It doesn't take a Harvard symposium to tell us that early influences affect a child's ability to learn and function in society, but it doesn't hurt to have the reminder. It's good that a team of Louisiana legislators, advisers and educators did some important fact-finding by attending the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child at Harvard University in late June.
It's promising, also, that a mini-symposium is planned to present related and vital information to policymakers before next year's legislative session.
Among the takeaways from Harvard:
Eighty-five percent of brain development occurs between the time of conception and age 5.
Pre-natal to age 5 is the most important time in the development of a child.
It will take a serious education effort to get Louisiana parents to realize the importance of prenatal and early childhood factors that can make or break a child's chances for success.
Parental awareness could yield a 15-to-1 return on money spent to address prenatal and early childhood issues.
Rep. Hollis Downs, R-Ruston, who assembled the team for the symposium, said scientists talked about the numerous "stressors" that have lasting effects on brain development. In addition to the most damaging stressor alcohol he listed physical abuse, drugs, loud music, lack of nurturing, poverty, malnutrition and smoking.
Danny Bell, superintendent of schools for Lincoln Parish, noted that doing more from birth to the time a child enters school can have a significant impact on the success of a child. "We learned from the science that stressors can have a lifelong impact that is almost impossible to reverse."
Solving any problem before it becomes a problem is, of course, the best solution. The words of wisdom and fact from the scientific community are one more wake-up call concerning the need for education at the parental and pre-parental levels.
Rep. Don Trahan, R-Lafayette, chairman of the House Education Committee, put it well when he said, »pre-natal to age five is the most important time in the development of a child. Our duty now is to determine how to satisfy that need in Louisiana."
"We actually have a road map," Trahan said. "Zero to three in Head Start, LA4 for 4-year-olds, 5 in kindergarten and by the first grade, everybody is on the same page, able to read." The key is to provide sufficient resources to effect pre-natal improvements and then to turn that road map into real progress.
There is much to be done from pre-natal education and care through the earliest and most impressionable years even as we celebrate new legislation that will bring Pre-K classes to all our state's children. On July 9, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law a bill that makes Pre-K programs available without charge to all 4-year-olds by the year 2013. That's a great start, but it's just one step and one that is near the end of that critical early "brain development" period.