Child INTELLIGENCE

  

Nature or nurture?

What determines the level of intelligence in a child is primarily 50-80% hereditary (nature) according to experts. Parents can make up the difference by providing the means to achieve a higher percentage like providing a conducive learning environment, motivational efforts (nurture) and adequate supply of brain nutrients.

 

The first 3 years of life are crucial for the baby’s brain development. When babies are exposed to sights, sounds, textures to feel, smells, and tastes, more connections are registered in the brain.

 

Children need both the active involvement of parents and time to explore on their own.  Your baby should be stimulated but do not overdo it and end up doing all the playing whilst the baby merely watched on.  On the contrary, children who are pushed too fast often have problems with certain types of thinking skills.  Excessive spankings or other harsh punishment can also harm a child’s intellectual, physical and social development.

Playing

To kids – playing is natural, exciting and fun to learn to adapt to the world as opposed to adults who have to learn something new to work.  Toddlers love to engage in household chores like washing the car, sweeping the floor or pulling the weeds that adults are usually preoccupied with.  In this way, they are learning how things work in the other world.

 

However, some adults may feel frustrated with kids handling real objects in a cumbersome way.  They failed to understand that kids should be exposed to real objects before they understand the meaning of letters and numbers.  Proper guidance helps the child to discover how things work, where things fit and why things act the way they do.

So what is intelligence?

Everyone is born with a certain potential to be discovered which we termed ‘intelligence’.  By recognising a child’s interest and stimulating that part of the mind can the potential being realised upon further nurturing.  There is an instance where a blind child identified as musically-inclined was taught to play the piano and he became a well-known pianist later.

 

A child may be a late developer, ”above average” performer, or in between.  Parents may not be aware of such potentials and do not see the need to stimulate their minds.  Children whose intelligence develops more slowly are just at different points on the road as compared to children whose intelligence develops more quickly. 

 

Applying gentle touches, patting, tickling and rhythmic movements are natural stimulants for them. Giving interesting things to look at or listen to also help.

 

Sensory experiences are where intellectual development begins.  Children explore and understand the environment through their senses. Young children learn best from experiences that involve more than one sense, so provide many objects that can be tasted, seen, smelled, heard, felt and played with.

 

From the minute they are born, set their sights on slow moving objects, a variety of patterns and bright colors.  Hearing sounds of things like clocks, rattles, music boxes and cars are useful to develop their senses. Find more time to talk and sing to them.  You will be surprised they understand what is being said to them. The miracle of language development is intertwined with the development of intelligence.

 

Janet Werker, a psychology professor with University of British Columbia University found out that the learning of language starts in the womb when babies are exposed to the rhythms and sound of language and carries on for another 6 months after birth.  This was put to test with experiments involving babies picking up a second language.  They are able to detect phonetic sounds of a second language within the 6 months’ exposure in a social netting (not on video or tv) and discriminate both later but those who are not exposed lost this ability 10-12 months later.  Of course, borned to a bilingual mother helps to register that the two languages are different.

 

Over the past decade, Dr Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, has shown that bilingual kids not only develop double vocabularies, but also develop the ability to solve logic problems or to handle multi-tasking skills that forms part of the brain’s executive function, localised in the frontal cortex and prefrontal cortex.

What about memory?

Memory gets stronger as babies become toddlers.  Big improvement is made when they are able to remember what took place in the past and draw comparison of old and new information to make new connections.

 

Most parents misconstrued early intelligence as knowing the names of things.  In actual fact, children relate their many experiences to a name.  For instance, a child’s first contact with a four-legged animal is a dog but further contacts of animals can be cats, dogs, cows and horses. It takes some time for the thinking processes to mature.

 

 

What can I do to help my child build intelligence?

	Create an atmosphere for learning and be sure your child is interested. Let the child lead the activity; stop when the child is bored, tired or frustrated.
	Repeat those activities that your child wants to do again. They may be boring for you but enjoyable for the child.
	Encourage your child. Assure your child that making mistakes is a normal part of learning.
	Encourage active play. Running, jumping and other active play is better than sitting in front of the TV or watching adults play.
	Keep a variety of toys and books on low shelves where your child an reach them. Introduce new toys one at time. Too many toys can overstimulate a child.
	Help your child use the senses-hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and smelling-to explore objects. Focus on one sense at a time.
	Talk a lot as your child explores. Talk about what is happening and what you are doing.
	Provide toys that allow baby to see cause and effect. Pushing a button to make a cat appear is not as stimulating as hitting a pan with a spoon and seeing it move, or hearing the noise.
	Provide activities at the child’s developmental level. Allow the child to choose which toys to play with.
	Work as a team with your child’s teacher or therapists. Share ideas and solutions. Together, you can help your child live up to full potential, at school, at home-and in life.

More comments

 

+  Keep your child’s brain busy with physical, mental and social activities, and novel experiences. All these stimulations can contribute to a bigger, better functioning brain with more so-called ‘cognitive reserve’ which is believed to protect against memory decline in later stages.

+  Lab animals raised on berries, spinach and high omega-3 fish have great memories in old age. Those overfed with junk foods such as sugar found in soft drinks, saturated fat and trans fats become overweight and diabetic, with smaller brains and impaired memories as they age.

 

+  A child’s brain development can be impaired during foetal formative stage or in the crucial 3 years after birth. Various factors contribute to the poor nutritional status in a child, such as poor dietary intake, picky over food, chronic diseases and congenital metabolic malfunctioning.

The important nutrients for a child’s mental development are as follows:

+  Choline and vitamin B complex for increase of memory power and maintain normal functions and healthiness of nervous system.  The peak formation of myelin sheath falls around the age 2 and completes around 10 years of age.

+  DHA present in fish oil helps in memory power and learning ability of newborns as it is a main component of human cerebral cortex.  In fact, pregnant women should be taking it to pass through the placenta to the foetus.  Lactating mums should also consume enough DHA.