The science is in: TV Sabotages Infant Brain Development and Creative Capacity.

The science is in: TV sabotages infant brain development and creative capacity.

According to the California State Department of Education, life-long learning is influenced by and dependent on seven Learning and Development Foundations. These are attachment, perception, motor skills, cognition, language, emotions and social skills. The first of these, attachment, motivates the others. It is so important that an absence of it is called detachment disorder, is the most noticeable symptom of autism.

So, let’s ask: what is attachment, how does it develop, and how does TV sabotage it?

The textbook Infants, Toddlers & Caregivers (ITC) by Gonzalez-Mena and Eyer states attachment as primary because humans learn how to be human from one another, within a framework of trust that moves from dependence to autonomy. We learn to trust based on familiarity and the predictability of cause and effect. For example, we learn to trust the physical laws of our world – like gravity, the laws of inertia and motion and how we impact objects - first by crying to entice someone to pick us up. Then, maybe by (HEADS UP throw ball) incorporating more complex and experimental physics. We learn how WE are attached to with this world, what affects us, what is happening for our “good”.

We process all this information in our brains, where the attachment area develops first. ITC describes brain structure as a scaffolding of specialized nerve cells called neurons that have output and input fibers. The input fibers, or dendrites, branch out like tree branches to accept electrical signals from multiple neurons that fire with sensory stimulation. Dendrites connect pathways called synapses that multiply with each experience. The ones used most often become part of the brain’s hard-wiring circuitry in a process called myelinization. So more input is better, right? If so, why don’t we keep all those synapses?

You have half the synapses of a 3 year old. Why?

In 2010, Oxford University published the four-university intramural Strenzoik, et al, and U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) study that used a Nobel-prize winning formula called Granger Causality Mapping (GCM) to interpret functional MRI (fMRI) brain activity. Scientists reasoned that these “extra” synapses create multiple links to neurons and indirect pathways because the infant brain is not just experimenting with direct cause & effect. It is keeping alive viable pathways to predict probable cause and its alternate possibilities -the “what-if.” It is learning meaning, context, and that there can be more than just one agent and effect; that there are proximate, necessary and sufficient causes that must functionally attach to the effect to be important. The brain keeps the important synapses and cuts off the others.

How does the human brain choose what is most important or viable? It uses bio-electro-chemical encoding in the form of the hormone oxytocin to assign an emotional value to choices.

Positive interactions create and release oxytosin, which causes physical sensations of happiness – a chemical cocktail of warm fuzzy feelings. In his July 2011 TEDx lecture, neuro-economist Paul Zak described how oxytocin works as the empathy/morality hormone that also emotionally attaches us to one another. It exists only in mammals, and activates in infants only during direct interpersonal interaction. ITC documents higher doses when contact is respectful, reciprocal and responsive – the first REAL 3Rs of our learning to be human curriculum. Sensory input that does not release this hormone is unimportant, so those neurons are physically pruned, cutting off those pathways. No oxytocin, no attachment, no importance, no learning.

Parents, educators, physicians and neuroscientists saw these effects of 2-D zone-out in infants and filed a class action lawsuit. As a result, in 2009, the New York Times reported the Disney company recall of millions of Baby Einstein “educational videos”. Studies had shown that TV exposure at ages 1 through 3 is associated with attention problems at age 7. Disney had been selling over $200 million of videos annually despite the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation for NO SCREEN TIME at all for children under 2 years old. Now we know more science behind the conclusion that TV viewing harms young children:

-By stimulating neurons without the reward of oxytocin, it creates confusion about attachment;

-By linking only the two senses of sight and sound, it interrupts the logic of direct cause and effect, cutting off “what-if” pathways for creativity and problem solving.

Images on a screen confuse an infant who has yet to learn that symbols can represent real objects that could potentially help or could harm him – are good or not. So "for goodness sake" save those videos and TV for later, when s/he can differentiate symbolic play from reality.


Annotated Bibliography

Child Development Division, California Department of Education (2009). Social- Emotional Development. In California Infant/Toddler Learning and Development Foundations. (1st ed.). Sacramento, CA, USA: California Department of Education.
The Child Development Division of the California Department of Education publishes this manual used as in accredited preschool programs in California. Available online as a pdf for parents as well, it delineates seven functional requirements or prerequisite foundations that are necessary to succeed later in school. Developed with developmental psychologists and aligned with curriculum, these are attachment, perception, motor skills, cognition, language, emotions and social skills. The milestones for foundation begin at birth, and progress along a continuum to age 36 months. They are described in terms of physical, mental and emotional development at each 3-month incremental stage: birth to 3 months, 3 to 6 months, 6 to 9 months, etc. The foundation of attachment is most closely associated with the effects of TV on infants and cross-references with the Harvard study (Strenziok, et al).

