it turns on it aged one month and turns off it eight five months and then the same thing is known for emotional development in those children who've gone through orphanages. So putting them in to a loving caring environment can go a long way to making up for a lot of those detrimental experiences early on.

I have certainly heard about people doing what sounds like kind of wacky things before babies are born. Talking to them and reading to them playing music to them all sorts of things like that that some people believe actually does cross the barrier so to speak and that the baby can sense and experience those things and that they can have have positive effects on development. Do we in fact know that things like that actually do work. I don't think we have a lot of evidence of things like that actually working I think that we know that babies can hear. We know in the womb we know that they can respond. There's been some interesting research that has suggested that they can pick up certain types of patterns or nuances. One study that I ran into suggested that having a parent read a particular story to an infant while they're in the womb they have a different response to that at that story once they're out of the room and actually hearing the story again whether you know that's a

calming influence something that they've experienced before and now they're experiencing again a recognition rather than a true understanding of what the story is and necessary listening and responding. There's different areas of the brain that are developing at different times and I think that also needs to keep be kept in mind. He can't expose a infant to algebra and actually expect that they're going to get something useful out of it because the areas of the brain that are important for understanding those concepts aren't ready to process that information in the in the same way. You don't find a whole lot of adolescents out there who need to be held and coddled and cooed too because that's a part of their brain that's already hopefully been developed through normal experiences with with their parents. But that's the kind of thing that that early childhood infant needs to be able to develop the bonding and the social interactions that are so important in early

childhood development. Well how soon do you think that it's. That is useful for parents to start after the babies are born to start doing stuff like that to start really talking to them to start reading to them to actually take the baby and plop them down in your lap and have a book open in front and start you know doing that thing at a point where you would probably say to yourself now there's really the baby's not going to get anything out of this is when is it too early to start doing things like that. It's not too early. Never get on the neonatal unit we have parents you know sometimes the babies can't be held and they sit next to the baby's crib and read a book I don't. That's not too early at all even with a premature infant. Obviously we want softer voices you don't want to be yelling or sometimes we even have the parents record a conversation so when they're gone that's their for their child. You brought us some of the other things will we use a diaper inside the mother's top mother there so when they leave the the smell the mother can stay or the father stay with the

child so really not too early to start obviously not flash cards and you know things like that but it's not too early to give them some visual stimulation something on the side of the crib to look at a bright red beanie baby it's not too early to put some of that in there. You know I think there has been some research within gosh I'm not sure whether this last decade or more that has really influenced the way that neonatal units are set up and that. The recommendation is actually has been actually to lower the stimulation level that is lower the light level make it more quiet. Though I think there was the case there was some concern about actually the babies being over stimulated correct and in fact several Carle are going through what's called mid-cap training newborn individualized developmental care assessment plans really trying to monitor the baby's behavior now Carle we have goods to go over the ice lead material to have it be a darkened place or is lost lots less radio just

general radio playing like I said we might have the parents voice on there. Try that really try to limit the stimulation though encourage possible holding there's something that's called kangaroo care where the parent sits down in the chair bearers or chest some of the babies just put there so that just solid firm hugging type is what's promoted not a lot of extra stimulation nurses try to keep their voices down keep the lights down keep excess music down so there's a lot of interest in this particularly since the premature infants mortality in those in those units has gone dramatically down because of the ability. The research to show what is important in good medical care and I think the next step is what's important in good emotional care for those for those infants. And what is important like Julie talked about that exposure to the parent's voice the decrease in the level

of noise whether that's machines or whether that's other types of noise in the unit that may cause either a stress response or other types of emotional responses in the in these infants. And we're still trying to determine what are those really important factors that a child needs to be exposed to or needs to have around them at this very young age to really help foster a normal brain social emotional development. We're getting close to the midpoint here of this part of focus and I think I should just introduce Again our guest We're talking with Julia Spitz and Gail Kennedy Julia Spitz is an occupational therapist and Gail Kennedy is pediatric neurologist and both of them work at Karl clinic and Herb and I were talking a bit about things that parents can do to effect positively affect the intellectual development of their children. And your question certainly are welcome three three three W I L L toll free 800 1:58 W1. Just for a moment. Continuing with this idea of over

