Ottawa, May 25 2007

1. Why Parents Matter:Recent Research and FindingsStuart G. ShankerDirector, Milton and Ethel Harris Research InitiativePresident, The Council for Early Child Development Ottawa, May 25 2007

2. Time Magazine from the MEHRI Neuroscience lab

3. The Descent from the Trees

4. Bonobos • Discovered in the early 1970s • Closest human ancestor: approx 99% of our DNA • Live in small groups, social harmony, strong matriarchal presence • Partially bi-pedal • For these reasons, thought to provide us with the best model we have of our early human ancestors, the Australopithecines

5. The Evolutionary History of H. sapiens • 5 mya Australopithecines descended from the trees and began to walk upright • As a result the brains of early human species grew larger • In order to accommodate bipedalism and large brains, human babies are born ‘prematurely’ with their brains only ¼ quarter the size of an adult brain (Greenspan & Shanker, First Idea, Chapter 3)

6. Secondary Altriciality • Early plasticity enables the child’s brain to be highly attuned to the environment in which she is born • Synaptic growth in the first 2 years is massive • There is huge over-production of synapses that, at 8 months, will start to be ‘pruned’ back • Synaptic pruning is regulated by baby’s emotional interactions with her caregivers (Greenspan & Shanker, The First Idea, chap. 2)

7. 04-212 Sound Vision Smell Touch Proprioception Taste Neal Halfon

8. The Role of the Primary Caregiver in Early Brain Growth • The primary caregiver serves as an ‘external brain’, regulating and stimulating the baby’s brain • Dyadic experiences are vital for: • The capacity to self-regulate • the development of emotions • Formation of the HPA pathway, which strongly influences subsequent mental and physical health • perceptual, cognitive, and communicative skills • (McCain, Mustard & Shanker, EYS II, chapter 1)

9. The Critical Importance of Affect • Affect is overarching mechanism that binds dyad • The earliest affects an infant experiences are pleasurable and aversive sensations • She reflexively seeks out those experiences that are positive and avoids those that are aversive • i.e., an infant will only seek out dyadic interactions if she finds them pleasurable • (Greenspan & Shanker, The First Idea, chapters 1 and 2)

10. Dyad is a Self-Regulating System • Every infant is unique in kinds of stimulation she likes, how much, when, and how she expresses this • A caregiver unconsciously adjusts her behaviors • Infants born with acute hyper- or hypo-sensitivities find interaction aversive and shut down • Similar phenomenon in severely depressed or with addiction who fail to read the infant’s cues • (Greenspan & Shanker The First Idea, Chapt 2)

11. The Transmission of Caregiving Practices • Behaviors that caregivers use with newborns –broad smiles, affect-rich motherese, caressing, rocking – typically produce positive affect which leads the infant to engage in dyadic interaction • These caregiver behaviors aren’t hardwired • They were slowly developed and passed down, from one generation to the next, over millions of years

12. The Human Developmental Manifold • For millions of years, early humans lived in small hunting-gathering groups • Today over 80% of Canadians live in cities • Increasingly rare for children to be raised within extended family • Children are exposed to vast amounts of stimuli far in excess of our evolutionary environment • What is the impact of changes to a developmental system that evolved over millions on early brain development?

13. Breast-Feeding • Dream in the ‘50s was that science would create formulas that were far superior to breast-milk • Toronto Perinatal and Child Health Survey (2003) found that over 90% of women initiated breastfeeding but 23% stopped by 3 months and only 58% were still breastfeeding at 6 months • Today’s Parent Survey reported 26% of mothers had low milk supply problems • The other major problem reported was babies who didn’t want to nurse

14. Breast-Feeding and the Brain • Breast-feeding is a bi-directional communicative system, involving multiple senses (smell, touch, vocalization) crucial for early brain development • Recent study by Febo, Numan and Ferris (2005) on rats found brain activation in dam as a result of pup’s suckling has direct impact on bonding • Oxytocin released by suckling activates parts of the brain regulating olfactory discrimination, emotions, and reward

