I enjoyed this chapter because it provides insight on many different learning theories and processes. I also enjoy reading about the human brain and how it plays such an important role in learning and behavior. Page 386 talks about Brain development and Nutrition. Many factors can influence fetal brain development. Although most healthy pregnant women do not need to radically alter their lifestyles in order to promote optimal brain development good nutrition is important, since brain growth like the growth of the rest of the fetus body is influenced by the quality of a pregnant woman's diet. Brain development is most sensitive to a baby's nutrition between mid-gestation and two years of age. Children who are malnourished and deprived of adequate calories and protein in their diet throughout this period do not adequately grow, either physically or mentally. Inadequate brain growth explains why children who were malnourished as fetuses and infants suffer often lasting behavioral and cognitive deficits, including slower language and fine motor development, lower IQ, and poorer school performance. A baby's birth weight and brain size depend on the quality of his or her mother's nutrition during pregnancy. Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Chapter 9 – Neuroscience of Learning
I enjoyed this chapter because it provides insight on many different learning theories and processes. I also enjoy reading about the human brain and how it plays such an important role in learning and behavior. Page 386 talks about Brain development and Nutrition. Many factors can influence fetal brain development. Although most healthy pregnant women do not need to radically alter their lifestyles in order to promote optimal brain development good nutrition is important, since brain growth like the growth of the rest of the fetus body is influenced by the quality of a pregnant woman's diet. Brain development is most sensitive to a baby's nutrition between mid-gestation and two years of age. Children who are malnourished and deprived of adequate calories and protein in their diet throughout this period do not adequately grow, either physically or mentally. Inadequate brain growth explains why children who were malnourished as fetuses and infants suffer often lasting behavioral and cognitive deficits, including slower language and fine motor development, lower IQ, and poorer school performance. A baby's birth weight and brain size depend on the quality of his or her mother's nutrition during pregnancy. 
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Prenatal care and nutritional counseling during pregnancy are a must! With so many children having children, it would seem that expectations of early teenage mothers to make consistent and appropriate nutritional choices could be quite low. Programs that keep the young mothers in school and teach them healthy choices for their fetus are needed. Without them, we will be teaching the undernourished, underdeveloped fetus of today.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth you brought up a very interesting point, and one that still receives a lot of debate among everyone. Many programs are set up for poorer women to help with nutrition for both the mother and child, but not all of them take advantage of what is out there. This does lead to children sitting in classrooms that are having to work harder to try to meet the minimum requirements. As teachers this does make our job harder to help these students. I have worked in many title one campuses, and have seen many of the effects that you were discussing in your blog. I also have seen that malnutrition still plagues these students long after they are born in their young lives, which makes it difficult to teach the students because they have a hard time focusing.
ReplyDeleteIt is important that children are well nourished to aid in the learning environment. I always find it most interesting the commercials for children’s breakfast. They speak about the importance of a well balanced breakfast before school. School cafeteria’s have a huge responsibility in planning nutritional meals for our children. It is up to us as parents and educators to make sure our children received a well balanced meal. This is how we can help with growing little brains.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, I also enjoyed reading this chapter. It is faciniating to see how crutial the brain is to the learning process. You made some excellent points about brain development in the early stages of pregnancy. I wonder if all women would take care of following every advise possible to keeping a healthy pregnacy, it it would decrease the number of brain defects? That is something very interesting and although I know a lot of things cannot be avoided no matter how well we care for our unborn babies, it should make us wonder how much can be avoided if women really did everything possible to create a healthy environment for their babies before they are born. Great points Elizabeth!
ReplyDeleteSomething important that I have seen in my local school district to assist with ensuring all children get a good start in the morning is that they serve breakfast in the classroom. Although I know this may seem as more of a hassle to some teachers, I think it at least ensures that the children are getting fed in the morning which will help in their learning. Another factor that affects pregnant women is their dental care. Not many people realize that pregnant women with bad dental hygiene or dental issues have a higher risk of premature births.
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