By the age of three, much of the child’s brain growth and density is complete. What started as a relatively small number of connections now number in the trillions. By the end of this period, the critical periods for some skills such as speech begin to close, so vocabulary building is very important. At the end of this stage, brain patterns for music begin to develop. By the age of three, the neurological network that will guide a child’s development is already well established; however, it does not mean that learning for the young child is over.

For a parent of caregiver it is important to remember to interact with your child daily with love, praise, play, conversation song and discipline. Discipline is a huge factor during this period of development. We have all heard of the “Terrible Twos”.

Here are tips to enhance your child’s intellectual development from age 2 to 3.

• Find a scheduled time to read to your child every day. Choose books with big pictures, sturdy pages, and simple story lines. Remember, most children have short-attention spans during this period.
• A child will be improving her knowledge of words and sentence structure during this period. Let her hear the correct word order, but don’t demand that she imitate you. For example, if she says “mote juice,” say, “Jane wants more juice.”
• Encourage him to identify noises. “Do you hear that dog barking?”
• Let the child help with chores. “Let’s pick up all our toys and put them in the toy box. Can you bring blue bear and put him in the box?” She’ll love helping with laundry. “Let’s count all the socks as we put them in the washing machine—1, 2, 3, 4, 5.” Math development is very important during this stage too.
• Add new information to what a child is saying. “Yes, that’s a blanket, a soft, warm blanket.” Children wire through experiences, so take time to let him feel that the blanket is soft and warm.
• Give your toddler clear and simple choices. “Do you want to wear the blue or green socks? Do you want milk or juice?”
• Know how to handle a temper tantrum.
  1. Don’t yell or hit the child,
  2. Remain calm,
  3. Talking in soothing tones,
  4. Being consistent, having a schedule, setting limits, and providing limited choices are very important.
• Development of creative expressive is very important during this stage. Provide newspaper, flattened grocery sacks, and commuter scraps for drawing and painting. Provide plenty of praise for his accomplishments.
• Give your child the opportunity to learn about cause and effect by giving her many opportunities to fill, dump, collect, gather, give, hide, and seek. Toddlers love messy play. Encourage sand, mud, clay, and water play.
• Provide space where your toddler can spend time alone. An old cardboard box or a blanket over a card table works great.
• Provide safe outlets for physical activity and space exploration like small steps, boxes, barrels, tires, pulling and pushing toys, and ride-on and ride-in toys.
• Don’t forget play between the two of you. Fun and bonding between the two of you is very important to learning. Songs like “Old MacDonald” explain sequences. Songs and rhymes are very important to the development of vocabulary and language.
• Don’t pressure your child to be right or left-handed. A few two-year-olds will begin to show a preference for one hand, but many will continue to use both hands for a year or two.

The Be Smart Kids Learning program develops these skills for 2 to 3-year-olds:

language development, speech development, vocabulary, math & logic, spatial/visual skills, fine motor skills, social & emotional skills, reasoning skills, creative expression, attention span, sign language, Spanish, character-building, and a love for learning.

The critical window for sight was primarily established in the first 6 months.  The critical windows for brain development from 6 to 12 months of age are speech and emotional development, although these two areas began in the first 6 months.  Language capacity grows tremendously during this period, and this is a good time to introduce the natural sounds of other languages.

As a parent you only have to remember five words in order to enhance these two areas.  They are love, praise, sing, read, and play.  Below are listed some tips for enhancing the building blocks for speech and emotional development for future learning.

1. Provide plenty of love and care (hold , cuddle, kiss).  Affectionate touch is especially important during the early months.  Being held and cuddled frequently is extremely important in the development of a baby’s sense of self-worth and security.
2. Talk constantly with your child.  It will build vocabulary, develop patterns for learning        language, and help create a special bond between parent and child.  Face infants when talking to them so they can see and smile with you.  Talk about what you are doing, familiar objects, or people.  You may even want to babble back or echo sounds your baby makes much as you would in a regular conservation.  Even though an infant cannot understand everything you say, he will be learning many words that will form the basis for language later on.
3. Read aloud to your child during the day.  Establish some specific routines such as reading after meals or bedtime.  Telling the same stories and singing the same songs over and over may feel boring to you, but not to your child.  Children learn through repetition, repetition, repetition.  This principle applies to more than language.
4. Play music; sing for and with your child.  Have fun.
5. Play with your child.  Get down on the floor to meet her at her level.  Play peek-a-boo and other games such as hiding something out of sight and finding it.
6. Provide opportunities for your child to explore his or her environment.  Do not keep him caged in a playpen or swing.  Provide a bigger safe space for him to explore.  Children will learn by doing.  That is how they learn best.   Older infants need space and time to practice crawling, creeping, pulling up, and walking.
7. Praise your child; build self-esteem.  When a child master the challenges of everyday life, she feels good about herself, especially when you acknowledge her accomplishments with specific praise.  “Wow!”  “You’re standing!”  “Yea!”  Clap to show your enthusiasm.
8. Listen and respond to your child.  Give your child your undivided attention.  It will make him a secure and confident learner.  You will not spoil a child by responding to his needs.

It is critically important for every parent to know that the early years are the most important learning years in their child’s life.  It is a time that determines how a child learns and processes information for the rest of her life.

Here is how it works!  Your child is born with 100 billion neurons in the brain.  When the neurons fire often enough, a permanent connection is made.  This is what scientist call “hard-wiring the brain.”  The more connections become permanent, the more work the brain can do.  But, this window of opportunity is brief.  The brain operates on a “use it or lose it” basis.  As harsh as the news may seem, if deprived of early positive experiences, the child can intellectually struggle for the rest of his live.

This does not mean that your child cannot learn in later years.  However, these early years have already determined how your child will learn and to what degree.  This is a critical time, a window of opportunity, to give your child the boost she will need to do well in life.   The best time for learning begins early and last a lifetime.

There is plenty of evidence to support the benefits of early learning and the effect it has on learning and emotional stability.  An example is the Rumania babies that were tied to their baby beds in orphanages.  They lived in filthy conditions and received no stimulation.  Later research confirmed that even the children who were in these places for less than a year were found to have emotional problems (being very aggressive) and learning disabilities.

It is extremely important for parents to become knowledgeable about the stages of critical brain development and the simple things they can do to insure a positive impact on their child’s emotional development, learning skills and how they function later in live.

In the next blog, I will be discussing the 1^st stage of critical brain development, birth to 6 months.

Donna Blevins, Founder of Be Smart Kids

Donna Blevins has been researching and developing her early brain development educational product since 1991.  See research at www.besmartkids.com.