15. Breast-Feeding and Infant Mental Health • A recent study by Jones et al. (2004) showed that depressed mothers who were able to establish stable breastfeeding patterns: • had more positive dyadic interactions • were less likely to have infants with highly reactive temperaments • infants did not show the frontal asymmetry patterns (i.e., left frontal hypoactivity) typically seen in infants of depressed mothers • i.e. breastfeeding seems to act as a sort of defense mechanism for both members of dyad

16. The Creation of Nurseries in the 1950s • The goals of the nurseries were: • to enable mothers to rest • To place newborns in a sterile environment in order to protect them from infections • To keep the baby warmer • The immediate result was that there was a huge increase in breast-feeding problems • Only subsequently did neuroscientists come to understand how mechanisms triggered by skin-to-skin contact were compromised

17. Compromises to Attachment Mechanisms • a newborn will crawl up its mother’s ventrum searching for the breast and begin rooting and suckling • This action dramatically reduces infant crying • It triggers a surge of oxytocin in the mother and a GI hormone that enhances her capacity to cope with the caloric demands of breast-feeding • It affects the expression of serotonin receptor genes in baby • has an organizing effect on the development of the brain • Ironically, it turns out that babies placed immediately with their mother are warmer than ‘cot babies’

18. Co-Sleeping • “Sleeping alone is an important part of [your child's] learning to be able to separate from you without anxiety and to see himself as an independent individual.” • Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems (1985) • "That's one sentence I wish I never wrote.  It was describing the general thinking of the time, but it was not describing my own experience or philosophy." • Richard Ferber, Newsweek 2006

19. Benefits of Co-Sleeping • enhances co- and self-regulation (Farooqi 1994) • prevents infant from entering into too deep a sleep state, which may prevent SIDS and enhance brain development (Williams 1998) • increase breastfeeding and oxygen flow (Hauck et al. 1998) • Enhances caregiver attention and protective care (McKenna & Mosko 1997)

20. Cognitive Social Neuroscience • One of the most exciting recent developments in neuroscience has been the growth in our knowledge of the social nature of the brain • The essence of the brain appears to be that it is primed to resonate with other brains • Much of this is automatic: a “low road” in social interactions that operates beneath the threshold of consciousness

21. The Role of the Amygdala • The Amygdala modulates neural systems subserving cognitive and social behaviors in response to emotional cues • We are starting to understand the extent to which the responsiveness of the amygdala to social stimuli is itself a result of secondary altriciality and not a hard-wired phenomenon

22. Unconscious Processing • A child’s unconscious processing of her culture’s affect signals and thus her basic capacity to understand what others are thinking and feeling are forged in the early years • Connections between the amygdala and other neural systems influence how an individual responds to certain kinds of stimuli and how they think and how they act, not only in infancy, but for their entire life

23. Nature/Nurture • Healthy functioning is not maturational • We see this from cases of extreme neglect (e.g. Genie) • Genes are a significant factor, but studies in epigenesis drive home just how important emotional experiences are • Nature and nurture together, inextricably, forge the child’s developmental trajectory

24. Developmental Trajectories • The synthesis of biology and experience leads to a developmental trajectory that, because of synaptic pruning, becomes ever stronger • For this reason, the later we try to change a trajectory the harder it becomes • E.g., what a school-entry child is capable of learning is hugely influenced by the trajectory formed by their biology and early experiences

25. Why are Developmental Trajectories so Difficult to Change? • Waddington’s canalization “landscapes”: biological and epigenetic factors shape ‘trajectory’ of the ball through a ‘landscape’ • The ‘developmental structure’ constrains the activities of the system • The more that pattern is repeated the more it facilitates its own recurrence

26. Typical experience Typical Development Atypical experience unstable Stability stable Range of Behavior

27. Typical experience Atypical Development Atypical experience unstable Stability stable Range of Behavior

28. Typical experience Intervention Atypical experience unstable Stability intervention stable Range of Behavior

29. Key Principles • The later you attempt to enhance or change a developmental trajectory the more effort required. Therefore a major effort has to be made in the early years when neural systems are most plastic. • 2. It takes a great deal of time to understand a child’s developmental strengths and weaknesses and to communicate effectively with that child. Parents therefore have to be at the centre of any early child development program.