Gonzalez-Mena, J., & Widmeyer Eyer, D. (2009). Ch. 2 Attachment, Ch. 3 Perception. In Infants, Toddlers and Caregivers. (8th ed.). New York, New York, USA: McGraw-Hill.
Researched and written by professors at Cañada College in Redwood City, CA, this textbook is used as in the Early Childhood Education (ECE) degree and certificate program at Sierra College. The authors studied the differences in programs and outcomes for children in institutional infant/toddler care in the United States and Eastern Europe as compared to a pilot program in Italy run by Magda Gerber. They used their findings to develop standards for Early Childhood Education Caregivers (educare) professionals and guidelines for parents.
Using real-life and play as curriculum, it delineates ten developmentally appropriate ECE principles to facilitate developing seven categories of specific functional foundations for life-long learning. The principles are based on a “3-R” philosophy of interaction among all parties – parents, educare professionals and children - that is respectful, responsive and reciprocal. The seven foundation categories are attachment, perception, motor skills, cognition, language, emotions and social skills. As of 2009 these foundations have been adopted as the California State Department of Education Learning and Development Foundations for Infants and Toddlers (FIT). (See prior citation).

Lewin, T. (2009, October 24). No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund . New York Times (New York City), p. A1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/education/24baby
This article described the reasons for Disney Corporation’s recall of “Baby Einstein” products due to the results of studies commissioned in a class action lawsuit filed by parents, educators, pediatricians and neuroscientists. The studies found that the videos did not assist learning, that they caused dissociative attention problems later, and led to the overarching conclusion that TV viewing is harmful for infants.

Strenziok, M., Krueger , F., Deshpande, G., Lenroot, R., Van der Meer, E., & Grafman, J. (2010, October 7). Fronto-Parietal Regulation of Media Violence Exposure in Adolescents: a multi-method study. US National PubMed.gov Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, Oxford University Journals. Retrieved November 15, 2011, from http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/5/537.full.pdf+html
The National Institutes of Health and four universities conducted this intramural study. Published by Oxford University, it demonstrates the methodology used to determine the link between structural and bio-chemical brain functions in response to stimulus that then present as emotional intelligence, control and integration of information. These functions are known as bio-psychosocial mechanisms, and develop as neurons are formed in the brain, creating interdependent and interactive pathways and feedback loops, a veritable scaffolding used for processing and responding to the meaning, the underlying importance and likely consequences of an event. The analogy-based Granger Causality Mapping tool described in this study warrants a link between brain physiology and the capacity for creativity that results from processing information concurrent with empathy.

Zak, P. (2011, November). Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin. TED.com . Retrieved November 8, 2011, from http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin.html#.TrmoqMxW2UM.facebook
After reading Gonzalez-Mena, et al textbook, and the Strenziok, et al study, and discovering the neuro-bio-chemical process that uses oxytocin to vet the relative importance of data processed by the infant brain during the myelinization process, I researched the other effects of oxtocin. Wanting to find a simple explanation, I chose the TEDx lecture series as a source because I have found its speakers and peer-reviewed format to be accurate, educated, brief, clear and concise. This cross-reference strengthens the causality argument and provides further evidence to warrant the function of this hormone as a necessary cause for the claim that TV viewing is harmful.

Transparency: a Universally Employable (UE) Principle

How is transparency a Universally Employable (UE) principle? Choices reveal the character of living beings. Although not always made with careful thought, choices are, nonetheless, windows into one's personal hierarchy of needs. Choices made in public, in the light [of day], are transparent and declarative: this is who I am, what I believe, and I want everyone to know it.

Consider identity theft and internet use. Are you more at risk when you fly under the radar or when you establish a known and quantifiable history? If your geo-tag and purchasing choices correspond to a certain pattern, and suddenly there is a change, an anomaly, your credit card fraud department will contact you for confirmation of charges and may temporarily suspend your account. In this case, a transparent history protects you from further harm. That is not, however, the case for largely self-published content on social networking websites and blogs.

Without a third party gatekeeper to track patterns of lexicon use and the subtle magic of your irreplaceable and unique voice, you now have two jobs to do every time you log in: add content, and vet or edit elements of your profile or content that others have added to your site or blog. Do you think about that, about how the reputation of an acquaintance, or even the friend of a friend can be perceived as revealing something about your character? It is not such a leap of logic to imagine a potential client or employer asking, “If someone like that is in your circle, tell me what does that say about you”?

