ABSTRACT
When the infant first enters the world, the brain is not a “blank slate”. The brain and the senses – vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch – are designed to make sense of the world, so that some features of the world are attended to and others, for the moment, ignored. The brain grows very rapidly after birth at a rate of 1% per day up to three months, and continues growing at 0.4% per day thereafter. In fact, brain volume doubles in 90 days from birth. There is also a very rapid increase in the volume of connections in this period. These changes are accompanied by very rapid changes in brain function – in the senses, in control of movement, and in cognition.
