Chapter 7 - The vital years

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The vital years	233

accelerated learning pioneer Colin Rose: "It's true throughout life that if you think you are a poor learner, you'll probably be a poor learner." But the real question is how that thought pattern is programmed. American research has shown that most children, from a very early age, receive at least six negative comments to every one of positive encouragement.7 Comments like "Don't do that," or "You didn't do that very well," are where the problem starts.
  Research has also established beyond doubt the importance of every child growing in an enriched environment.
  Berkeley scientists in California have been experimenting for many years with rats - and comparing their brain growth with humans. "Very simply," says Professor Marian Diamond, "we've found with our rats that all the nerve cells in the key outer layers of the brain are present at birth. At birth the interconnecting dendrites start to grow. For the first month the growth is prolific. Then it starts to go down.
  "If we put the rats in enriched environments, we can keep the dendrite growth up. But if we put them in impoverished environments, then dendrite growth goes down fast.
  "In enrichment cages, rats live together and have access to toys. They have ladders, wheels and other playthings. They can climb, explore and interact with their toys. Then we compare them with rats in impoverished environments: one rat to a cage, no toys, no interaction. Again very simply: we've found that the rat brain cells increase in size in the enriched environment - and the number of dendrites increases dramatically. In the impoverished environment, the opposite."
  The rats then take an "intelligence test": they're put in a maze, and left to find food in another part of the maze. The "enriched" rats do so easily. The others don't.
  Obviously, scientists can't cut up human brains to test the impact of early stimulation. But they can check with radioactive glucose. "And these checks," says Diamond, "show that the vital glucose uptake is extremely rapid for the first two years of life - provided the child has a good diet and adequate stimulation. It continues rapidly until five years. It continues very slowly from five to ten. By about ten years of age, brain-growth has reached its peak - although the good news is this: the human brain can keep on growing dendrites till the end of life, so long as it is being stimulated. Very simply, the human brain cell, like the rat's, is designed to receive stimulation - and to grow from it."

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