"There have been a slew of reports," he says, "That are united by a series of beliefs."
The first three (or five) years are vital. What happens in these early years is written into the brain. Get it wrong and the child will lack empathy and the capacity to learn, ushering in crime and poverty.
"There is a very strong tendency in the literature to align normal with abnormal development. For instance: normal is a place where conversations takes place; a place where someone reads to the child. They are making the point that these simple, mundane things can make or break a child."
The Science-Based Framework for Early Childhood Policy report (Harvard) argues that there have been exciting new developments in neuroscience that we must capitalise on "to build a strong foundation for improved learning and behaviour that will produce better outcomes in academic achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, and successful parenting of the next generation.
"So the stakes are not low according to the authors." [Laughter from the audience]
"They are not scientists - they have given up on science. They are no longer contributing original research materials. What they are doing is advocating for a position that they have decided is the correct one and they will accept no critique of that position..."
"Early intervention investment, they believe, has the potential to make massive savings on public expenditure, reduce the costs of educational underachievement, drink and drugs abuse, teenage pregnancies, vandalism and criminality, court and police costs, lack of aspiration to work and the bills from lifetimes wasted while claiming benefits." [More laughter from the audience]
In another publication Parenting Matters (UK) the authors say:
What is required, in short, is a significant societal attitude shift (akin to those involving seat belt wearing and drink driving) towards recognising that parenting is something that has a societal aspect and importance and about which it is socially acceptable for people to seek advice, learn and improve.
The scientific evidence behind the theories depends on case and group human studies and studies of animals chronically deprived of sensory input.
Bruce Perry is one of the Harvard scientists who no longer does science as far as Derbyshire is concerned. Perry was behind a picture in Newsweek showing a normal healthy brain and a not-healthy brain where there were lots of bits missing.
Derbyshire emailed Bruce Perry to inform him that his pictures of these brains were cropping up all over the place. "Can you tell me any more about it? "
"Ah yes," came the reply, "That brain does crop up quite a lot. It was part of a group study which began in the early nineties which we were preparing for publication."
"And that was it," says Derbyshire. "Now I kind of don`t believe it."
"I believe there were other groups ...but even the most complicated studies don`t take twenty years to come out. What I think he got out of it were a few very compelling images for ... review papers and media presentations."
"But there is something even more pernicious about it," says Derbyshire, "It gives you the idea that a normal child has a big brain and a neglected child has a small brain. And when you look at that you say, ok, psychological neglect leads to your brain not developing properly and actually that`s the wrong conclusion to draw."
"These kids that Bruce was studying came out of Romanian orphanages and they weren`t just psychologically neglected, they were physically neglected; they were starving and they had no medical attention whatsoever and spent most of their early years 23 hours a day in a crib in a state of ill health."
"It is not surprising that infants who spend 23 hours per day in isolation have learning and behavioural problems."
Other studies show that many of these children recovered in normal adoptive families and other studies show that normal family life is good enough for most children.
"Children who grow up relatively deprived, with little access to books and poor schooling are in no way comparable to the children from Romanian orphanages or to animals completely denied sensory input."
"Anybody who tries to make that comparison is abusing science...
The typical inadequacies of early years can be addressed later in life."
"Any descent into antisocial behaviour, crime, educational failure, poverty or negative physical or mental health cannot be explained away as the inevitable consequences of irreparable brain damage caused by early years deprivation."
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