stimulation. I think one of the things that we certainly know from animal research and this is work that's been done probably a long time ago now. If you take animals of our example if you take rats and you raise them in two very different environments and in one there's very little thing interesting things going on in the environment. It's just the most bare bones thing that you could possibly make and then you take a bunch of other rats and you raise them an environment that has lots of toys and it has stuff for them to do has ways that they can go exploring. It's a very rich environment in terms of the way that it stimulates their senses and then later if you look at the brains of the the two groups what you'll see as the ones that were raised in this very rich environment have a much more developed brain than the ones that were raised in this impoverished environment so naturally you want to take that. You can take that and you march it over to kids you say well then if we really want children to have have their brains develop well then there should be a lot of stimulation there.

They should we should talk to them we should handle them we should hold them. There should be we should play music to them there should be interesting things in their rooms for them to look at and that's why we hang over their cribs these little you know things that that move around and stuff. Having said all that though is there some point at which you do want to think about. There being a problem with over stimulation. Yes and it's that's I think a little different between a newborn infant and a neonate and a neonate. If you think what's their normal natural environment their normal natural environment is a dark quiet room where sounds are muffled because it's going through mother's abdomen and into the fluid. They're protected from their environment by a fluid bath so they're not exposed to cold heat pain while those types of things their nutrients are. Hopefully if nutrition is not an issue perfectly provided to

them through through the placenta that's providing all all of their food and nutrition so it's a very sheltered environment and when a baby is born prematurely that environment changes so radically and drastically. That it's it's so very different that this stimulation level goes way up way beyond anything that would be accepted as normal. But when you start with a newborn infant their brains are ready for that for that. They've gone through that development those exposures that we talked about in the womb that show that they're ready to learn and they're ready to take on many of those experiences that an very premature infant is not ready for. Once again you have to judge by the infant themselves some of us have a lower stress level than others saw us have a higher stress level and great studies that have been done by pediatricians such as Berry Brazelton with observations over children over many years

have shown that there are certain personalities in developmental patterns to children that you have to be sensitive to as a parent in understand well this this child this one is not one where I can leave radio going and actually talk to the child at the same time because it's too much interference and it's too much for them. Whereas another child may be able to take that multiple stimulation and not be affected by it. And you really I'm just a curious particular because you have had some experience with with neonates. Do you really see can you really start to see things that we would say are personality things that really even at that point that you would say really says you know this baby is different from this baby is different from this maybe you might not even be able to put words on it but you know but you know that these are very distinct different individuals even at that point.

Oh definitely and she just brought up Dr. Brazelton the last question on the Brazill to and I went to one of his courses and he said You basically asked to pick up the baby and ask yourself on a scale of zero to 10 do you want to take this baby home. You know what they did. And it's true I mean sometimes there are babies I put in the crib and I'm like thank heavens this baby's not going home with me they're irritable they're cranky you can't you just don't feel like you can get them interacting and the other week though someone came up on like you know I was sitting down just rocking the baby and the mom came and I'm like oh what a cute baby you know just really interacted so no you can get personalities. Right often it's not uncommon for a lot of the premies to have in the long run what we call sensory defensiveness there. They're much more resistant to tags in their shirts how their socks are on the the fire alarm in school just because their little neuro systems weren't ready for all the stimulation they get so sometimes I'm sure all the teachers listening right now can pick out some of the kids in their class I can't take that sensory system or they can't get to the lockers when everyone else is because it's bothering them because they're be bumped into their so but no personalities.

On the unit you can see personalities in the same way and in newborn infants you detect it very quickly in any any parent who has more than one child will oftentimes pick up on that very quickly that this is this one child is so so different from from another child. And part of that is the genetics. But there's so much interesting research that's going on right now about behavior and how much is genetic. How much is experience still and how artificial that line is between those two that we've drawn for so many years both inside and outside of the research domain. There is there is that dramatic interaction between experience and genetics that produces personality. Apparently one of the things I was looking at was one of the sources you suggested I look at said that generally speaking if a child is

