A baby’s brain is only 25 percent developed at birth, and after three years, it reaches 80 percent of its capacity.
A newborn’s brain contains about 100 billion cells (neurons) that are, for the most part, not yet wired together. The majority of this linking occurs during the first three years, and during the first twelve months, the brain makes a half million connections per second, tripling in weight. Those vital connections help a baby’s brain to grow and perform highly complex tasks like problem solving, logical thinking, controlling emotions, communicating, and interacting with the world.
The most recent research in psychology, genetics, and neuroscience demonstrates that intelligence is highly modifiable through environment. In other words, nature plays a role in brain development, by providing the “hardware,” but nurture plays a considerable role as well, probably the most influential role, in developing the “software”, the hereditary material becoming efficient after birth.
Not long ago, neuroscientists and psychologists used to say that intelligence was 80 per cent genetic and only 20 per cent environmental. Today, they tend to say those ratios have to be inversed.
Image: The Horse – Number 1 / ChildUp.com