In my case, recent college class assignments require that I “birth” pre-mature business ideas and create public social network contacts that I otherwise may not have chosen – and to do so transparently, using my real contact information on public websites. Within the relative safety of our online class discussion board, some of my classmates and I vent our angst – and yet, we comply. Some of us plow forward with our real businesses, simultaneously uploading our vision, mission, and profile statements with an elegant and wordy mea culpa for incomplete content. Yet others create “bogus” online businesses, some seem to drop out of the class each week, and a few of us discuss the cost/benefit ratio of not uploading nascent ideas “that would compromise our reputations, just to get a grade.” What is it about me that I understand the assignment to require reality, when others read into it other options?

What do perceptions and their resulting choices say about each of our individual hierarchy of needs? Where am I on Maslow’s pyramid1?

- My Physiological Needs are well met.

- The difficult decision I made in my youth, thinking it would ensure my Safety and Security, proved unsafe but it is still economically valid for the 2010 economy; now, having chosen safety above security, I have a reasonable measure of both. In claiming my own safety, I gained empathy for the physical and psychological safety of others: I became more conscious of how my choices affect the environment and the feelings of others.

- And in becoming more “green” two things happened: my Social network grew, and my existing relationships became deeper, more mutually additive, more open and honest – more transparent.

- Friends and family tell me they regard with Esteem the courage (from coeur, French for heart) of my new career. True esteem is an equilateral equation: esteem of others must equal self-esteem; otherwise (either due to action, inaction or perception) one’s accomplishment, social recognition and sense of personal worth will be false. Esteem, therefore, can only be based upon Truth.

- Ah, here I am, at Truth. I choose Truth, not for the esteem of others (read “grade”), but for the benefit of my own journey, my Self-Actualization. I choose to use this opportunity to learn new skills and to also learn a new “way and how and why to learn.”

Interestingly, this choice is furthering a lifelong search to compile and codify principles of Universal Education: Universally Employable learning principles and skills used to Understand Everything. The fact that I perceive assignments to require realistic transparency is, in itself, revealing of my understanding of the Transparency Principle: For a fact or idea to have meaning, it must first be understood in context, illuminated under one light, a unifying light under which to compare and contrast it with others.

Transparency: UE Exercise

Ask who is in your “light,” what illuminates and unifies the vision, and what does that say about you? Now, having asked those questions, use the microscope of language to further define first the reality and then the corresponding perceptions of:

- Your light: where and how it shines on your various circles of friends, colleagues, and competitors (just what you do, not its effect),

- How you choose to illuminate certain qualities: geography, ideology, needs, goals and the matrix of choices that co-create interconnected lives and how, as René Dubos describes, the “people in [your] place become organic, … and [thereby] contribute to the persistence of its character”2

- Shadows and lines, foreground and background, vibrancy of colors cool and warm; unifying patterns of perception and engagement as described by Michel de Montaigne, who wrote, “There is no one who, if he listens to himself, does not discover in himself a pattern all his own,” and within it, an opportunity to make himself into a “great and glorious masterpiece.”

- Your transparency: your truth about who and where you are in relation to others in the pattern, your “sense of place”2 on the map of humanity.

Lori GuberaStengel
Founder, GreenLight UE
http://www.greenlightue.com

1. Cherry, K. (2010). Theories of Personality. About.com. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm
2. Dubos, R. (1972). A God Within. (1st ed.). New York NY: Charles Scribners' Sons.

Survey Probes Traits of Silicon Valley Senior Technical Women

A quick look at the article:

Technical women occupying the highest ranks of Silicon Valley companies differ in some key respects from top technical men, while sharing many of the most important traits.

The conclusions come from a survey of 1,795 technical men and women at seven local high-technology companies, conducted by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University.

...."In this report we asked, 'What about the women who have made it, who beat the odds? What can they tell us about what it takes to achieve these positions?'" according to social scientist Caroline Simard, a co-author of the study and research director for the Anita Borg Institute.

....Women and men at senior technical levels largely agreed when asked to identify "attributes for successful people in technology."

Those were listed, in order of importance, as analytical, innovative, questioning, risk-taking, collaborative, entrepreneurial and assertive.


Kenrick, C. (2010, March 22). Survey probes traits of 'senior technical women' . Palo Alto Online Express. News. Retrieved March 22, 2010, from http://www.PaloAltoOnline.com/news/show_story.php?id=16188&e=y

Play as curriculum

In their textbook Infants, Toddlers & Caregivers, the authors, Professors Janet Gonzales-Mena and Dianne Widmeyer Eyer, describe the science behind:

1. Specific caregiving and play that serves as curriculum to develop physical growth and motor skills, which in turn, increases myelization;

2. Physiologically-timed language development, including non-verbal language in infants.

3. The importance of play.