Brain Development During the Preschool Years

Abstract

The preschool years represent a time of expansive psychological growth, with the initial expression of many psychological abilities that will continue to be refined into young adulthood. Likewise, brain development during this age is characterized by its “blossoming” nature, showing some of its most dynamic and elaborative anatomical and physiological changes. In this article, we review human brain development during the preschool years, sampling scientific evidence from a variety of sources. First, we cover neurobiological foundations of early postnatal development, explaining some of the primary mechanisms seen at a larger scale within neuroimaging studies. Next, we review evidence from both structural and functional imaging studies, which now accounts for a large portion of our current understanding of typical brain development. Within anatomical imaging, we focus on studies of developing brain morphology and tissue properties, including diffusivity of white matter fiber tracts. We also present new data on changes during the preschool years in cortical area, thickness, and volume. Physiological brain development is then reviewed, touching on influential results from several different functional imaging and recording modalities in the preschool and early school-age years, including positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERP), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Here, more space is devoted to explaining some of the key methodological factors that are required for interpretation. We end with a section on multimodal and multidimensional imaging approaches, which we believe will be critical for increasing our understanding of brain development and its relationship to cognitive and behavioral growth in the preschool years and beyond.

Development and aging of cortical thickness correspond to genetic organization patterns

“…This finding is in contrast to earlier findings of regional developmental increases through preschool and early school years before later thinning (10)(11)(12)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). However, the results are in line with other recent studies, suggesting monotonic cortical thinning from an early age (7)(8)(9)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28) and also in agreement with recently published studies of infants observing that cortical thickness in many regions may peak before 1 or at least 2 y of age (29,30). The present findings may indicate that individual differences in offset and/or rate of thinning would be more relevant measures of cortical development than timing of peak cortical thickness.…”

English in Preschool Curriculum: A Descriptive Study of the Teaching of English as an Intra-School Curriculum in a Preschool in Bandung

“…Neuropsychological researchers, Brown and Jernigan (2012) found that the preschool years represent a time of expansive mental growth, where a set of milestone in this time period involves a rapid development of spoken language production and comprehension abilities. In this period, then, children need supports from education to develop their language abilities, so that they can refine these abilities for the language development in the next stages.…”

Fases iniciais da aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita em português do Brasil: efeitos de fonemas, gestos articulatórios e sílabas na aquisição do mapeamento ortográfico

“…Vários estudos sugerem que as crianças aprendem mais do que se supunha anteriormente e mais cedo (T. T. Brown & Jernigan, 2012;Kuhl, 2007;Siegler, 1996). Essas pesquisas mostram que mesmo bebês aprendem por "aprendizagem estatística", isto é, uma forma implícita de aprendizagem que ocorre quando a criança interage com o mundo e extrai e processa regularidades, por exemplo, para adquirir a linguagem falada e a sua cultura (Kuhl, 2007).…”