The Importance Of Taking Care Of Neurocognitive Development In Childhood
Developmental care is important from the prenatal stage; It is vital to lead a life with good habits in every sense so that when the time of pregnancy arrives, the mother is in physical, emotional and psychological health.
In this sense, fetal well-being is a stage that begins to mark neurocognitive development, and the loss of fetal well-being could trigger different alterations, which we call neurodevelopmental disorders.
The brain development of the baby during pregnancy is transcendental, since it is the stage in which changes occur at an anatomical and functional level Ensuring a healthy diet, carrying out prenatal medical control, and taking the necessary supplements will provide necessary nutrients for the neuronal and physical development of the fetus is essential, since the brain begins its development during pregnancy, and its subsequent performance will depend largely on what the mother did during pregnancy.
Nutrition and pregnancy
In a study carried out in Australia that closely followed the eating habits of 23,000 women during pregnancy, it was observed which of these women ate more with diets high in sugars and carbohydrates and who ate diets high in fiber, omegas and fruits reds, in order to analyze what would be the consequences of this feeding style on the cognitive and emotional development of their children between 18 months and 5 years. The variables that were taken into account in the children were: their mental health, what type of parenting the parents exercised and the economy.
The study showed that mothers who consumed more foods enriched in sugars and carbohydrates during pregnancy, They had children who were more likely to be aggressive and have outbursts of anger ; Likewise, children who consumed high levels of sugar and cognitively processed foods showed poor impulse control, poor inhibitory control, and low levels of concentration.
Therefore, it is important that the mother is nourished with a diet based on food that contains omegas 3, 6, and 9 (nuts, fish, avocado, olive oil), red fruits (strawberries, blueberries, plums, blackberries, etc. .), that you have medical supervision during pregnancy, and that you take vitamins such as folate and folic acid; These routines help prevent birth problems in the brain and spinal cord.
The result for mothers who ate balanced diets enriched with essential fatty acids, fiber, and protein, and who subsequently fed their children similar diets, was more favorable. As a result of these good habits The children showed better emotional regulation, optimal levels of concentration and attention, as well as better learning processes
A poor diet during pregnancy could lead to deficiencies in the neurocognitive development of the baby, resulting in a possible neurodevelopmental disorder, a category in which we find: chromosomal disorders (Down syndrome), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder , cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and more. It must be taken into account that a poor diet is not the only cause of these disorders, but it is among the most important.
Cognitive development in the first years of life
At this stage the newborn begins to know the world through the senses and movement, will have a tendency to constantly follow novel stimuli, such as sounds, colors, textures, flavors, etc. Egocentrism is at its peak, which is why it demands total attention towards him/her. He is attentive to the discovery of what is closest to her body, so his feet and hands will be what he puts in his mouth the most, or any object that feels close to her hand.
In these months, the baby’s movement is not controlled, but is a reflex movement. At this moment there is no capacity to maintain continuous attention towards an object; This ability is acquired with growth, cognitive development and training by its significant figures.
Cognitive stimulation in this stage will be based on tasks related to tasks that develop fine and gross psychomotor skills: stimulate the senses with textures, smells, flavors. The pincer movement, jumping, running, learning to tie shoes, riding a bike… are activities that will strengthen learning and growth.
In the first months it is common for the baby to sleep long periods of time; This is necessary for growth, the formation of new neuronal connections, and to consolidate memories of sensations and movements learned during the day. This consolidation allows the learning generated to be stored in the long-term memory store, thus forming the first traces of memory
A diet based on green vegetables, red fruits, proteins, dairy products or others will help the alert system, provide energy, physical health and better emotional regulation, which are necessary to install skills such as attention, concentration, memory and executive functioning. This stage begins the symbolic game, which helps to understand and assimilate the environment that surrounds them, language develops, and encourages imagination and creativity.
Cognitive development in preschool age
Cognitive development is one of the processes that help the child learn to solve problems, reason and think consciously In this sense, researcher Jean Piaget said that “children behave like little scientists trying to interpret the world.” According to Piaget, cognitive development not only consists of qualitative changes in facts and skills, but also learn from experience.
