Early intervention influences the rest of a person’s life

A principal blessing of the Christian faith is its revelation of a God who not only cares for his creation, but revels in its personal growth. No respecter of persons, the Creator regards every person with equal concern.

Unfortunately, our equality in his sight does not ensure equal opportunity in life for all of God’s children.

I would like to believe that it is never too late for disadvantaged boys and girls to mature as completely as their more advantaged peers. One of our daughters has long worked with Head Start families to ensure that children of poor immigrants are not handicapped in their development.

Recent research in child development, however, suggests that we may not be intervening early enough to avoid the permanent stunting of growth in children as young as 22 months.

According to Eleanor Mills in the Sunday Times of London, some caregivers of infants “ignore the basics of brain chemistry. Neuroscience shows that emotional experiences in infancy have a measurable effect on how we develop as human beings.

“Our earliest experiences of social interaction are translated into precise physiological patterns of response in the brain that then set the neurological rules for how we deal with our feelings and those of other people for the rest of our lives.”

The potential villain is a hormone called cortisol, which floods the brain on occasions when a baby is exposed for too long or too often to stressful situations. It will then “either over- or under-produce cortisol whenever the child is exposed to stress.”

An excess of the hormone is linked to depression and fearfulness, whereas too little leads to emotional detachment or aggression. Unfortunately, a baby cannot regulate its stress response on his or her own. It learns to do so only when its parent or other caregiver responds protectively to their needs.

Good parenting is not only loving. It allows the proper development of the baby’s prefrontal cortext, enabling the child to establish self-control and empathy with others. Concerned caregivers actually enable their charges to become civilized.

Twenty states offer such a mentoring program for new mothers. It is called the “Olds model,” after its creator, David Olds. For the past 30 years, nurses and other caregivers have instructed poor first-time mothers in child care even before they give birth.

There is nothing magical about the instruction. It is what most pregnant daughters receive from their own mothers — tips on health, nutrition and creating a calm, happy home life. But many first-time mothers are little more than poorly parented children themselves, overwhelmed by the prospect of motherhood.

The Olds program has wrought redemption. By the age of 15 these children, however poor, are 69 percent less likely to have a conviction than those without the advantage. By the age of 6 the nurse-visited children already have larger vocabularies and IQs. We all benefit.

Scripps Howard News Service