Brain development science bolsters calls for quality preschool in South Dakota
Raising a child looks different for every generation. Amy Elliott, chief clinical research officer at Avera Research Institute, understands how quickly new science and research can change ideas that used to be taken for granted. Her research focuses on child health and development.
"For example, drinking during pregnancy," she said. "That's something you don't have to go back too many generations – and that actually may have been something that had been encouraged. Now we know the effects that can have on fetal development, which is why there's the recommendation of no drinking during pregnancy."
In the same way, researchers are uncovering new information about brain development. Elliott said even the past five years have uncovered new information.
"We're able to look at the brain, for example, and look at brain development to a much greater degree than we were ever, ever before with those technologies," she explained. That means researchers have a clearer picture of what parts of the brain develop, when they develop, and how rapidly. Elliott said when a child is born, its brain is about the fourth the size it will be when the child is an adult. By the child's first birthday, the brain will grow to half its eventual size.
"Some have even said in those first three months, the brain is increasing every day at almost a 1% capacity – every day," said Elliott. "Millions of connections being formed in a very short amount of time, much more rapid development than is seen at any other time period in life. So the first year of life and then the first five years are really what we would refer to as very critical time periods for brain development."
For instance, research has found the foundations for language development are set in a child's brain by age 3.
"Now, you can definitely learn language after that, but it's a lot more difficult," explained Elliott. "We know there's a critical time period where different sounds – because different languages have different sounds – are getting integrated within and becoming part of how that brain is wired."
Elliott expects the next decade of research to demonstrate similar findings for reading, math and social development in children. For now, brain research is catching up with what early childhood educators have known for decades: the earliest years of a child's life can set the tone for lifelong learning outcomes.
State law requires kids to be in school by age 6, though families have the option to start kindergarten if their child is 5 by Sept. 1 of the school year. Families might harness the potential of those earlier years through preschool, but South Dakota does not have a state-run or funded preschool program. Aside from federally funded programs like Head Start, privately run early childhood learning programs can vary dramatically in quality.
Janessa Bixel is executive director of the South Dakota Association for the Education of Young Children. It's a statewide chapter of a national professional organization that provides resources for early childhood educators, families and communities. She has more than 20 years of experience in early childhood education, including in Head Start programs in various states.
"When you're in Alaska or Kansas or New Hampshire or South Dakota – which are some of the places I've lived – those Head Start standards are the same, basically, in all of those states," she said. "When you get outside of Head Start, it's really random in South Dakota. You can open a preschool and you don't even have to be regulated in any way in the state."
In fact, South Dakota is one of a handful of states in the country without a state-funded program or official standards to measure the quality of private programs. There have been some efforts from groups like the School Administrators of South Dakota to create early learning guides, but they don't hold the weight of regulatory standards. There are no state-required credentials for preschool teachers, either.
Nicole Weiss believes preschool providers owe families the highest-possible quality care for their children. She's the Early Learning Director for the YMCA of Rapid City. While the state doesn't mandate credentials to teach preschool, her program does.
"Preschool's an interesting time in a kiddo's life because they need more than just love and freedom to roam and learn," she said. "They also don't need to be sitting down with worksheets and having their whole day scheduled out. It takes some education to understand that."
All teachers in Weiss’ department must join with at least a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential, a one-year degree.
"There's a lot of people who think because they have worked in child care that, 'I'm a preschool teacher now, I can go do this or that,'" said Weiss. "They don't understand the lesson planning and the assessments and the conferences."
Because research on child development is evolving so rapidly, Elliott understands it can take time for the public – and policy – to catch up. She returns to the example of drinking during pregnancy.
"People will say, 'Well, I think things turned out just fine.' The one thing I would like to say is, that's what science is supposed to do for us. It's supposed to help us raise the next generation better than the previous one."
How to watch 'South Dakota Focus'
The next episode of "South Dakota Focus" airs on Thursday, Dec. 28, at 7 p.m. Central time / 6 p.m. Mountain time. It can be viewed on SDPB-TV 1, Facebook, YouTube and SD.net.
The program includes:
Why the John T. Vucurevich Foundation is funding multiple programs to increase access to early childhood education in Rapid City
A visit to the Fischback Center lab preschool on the SDSU campus in Brookings
How a preschool partnership helped refugee children in Huron succeed in school
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Brain development science bolsters calls for quality preschool in SD
