Toddlers don’t process things like adults, moving through their days without a clear sense of structure, and their unfiltered style might just mean they learn faster and more than you and I, researchers suggest.
A toddler’s inability to filter information and pay attention may occasionally be frustrating, but these traits are also critical in helping her learn so much in four short years, according to The Los Angeles Times Booster Shot blog, citing fascinating new research.
“In those crucial four years, a toddler's accumulation of knowledge about her world may be unhampered by the discipline imposed by the prefrontal cortex, suggests a trio of neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. She vacuums up experience raw, the way she'd ingest anything she found on the carpet. Her prefrontal cortex doesn't stand in the way and try to keep her "on task." It won't make her reject the use of a pan as, say, a hat because hats cannot be made of shiny metal,” Melissa Healy writes in “The mind unchecked: Is a toddler's lack of self-control key to early learning?”
Researchers suggest a toddler’s lack of cognitive control is critical.
We contend that prolonged prefrontal immaturity is, on balance, advantageous and that the positive consequences of this developmental trajectory outweigh the negative. Particularly, we argue that cognitive control impedes convention learning and that delayed prefrontal maturation is a necessary adaptation for human learning of social and linguistic conventions. – “Cognition Without Control.”
This idea holds a lot of promise for educators, although exactly what remains unclear.
A better characterization of which specific types of learning are most likely to benefit from delayed onset of cognitive control could both guide research and inform educational policy.
It turns out autism – those on the autism spectrum process things differently than typically developing people – was one of the inspirations for this potential breakthrough. As researchers unravel the mysteries behind autism, I think we are going to learn a lot about how everyone’s brain works.
Secretary Duncan and Washington Agree: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Washington State are on the same page when it comes to integrating early learning with the first grades of elementary school – a movement known as PreK-3rd.
Secretary Duncan touted PreK-3rd as a way of “transforming America's primary education system,” in a Nov. 8 speech, The Foundation for Child Development reports.
Washington lined up with Duncan when it unveiled a new early learning plan last month that also relies on PreK-3rd.