in what we think of as and as a normal environment with the normal level of stimulation they're going to get a lot of what they need to get their brain development going. Assuming that their sense or sense mechanisms are working right that is there they can hear well they can see well is how much of a concern is that early on that you just want to make sure that everything like that is sort of operating within the normal ranges so that then they can take advantage of all those aspects of the environment that's very important and we've learned that not only from a research base but then applying what we've learned to children probably the easiest area to talk about that is in the area of vision developmentally. Vision is something that forms because of the experiences that you have outside the womb you have areas in your brain that are ready and willing and able to develop the ability to process vision but they have

to be exposed to those normal things in the environment. And as you said this doesn't take anything that the average human being wouldn't normally be exposed to whether they're being raised in a small village in Africa or whether they're being raised in Manhattan. Those types of experiences are going to be the same for all human beings and that's going to allow them to develop vision but if you have a cataract where if you have a problem with the cornea something that's going to impair your vision early on you're going to have problems with developing those areas of the brain because those experiences are going to be getting to them the signal isn't going to be able to get to the brain. So if if those problems can be detected and detected early they can make a big difference in how those major sensory systems of evolved. Hearing is another area where it's very easy to see how that may affect a child. But hearing is so difficult to pick up hearing impairments are so difficult to pick up in early childhood.

Although it's standard now in the normal newborn as well as in neonatal units to do early hearing testing in infants to determine if there is signs of significant hearing impairment. Mild or moderate hearing impairments can be harder to pick up in til later on. But interesting studies that have been done in children who have been deaf since birth and then were given what's called a cold clear implant and hearing. Device that really helps get the information into their brain that their ear isn't able to do. Those children went after those surgeries are done at 3 can still develop meaningful understanding of the language of what they hear and verbal language. So even though they weren't exposed to it before that surgery because it was lost that ability to develop verbal language is is still there and still pliable and useful. One of the things the statistic I came across this is pretty interesting it talks

about just how much brain development happens after birth. That and then I say that hoping that this is right that ad birth the brain is 25 percent of its adult weight by age 2. It's 75 percent of its adult weight. So there's an untrimmed tremendous amount of development that's going on in the first couple of years. What what exactly is happening is it is that there are. New structures are added or is it that everything is there and it just gets bigger. What is it what exactly is going on in the first couple years. Well essentially all the cells that your brain is going to produce are produced in the neonatal period so you're not actually building new functioning neurons the brain cells that actually do the processing in the memory and the information work in the brain. What you're doing during those years is building the systems that support those neurons. Two things in particular what's called Mylan development. It's a fatty

substance that lines the nerve cells in the same way that an electrical cord is is lined. Buy in insulation. That's what Mylan does is it insulates those small nerve fibers the axons that the nerves send out and they can have they can travel for a long way. You know with the nerve cells it's observe the movement in your big toe or all the way at the top of your head there. So they have a long way to go and to get a signal down so that Mylan is there lining those cells and helping helping them create the signals that the rise send the signals that they need to get from one point to the other so that Mylan development is a process that really speeds up during the first two years of life. So there's a little bit of it there birth but it really develops during that actually develops in certain areas the brain into the second and third decade of life so it's an ongoing process for a long period of time. But the other thing that also takes place during that time is the support structures are what are called the gleeful

cells of the brain. Those are the brain cells are those are actually not brain cells but those are support cells that help feed and nourish in and supply other important. Nutrients to the brain cells as they needed since they can be spread out over such a long ways. The cell body itself can't always support everything that that cell needs. So it's those two types of cells and their growth that really takes a lot of their physical enlargement of the brain and puts it on the map. And though it's it there's also expert experiences have a very important role to play here and so we're not simply talking about the fact that well if you have the right nutrition that the brain is going to grow and it'll get bigger and maybe it will get bigger but the if you don't have if you don't have it have the experiences that then it has had somebody do with it with connections between you know if I really understand this railroad

connections at between different parts of the brain and the way something. Purpose people to think about it is as the wiring of the brain and the wiring becomes more complex as a result of all of the experiences that we have and all of the stuff that we take in during through our senses and the things that we learn how to do. And so that's one reason why. Again all this this period is very important and having as much having as much experience as possible in there because it has to do with how how the brain is wired up. Right I think what you're referring to here this inapt connections brain cells talk to one another or interact with one another chemically and the way they do the end is through what are called synapses that's the way one brain cell touches another and. It sends a signal to one another those Cynapsus or something that develops markedly increased rate during the first few

