What do Educators of Young Children Need to Know About the Impact of Stress on Brain Development?

Transcription

1 What do Educators of Young Children Need to Know About the Impact of Stress on Brain Development?

2 Agenda Importance of Early Years in Brain Development How does stress impact brain development? Reducing children s stress What is resilience? Supporting children s resiliency Exploration of activities you can use with children

3 Learning Objectives Understand the negative effects of stress on the brain development of young children. Identify ways to reduce stress and provide healthy early learning environments. Define resiliency. Identify practical ideas to support the development of resiliency in young children.

4 A few questions to warm up

5 BRAIN DEVELOPMENT BEGINS: a. At birth b. When the child begins attending school c. Approximately 2 weeks after conception d. Approximately 6 months after conception

6 Which of the following is detrimental to healthy brain development? a. Lack of proper nutrition b. Alcohol exposure c. Presence of toxins d. All of the above

7 How many brain cells is an infant born with? A. 100 billion neurons B. 100 million neurons C. 1 million neurons D. 100 thousand neurons

8 a.axons b.synapses c.dendrites d.branches

9 True or False Synapses are both developed and disposed of during the preschool years.

10 True or False Infants are too young to be negatively affected by stressful environments or situations.

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13 700 New Neural Connections Per Second

14 The brain identifies stressors (threats) and prepares the body to respond and protect itself.

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16 LET S TRY IT OUT

17 Video clip

18 The body is amazingly efficient Cortisol - Slows non-essential functions in the body to allow resources to be used for survival.

19 What if the stress doesn t go away? Anxiety Depression Digestive Problems Heart Disease Sleep problems Weight Gain Memory and Concentration impairment

20 WHAT MAKES CHILDREN DIFFERENT THAN ADULTS?

21 Toxic Stress Video /multimedia/videos/three_core_concepts/toxi c_stress/

22 Chocyk et al. (2013)

23 Hippocampus Schoenfeld and Gould, (2012) Belnoue et al, (2013).

24 ACE Study Simply stated, physical, psychological, and emotional trauma during childhood can result in damage to multiple brain structures and functions.

25 The more categories of trauma experienced in childhood, the greater the likelihood of experiencing: alcoholism and alcohol abuse chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) depression fetal death poor health-related quality of life illicit drug use ischemic heart disease (IHD) liver disease risk for intimate partner violence multiple sexual partners sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) smoking obesity suicide attempts unintended pregnancies

26 So is all stress is harmful?

27 Healthy Stress

28 Identifying Stress Brainstorm with others at your table to identify stressors in children s lives Write each item on a separate sticky note Decide as a group which stressors are examples of healthy stress and which are harmful and place on the wall under the appropriate heading

29 Everyone is Unique Did you have any difficulty determining whether a stressor was healthy or chronic/toxic? Stressors can impact people differently Example: homework

30 Activity- stress and children

31 Connection between Stress and Self Regulation Self regulation refers to how efficiently and effectively a child deals with a stressor and then recovers. Stuart Shanker (2013) Calm Alert and Happy p22

32 Stuart Shanker Sources of Stress /multimedia/videos/three_core_concepts/toxi c_stress/

33 Assist children to transition

34 Reduce Stress

35 Observe Carefully

36 Make Safety a Priority

37 Children as Competent Capable Respect Worthy Strong Accept help Caring

38 Quality of Care Results demonstrate clearly that children attending high-quality child care have lower stress levels across the day than do children attending satisfactory or unsatisfactory programs. Poor-quality child care is not good for children. Sims, M., Guilfoyle, A., & Parry, T. (2005). What cortisol levels tell us about quality in childcare centres. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 30(2),

39 Ways to Influence Attachment Support breast feeding Infant Feeding Responsive care Consistent Daily Routines Clear Limits

40 Attachment cont d Educate parents and staff about brain development Reinforce with parents there is room for a number of attachments in a child s life Keep ratios low to allow children to develop the trust and confidence necessary to develop an attachment to one or more care givers Support children to build resiliency

41 Video Clip What is resilience? epts/resilience/

42 Resilience A good outcome in the face of adversity Ability, or set of capacities, or positive adaptation allowing you to keep in balance Sense of mastery or management of difficulty Resilience is built over time

43 Video Clip - How Resilience is Built /multimedia/videos/inbrief_series/resilience/ how_resilience_is_built/

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45 Play with Children

46 If children have supportive relationships in place to assist them as needed through challenges then they are able to develop resiliency.

