The Science
Key Scientific Topics
These key scientific concepts are the core building blocks of healthy child development leading to other essential building blocks for educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, lifelong health, and successful parenting of the next generation. Each page within this section provides an overview of each key concept.
Responsive nurturing interaction shapes early infant/toddler brain development and builds connections that allow the development of lifelong skills.
Resilience is the ability of individuals to bounce back and move forward from adverse experiences. It is a necessary skill for coping with life’s inevitable obstacles and one of the key ingredients to lifelong success.
Toxic stress is what happens when children are in a chronic state of defense for dealing with threat because of their continual exposure to stressful experiences.
A Three-part video series how advances in neuroscience, molecular biology, and genomics now give us a much better understanding of how early experiences are built into our bodies and brains, for better or for worse.
Responsive nurturing interaction shapes early infant/toddler brain development and builds connections that allow the development of lifelong skills.
By age 3, most children are already using executive function skills in simple ways (e.g., remembering and following simple rules). Ages 3-5 show a remarkable burst of improvement in the proficiency of these skills...