30. The Way Forward • To enhance the healthy functioning of all children, and/or mitigate and possibly prevent a broad range of psychological, developmental, and behavioral disorders, we need to provide parents with the support, knowledge and tools afforded by modern science. • This is why Fraser Mustard created the Council of Early Child Development in 2004.

31. The Council of Early Child Development In the area of Early Child Development (ECD), as in so many areas, Canada is a nation of anomalies We prize ECD yet, as a percentage of our GDP, spend less on ECD than any other developed nation

32. We combine a pioneering spirit, which places great emphasis on the role of the family in a child’s early development, with a strong belief that every child deserves the same opportunities to maximize their developmental potential, whatever that might be We embrace universal education as a means to this national dream, yet have failed to act on the huge body of scientific evidence showing that a child’s cognitive, communicative, social and capacities when he or she enters school are largely set in the years 0-6

33. In 2004 Fraser Mustard established the Council for Early Child Development, an incorporated, not-for-profit, charitable organization, to address this problem. His goal was to create a national organization that would stand outside the political arena and promote the development of ECD and Parenting Centres based on the latest scientific findings

34. The Council serves as a powerful vehicle to unite the many outstanding ECD services and scientists scattered across the country It is committed to putting science into action for children in communities and working with other important national organizations to measure how children are doing in those communities

35. The Council has a national board of directors that includes leaders from post secondary education, corporate sectors, public service, public health, education, and philanthropy The Council is active in brokering partnerships between researchers and communities to monitor children’s early environments and assess and analyze ECD outcomes.

36. In February 2006 the Council launched an Early Childhood Leadership Forum to: • leverage expertise and knowledge within communities and provinces through cross-fertilization and networking • increase leadership and technical skills necessary for community-based monitoring of ECD • stimulate the development of integrated ECD programs for all parents with young children. • Ten ECD community leaders from across Canada were selected to be the inaugural Council Fellows

37. The Council is also extremely active and influential on the international scene Currently we are engaged in large-scale collaborative efforts with the Brookings Institute, South Australia, Mexico, the Agha Khan University, and Cuba Canada is poised to become a world leader in Early Child Development, if only we can muster the political will and effort necessary to translate what we know about ECD into action

38. Further Reading • Farooqi, S. (1994) Ethnic differences in infant care practices and in the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome, Early Human Development 38: 215-20 • Febo, M., M. Numan, & C. Ferris (2005) Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging shows oxytocin activates brain regions associated with mother-pup bonding during suckling J. Neuroscience 25: 11637-44 • Fogel, Alan, Barbara King & Stuart Shanker (2007) Human Development in the 21st Century (Cambridge UP) • Goleman, Daniel (2006) Social Intelligence (Bantam) • Gottlieb, Gilbert (1997) Synthesizing Nature/Nurture (LEA) • Greenspan, Stanley & Stuart Shanker (2004) The First Idea (Perseus)

39. Reading, Cont’d • Hauck, F.R. et al. (1998) Bedsharing promotes breastfeeding and AAP task force on infant positioning and SIDS Pediatrics 102: 662-4 • Huttenlocher,Peter (2002) Neural Plasticity (Harvard UP) • Jones, N., B. McFall & M. Diego (2004) Patterns of brain electrical activity in infants of depressed mothers who breastfeed and bottle feed Biological Psychology 67 103-124 • LeDoux, Joseph (1996) The Emotional Brain (Touchstone) • McCain, Margaret, Fraser Mustard & Stuart Shanker (2007) Early Years Study II: Putting Science into Action • McKenna ,J. et. al. (1994). "Experimental studies of infant-parent co-sleeping,” Early Human Development 38, 187-201 • Small, M. (1999) Our Babies, Ourselves (Anchor Books)