years of life in different areas of the brain different areas of processing have different timing of synaptic development visual synaptic development reaches its peak during the second six months of life where there's an overabundance of these interactions between one brain cell in another but it has as their peak hits. They start to be pruned away things that are not being used that are not being stimulated from the outside. Being lost and probably rightfully so. We can't have all the synapses in our brain or our brain would be over wired in over connected and we have a lot of brain cells that were talking back and forth that wouldn't be giving us a lot of useful information. So this is a normal developmental process and I wouldn't want someone to think that if I'm not stimulating my child's brain they're going to lose too and too many synods too many synapses I think a lot of this goes on at a normal pace. But in people.

Such is someone who doesn't have vision in one eye. And if you look at the brain of a person like that later you see that there's difference in active development between the one side of the brain where they had a normal functioning eye and the other side of the brain where there wasn't. So experience is important in that Cinetic to development. But this is actually not what cause ifs of physical growth it's what causes intellectual growth of the brain more than any anything else. We are coming to a point where we have you know maybe about 10 minutes left in the program. Questions certainly are welcome. Three three three W. Weil toll free 800 1:58 W while Again our guest Dr. Gail Kennedy. She's a pediatric neurologist and Julie Spitz occupational therapist from the Karl clinic and Urban they have particular questions you're certainly welcome to call. I want to make sure that there are some particular things we haven't gotten to yet. We do that before we find ourselves out of time. OK I think one question that a lot of people bring to

their doctor are think of when they have a discussion like this is what can we really do. What really does make make a difference. I think a lot of what makes a difference for a child's brain. Many of us do normally. And it is just part of normal interactions although it's sometimes helpful to have that reiterated speech in language is so important for a child to hear at a very young age. And it's been shown that that's even more important when it comes from that primary caregiver mother or father. You can have a child in excellent day care with a caring person. But if you don't have that same type of verbal investment from the parent you're not going to get the same degree of development in the child is you would a child with a parent who is really spending a lot of time interacting in the same way just having verbal chatter going on in the background such as having a radio sorry or

TV going on here is not enough to cause normal development it's really that interaction I think that's what it wants a gun comes back down to is not only the the language that mother father is presenting to the child but the fact that they're interacting with their environment that interaction is so important. The same thing with the red experience that you brought up is those rats who had the impoverished environment in the richest environment. Well the rats had the enraged environment that they were walking over and interacting with. But if you if you take the same step take the same theory one step further. Put a rat in a bubble and put him in an enriched environment so they see the environment. They don't get the same type of synaptic development and brain growth that that the other rats do they're more like the rat who had the impoverished environment. So just seeing it or just being exposed to it is not enough you really have to be able to interact with that environment. And that's where a good parent and good child

care really helps foster normal development in children and interaction. I like to say to as a as a therapist it's so early that earlier identification when there are problems we've kind of been talking a lot about normal today. You know but if there are problems the earlier the detection the better so services can get started or you know work with the parents and show him some things to do because it's pretty hard when the referral comes in and it's. It's been a long time because we want to encourage as normal as typical development as possible it's easier to guide a child through than they have a problem come in and try to fix it. You know if people are concerned to at least birth to three services in the state I think this also goes to Indiana and Illinois a child and family connections is an agency that can help people and we have child developmental specialists It can even work with the families if they really don't know how to play. I'm amazed how many parents don't know how to interact and play with their children in Indiana. It's called Kids First. Are the state programs that help can get services

for that. Well let's get a caller here I want to get to maybe we can come back in and give a little bit in the way of specific examples. Let's go to a caller here in the urban ally number two. Hello. Good morning. I'm wondering. Leaving So learning a second language or two under two or three other languages is that. Help develop the brain so that the snow will be more intelligent or like learning music. That's like to hear some comments about that and I'll be off the air. Okay thank you. Learning more than one language at a time is not necessarily going to make you more intelligent but it's certainly going to improve your ability to use and be proficient in those languages in the future. So young infants who are exposed to caretakers who speak more than one language they do develop the ability to differentiate between

