How important is the first year?

True or false? - The first year of development isn't that important.  After all, the baby just eats, sleeps, cries, and is dependent on others for so much.

False - The first year(s) can be supremely important.

"Thanks to new technologies that make it possible to safely "see" inside a living, working brain, the medical world now knows that a huge amount of the brains' functioning and capacity develops after birth--and that a baby or toddler's early experiences can greatly influence his or her future learning potential."  (ix in 'About This Book')

Dr. Stamm mentioned that we spend lots of educational dollars later in life remediating learning problems when the first 3 years (before they are even in school) are critical to preparing children for learning experiences.

One fact that surprised me was that a baby's brain is 25% of its adult weight and volume at birth but, by age 2, has grown to 75%, and will be almost at its adult size (90%) by age 5.  This doesn't mean a person has learned 90% of the information he/she will learn but it does mean that these years are formative in how the information flows through the brain and how the brain processes information.

And you thought the baby was just laying there doing nothing!  It is learning so much from these first months.  Let's help by doing some simple, inexpensive, and consistent things---the ABCs mentioned in the first post (Attention, Bonding, & Communication).

P.S.  Don't make this more difficult than needed.  The child doesn't have to learn the academic content of schooling before kindergarten.  Teachers have been trained to do that.  We want to develop school readiness, or a ready brain--healthy, active, nurtured and capable of learning.