From 3 to 7 years old, the speed of development and neurodevelopment becomes slower; in these years of childhood language appears, which will help the child understand the world around us. The anatomy of the brain is ready to receive the skills that will be installed in these structures.
executive functions
This is an important stage for training skills such as focused attention, inhibitory control, working memory, emotion regulation and social cognition, among others. This set of skills is known as executive functions (EF) which They are linked to the activity of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) responsible for emotional regulation, inhibitory control and social behavior. At a cognitive level, these skills are largely formed in a sociocultural manner, with parents especially being the representation of the children’s frontal lobes.
A characteristic of children at this stage is that they act like sponges, absorbing all the behaviors modeled by their most significant figures, especially parents, so, if their parents bite their nails due to anxiety, the child will do the same when feeling anxious, and if parents use inappropriate language, the little ones will not only learn it, but will normalize it. It is then important to take into account that at this stage children will adopt coping patterns for each situation depending on the model presented; The same will happen with attention, concentration, the way she will make decisions, plan and organize.
In the stage from 3 to 7 years old, adequate stimulation of executive functions is essential, since these are the basis for adequate learning, academic achievement, adaptability in different environments and social skills. It is a stage where the predominance of language is progressive, and there is an expansion of the vocabulary: 100 words in 3-year-old children, and 2000 at 6 years old.
Language disorders, if they exist, are already evident, and difficulties may appear in formal learning, which will most likely be associated with the lack of maturation and consolidation that make the adherence of academic learning possible. If this happens, it is important to seek help from professionals such as a pediatric neurologist and neuropsychologist to perform an evaluation that allows for early treatment.
This is not a stage to learn to read and write
Increasingly, some educational establishments offer children to leave the preschool stage reading and writing; Thus, if the boy or girl does not achieve this skill at that stage, parents become worried thinking that something bad is happening with their little ones.
It is very unlikely that a child’s nervous system is prepared to learn reading and writing ; The child’s behavior strives to be in accordance with his or her maturational level. This is the ideal stage for the child to continue perfecting the skills most typical of his or her age, such as autonomy, personal care, social skills, empathy, reasoning, understanding of value judgment, etc.
It is also important at this stage have a notion of letters, numbers, discriminate colors, shapes and sizes, have a basic knowledge of quantities, distinguish between the weight of objects, know how to behave according to place and context. These skills guarantee adequate behavior when starting formal school life, since there the boy or girl has received training that will allow him or her to have adapted behavior in each environment, attention will be focused on the required tasks and will be able to complete them successfully, and You will be able to have academic achievement that helps you reach your maximum potential in learning.
Stress and development
For years, how chronic stress affects physiological processes has been studied, but Little is known or talked about about the cognitive conditions caused by stress We experience stress from the moment we are born; Leaving the comfort of the mother’s womb to reach a world that is unknown, with new sounds, sensations of all kinds… these are experiences that will cause stress, which will adjust in a short time with the adaptability of the newborn to the environment.
Anxiety is necessary for survival, prepares us to flee or fight in a dangerous situation, and who is in charge of this process is the hormone cortisol, which when produced activates physiological responses such as tachycardia, sweating, and increases blood pressure. These symptoms are what warn us of danger and prepare us to fight or flee. In theory, being out of danger, the hormone cortisol lowers, allowing our system to reach homeostasis again. However, this homeostasis or balance does not occur when stress levels are high and anxiety has become chronic.
When a child has been exposed to a hostile environment, where there is aggression and verbal or physical violence, this cortisol rises above 50% of what would be adequate, giving rise to an oxidative process that results in cognitive difficulties such as problems in concentration and attention; These two are a prerequisite for memory, so if attentional processes are affected due to stress and anxiety, you will have reduced memory. This process is not only an obstacle to learning and social development, academic achievement and school performance could also be affected.
Faced with these hostile environmental situations, children will learn to resolve situations and manage emotions from the limbic system, which is based on emotional processes, and they will increasingly lose the capacity for self-regulation and inhibitory control, which, as we saw before, are skills associated with the frontal lobes, which are trained through imitating their significant figures. Children subjected to these environments experience damaged self-esteem and are insecure about themselves they will be more manipulable in the face of inappropriate proposals and will be more vulnerable to substance use.
Conclusion
It is necessary to be aware of these processes in order to provide children with emotionally healthy environments, free of violence, with the aim of accompanying them towards the effective achievement of their academic, social and emotional goals. The objective of functional development has three important elements: that the child can know the world, interact with the world, adapt to the world.