those two languages as they as they get older. The ability to differentiate between non language in language ability and language or spoken words is there very early and then that ability to differentiate between one dialect or one particular language in another develops over time. And that's very important in bilingual homes for those language processes to really. To help those children the language process is to really be consistent so if one parent is always a parent that speaks English the other parent is always a parent that speaks another language to the child. That even so and even more so helps the child develop that proficiency in more than one language. There's been a lot suggested about exposure of children to music particularly classical music early on in how they have helped the developing brain. I think once again this is important at certain times there are certain times where brain

development is open to certain types of exposures. I think many people who have had exposure to music particularly classical music have different areas of their brain. More finely developed than others particularly areas that may have to do with mathematical abilities that's been suggested but I don't think that there's a lot of evidence right now that definitively says that if we have all children in the state of Illinois listening to a tape of Mozart it of at an early age we're going to raise our math scores at the age of 5. I can't see how the exposure to Mozart is going to hurt children at this age but I think it remains a lot to be seen as to whether it's going to be something that really helps and affects everyone. There's a couple minutes ago Julie where you were talking about the fact that sometimes parents they're there may indeed be parents who who say well I hear what you're saying about how it's good for me to be interacting with my children but I'm not exactly sure what you mean because

I'd Because after all you do interact with them all the time. And to the extent that they can communicate you you talk to them you ask them questions they ask you questions you're walking around the world you're talking about things that you see. What what do you what is it. It is exactly the truth. What I write amazing though is there are a lot of parents that don't even know how to do the simple talk you know even in the car driving along and talking to the children they're singing songs with them not necessarily just even listening to a tape. I mean I work with a lot of families. You know some of the moms don't even know how to swaddle I mean even just kind of pick up and comfort. So I'm kind of coming from a different ballpark too I mean there are it's amazing there you know and of course you're looking at some moms that are 14 some 14 year old moms are great handling the baby because they have younger siblings at home and they've been exposed to that some 14 year old moms don't even know how to start to comfort their child so you know in terms of their B what you're starting out and even just vision is one of the things that typically amazes families the

most like give them some visual stimulation or try to get eye contact with them like what they can't see. Yes they can you know so getting that visual contact and kind of working with families along those lines. It's such a great connection to walk into the nursery in and hold an infant while I'm examining them and hopefully the family is present and to be able to make eye contact with an infant and get them to follow me even at a very young ages in the premature infant or just a newborn infant they have that ability to look to regard to face and to focus and follow for brief periods and within a brief range. But it's there and it's just amazing when you see that. Just one thing I want to maybe touch on real quick. Going back a step or two and that is nutrition. And I think you can say about nutrition. In the first couple of years I seem to remember a couple of years back there was concern that because there was so much publicity about the importance of limiting fat in our diets to

reduce health disease and other sorts of things that people were putting their their little kids on low fat diets which is not such a good thing particularly very early on because you did have to have some fat in the diet to to to develop for this neuronal development to go on. But is there anything else that we can actually say with some confidence again. Aside from offering a normal healthy very diet that supplementing particular things helps in brain development. I think when one eory that we have to be careful of is with iron and anemia. Iron is not only important in your red blood cells but it's important in a lot of the other cells in the body and in particular it's important in a lot of different systems in the brain. And there have been good studies that have shown that iron deficiency anemia particularly chronic iron deficiency can cause problems with brain development with lowering of intellectual abilities. Even after that iron deficiency has has been restored and

improved through iron therapy. So being vigilant about our kids getting the right amount and enough iron is it is important. Iron can cause problems in formulas commonly causes constipation in young infants and in many times there's there's a concern or a push to get it out. It's important to keep that balance. We're just on the point we have to finish is there anything last sort of thing that you'd like to leave with folks. Well just we're having a conference this Saturday for a daycare providers are really kind of the target that we've started off with are also parents we could probably fit in a couple more people who are interested in that they could give me a call at 3 8 3 6 1 6 8. Dr. Kennedy's going to be speaking on the developing young brain going to be speaking a little bit on motor development the importance of tummy time there's been a Back to Sleep campaign and that started the cause some developmental delays in children there's also going to be early speech and language development and then sensory experiences to work what we can basically reading

that the conference's the right to read promoting our children's literacy so. OK. And that's on Saturday. Yes very good. Well thanks. Thank you. Our guest Gail Kennedy she's a pediatric neurologist and Julia Spitz occupational therapist both of them from Carle Clinic in Urbana.