A Baby's Brain Nearly Doubles in Its First Year
It can make up to a million connections a second, and reaches almost 90 percent of adult volume by age seven.
TED · How Every Child Can Thrive by Five | Molly Wright | TEDA baby's brain nearly doubles in volume in the first year of life.
In a public talk, seven-year-old Molly Wright showed the difference with two bags, one blue for a newborn's brain and one red for a one-year-old's. By her age, she said, "it's almost 90 percent the volume of an adult brain."
She said that understanding of the first five years comes from scientists. "Our brains develop faster in our early years than at any other time in our lives," she said.
She said, "It can create up to one million neural connections every second," the tiny links that let brain cells pass signals to each other.
Questions people ask
Why does the brain make so many connections so early?
In those years children are learning language, movement, trust, and how people respond to them. Making many connections quickly gives the brain raw material to work with. The ones that get used regularly are kept and strengthened.
Does the brain stop growing after early childhood?
No. The talk presents the early years as the fastest period of growth, not the end of it. The brain keeps developing through later childhood and the teen years. Early speed does not mean later growth stops.