Understanding Child Development

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Our individuality originates within our unique brains. Each is as distinctive as a fingerprint.

Children show asynchronous brain development, meaning regions of the brain grow at varying rates.

Regions that are developmentally behind compromise cognitive processing and executive functioning skills.

We need to pursue positive strategies and learning opportunities for each child.

“If you are always trying to be normal, you may never know how amazing you can be.” --Maya Angelou

“If you are always trying to be normal, you may never know how amazing you can be.”

There is a great body of evidence in neuroscience indicating that our individuality originates within our unique brains.

Recent studies illuminate that each of our brains is as distinctive as a fingerprint. With advances in brain mapping and imaging software, we know no two brains are identical — which makes sense. We each have our own genetic makeup, process information from our environment through our five senses (sight, taste, touch, smell, and hearing) in our own ways, express unique ways of emotional processing, and have specific autobiographical memories. As a neuroscientist, I believe we are barely scratching the surface in our understanding of the human brain, both with regard to what we think we know and the vast world of the unknown. If you happen to be bright and have quirky behaviors, then your brain, body, and particular physiology may be at the core of how you navigate the world.

Early in 2006, a foundational study by Shaw and colleagues at the UCLA Imaging Institute followed more than 300 children for 12 years, mapping brain development and growth. They created three-dimensional brain maps and calculated measurements of grey and white matter from brain scans from ages seven to 19. In the study, the children completed an IQ test,........

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