Shaping foundation of child growth - Customer preferences help shape banking future.

Byline: Nazir Ahmed Shaikh

It is a well-known fact that a person's physiological and psychological adaptations to the environment start from conception and affect development throughout life.

The Science of Early Child Development (SECD) is a knowledge translation and mobilization initiative designed to make current research accessible to anyone interested in learning more about the impact of early experience on lifelong health and well-being. Beginning as a tool to help share the emerging science about early brain development, SECD now offers a suite of online and offline media-rich educational resources with examples of research and programs from around the world.

The science of early brain development can inform investments in early childhood. These basic concepts, established over decades of neuroscience and behavioral research, help illustrate why child development-particularly from birth to five years-is a foundation for a prosperous and sustainable society. Brains are built over time, from the bottom up.

The human brain is a highly interrelated organ and its multiple functions operate in a richly coordinated fashion. Emotional well-being and social competence provide a strong foundation for emerging cognitive abilities, and together they are the bricks and mortar that comprise the foundation of human development. The emotional and physical health, social skills, and cognitive-linguistic capacities that emerge in the early years are all important prerequisites for success in school and later in the workplace and community.

Research says that chronic, unrelenting stress in early childhood, caused by extreme poverty, repeated abuse, or severe maternal depression, for example, can be toxic to the developing brain. While positive stress (moderate, short-lived physiological responses to uncomfortable experiences) is an important and necessary aspect of healthy development, toxic stress is the strong, unrelieved activation of the body's stress management system. In the absence of the buffering protection of adult support, toxic stress becomes built into the body by processes that shape the architecture of the developing brain.

Science shows that life is a story for which the beginning sets the tone. That makes the early years of childhood a time of great opportunity, but also great risk. Children's brains are built, moment by moment, as they interact with their environments. In the first few years of life, more than one million neural connections are formed each second - a pace never repeated again. The quality of a child's early experiences makes a critical difference as their brains develop, providing either strong or weak foundations for learning, health and behavior throughout life. Early childhood offers a critical window of opportunity to shape the trajectory of a child's holistic development and build a foundation for their future. For children to achieve their full potential, as is their human right, they need health care and nutrition, protection from harm and a sense of security, opportunities for early learning, and responsive caregiving - like talking, singing and playing - with parents and caregivers who love them. All of this is needed to nourish developing brains and fuel growing...