HARSH WORDS CAN DEFORM YOUR CHILD’S BRAIN

RESEARCH:

Parents who hurl word and other forms of abuse on their children are being warned to take it easy. Result of the research tests carried out by a group of consultants at McLean’s Hospital, a psychiatric centre affiliated to Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, reveal that emotional trauma in childhood could cause deformities in critical parts of a child’s brain. This in turn can lead depression, anxiety and difficulty in learning.

Research has shown an important correlation between stimulating activities and healthy brain development. Early experiences with learning materials and creative projects actually promotes synaptic grown and increases the brain’s functional capacity. Your child brain grows the fastest in the years between birth and age three. And one of the best ways to encourage this growth is to talk with your child. Amazingly, your child is building vocabulary and understanding even in the time before he can talk. If you use simple words and phrases to describe what you are doing, what you are seeing and hearing… you will find when he does start talking that your child’s vocabulary is very advanced. For example, when walking up the steps…count them! Your child may not be ready to count but he is hearing the words and making a connection to something familiar in his environment. When you are playing in the playground…repeat a word or phrase for what you are doing, You can even make it a song. “Swinging, swinging, swinging on the swing. Up down, up down, swinging on the swing.” In a sense you are “narrating” his life so that he has an understanding of words in context. Talking to your child is essential.

Dr. Martin Teicher and his study team compared the result of brain scans from children who had been admitted to their hospital after suffering neglect, physical or sexual abuse to that of children who have not suffered a similar experience. The team found that in the children who had been abused or neglected, the corpus callosum, the bundle of nerve that link the two hemispheres of the brain and act as the main information pathway between them was up to 40% smaller than average.

Tiecher explains: the brain is fundamentally sculpted by our experiences. Adverse experience will sculpt out brain in a different way. We are finding that verbal abuse is devastating …”David Wood, a senior psychiatrist adds. “There is in fact plenty of evidence to show that abuse can make learning very difficult. Children can be made chronically anxious by inconsistency and shouting.