47 Allow Children to Make Choices

48 Spend Time in Natural Environments

49 More practical ideas to support the development of resiliency Allow children to flow between groups and/or activities- rather than all children doing the same activity at the same time Provide opportunities for open ended activities that allow for exploration and different outcomes Encourage the development of empathy Sense of belonging and value

50 More practical ideas to support the development of resiliency Opportunities to express self in many ways art, music, dance, words etc. Many opportunities to be active, hand on learning and movement Pay attention to what children are interested in and build on this Genuine conversations with children

51 Before the Break Write down three things that you want to remember from the material we have discussed so far Talk with others in the room to fill all the boxes with important ideas a summary

52 Break 3:00-3:30

53 Opportunity to Explore Take time to explore the resources and activities provided

54 Change the 1 st Five Years and You Change Everything Video A Are you interested in investing?

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56 Thank You

57 References Belnoue, L., Grosjean, N., Ladevèze, E., Abrous, D. N., & Koehl, M. (2013). Prenatal Stress Inhibits Hippocampal Neurogenesis but Spares Olfactory Bulb Neurogenesis. Plos ONE, 8(8), 1-9. Bremner, J., Randall, P., Vermetten, E.,Stai, L., Bronen, R., Mazure, C., Capelli, S., McCarthy, G., Innis, R. & Charney, D. (1997). Magnetic resonance imaging based measurement of hippocampal volume in posttraumatic stress disorder related to childhood physical and sexual abuse- a preliminary report. Biological Psychiatry, 41, Center on the Developing Child (2014). Excessive stress disrupts the architecture of the developing brain, Harvard University. Chen, Y., Fenoglio, K. A., Dubé, C. M., Grigoriadis, D. E., & Baram, T. Z. (2006). Cellular and molecular mechanisms of hippocampal activation by acute stress are age-dependent. Molecular Psychiatry, 11(11), Chocyk, A., Bobula, B., Dudys, D., Przyborowska, A., Majcher-Maślanka, I., Hess, G., & K. (2013). Early-life stress affects the structural and functional plasticity of the medial prefrontal cortex in adolescent rats. European Journal of Neuroscience, 38(1), Fenner, J. (2013). [Diagram showing the hippocampus in the human brain]. Blood sugar level may affect the hippocampus, says study. Retrieved from: Knoth, R., Singec, I., Ditter, M., Pantazis, G., Capetian, P., Meyer, R. P., & Kempermann, G. (2010). Murine Features of Neurogenesis in the Human Hippocampus across the Lifespan from 0 to 100 Years. Plos ONE, 5(1), 1-10.

58 References cont d McEwen, B. S., & Gianaros, P. J. (2010). Central role of the brain in stress and adaptation: Links to socioeconomic status, health, and disease. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1186(1), Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. (2015). Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress: A Review of Ecological, Biological, and Developmental Studies of Self-Regulation and Stress. Durham, NC: Duke University. Sajaniemi, N., Suhonen, E., & Sims, M. (2011). A preliminary exploration of children's physiological arousal levels in regular preschool settings. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 36(3), Schoenfeld TJ, Gould E (2012). Stress, stress hormones, and adult neurogenesis.experimental Neurology. 233: Sims, M., Guilfoyle, A., & Parry, T. (2005). What cortisol levels tell us about quality in childcare centres. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 30(2), Wei, L., Hao, J., & Kaffman, A. (2014). Early Life Stress Inhibits Expression of Ribosomal RNA in the Developing Hippocampus. Plos ONE, 9(12), Wright, L. D., Perrot, T., & Colloquium digital library of life sciences: Collection 2. (2013; 2012). Stress and the developing brain. San Rafael, Calif. (1537 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA USA): Morgan & Claypool.

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