Serve & Return Interaction Shapes Brain Circuitry.
One of the most essential experiences in shaping the architecture of the developing brain is “serve and return” interaction between children and significant adults in their lives. Young children naturally reach out for interaction through babbling, facial expressions, and gestures, and adults respond with the same kind of vocalizing and gesturing back at them. This back-and-forth process is fundamental to the wiring of the brain, especially in the earliest years.
Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child and the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child developed the following video (part two of a three-part series) titled “Three Core Concepts in Early Development”. The series depicts 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. Healthy development in the early years provides the building blocks for educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, lifelong health, strong communities, and successful parenting of the next generation.
Click here to view this video and others from the series,”Three Core Concepts in Early Development”, as well as view additional resources from the Center on the Developing Child.