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Why Early Childhood Matters to... PEDIATRICIANS

Q&A with Dr. Dipesh Navsaria

Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and practices primary care pediatrics at a community health center working with underserved populations.

Dr. Navsaria will be speaking at the upcoming First Things First Early Childhood Summit 2015. He will deliver the opening keynote, Early Experiences Elevate Everything: Early Brain & Child Development, Toxic Stress and Childhood Adversity, and will also lead a breakout session entitled, Screens: Success or Sabotage? To learn more about the FTF Early Childhood Summit, visit summit.azftf.gov.

What’s happening in a child’s brain in their first five years of life? Why is this time so critical to a child’s long-term development?

The brain is very different in the first five years of life as compared to later on. There’s so much going on in terms of brain growth, and also in terms of wiring and connections that kids need to develop lifelong skills. The plasticity in the brain is very different in this period, and you need the right stimulation for the nerves to develop. When we don’t do things well in those first five years of life, we lose the ability to take advantage of those differences in plasticity that we don’t have later on. For example, if you put a newborn rat in a completely dark environment, its eyes will never wire up. It will be blind, even if you expose it to light later on. Is it any surprise that some of the same things happen with human beings? That if you don’t talk to your child, sing to your child, read to them, give them those inputs in the first few years of life, those nervous system links are not going to develop the same way that they could have otherwise? Young children need the right inputs for those circuits to develop.

How can parents and families promote their young child’s healthy development?

Through relationships and interaction. The only thing that drives development is interaction with people. And I want to emphasize people. Not products. There’s no iPad app or educational DVD or anything like that that actually does anything useful for the brain in the early years of life. Certainly not in the first three years of life. It’s through talking with your child, singing with them, playing with them – that back and forth is how they develop the social skills, the emotional skills, and the physical and learning skills that they need. It’s through interaction with people. And, of course, it doesn’t have to be just the parents. It can be other relatives and siblings and friends and early education teachers and all those folks. It’s those sorts of interactions that make a difference. Because we, as human beings, are able to be responsive in our interactions with young children in a way that no device is capable of doing.

Screen time is a big issue for families. What advice do you give your patients?

There is a lot said about screens that is not correct. There is no known benefit, and in fact, some harm, from screen exposure. Certainly for kids under 2 years of age, and probably kids under 3. There may be some value for children who are 4 and up if it’s educational media that’s well done. And that’s a big if. But younger than that, there is actually no benefit to screen time, despite whatever claims the manufacturers may make. And it can actually be detrimental, because the more time they’re on a screen, the less time they’re interacting with others.

You’re very involved in early literacy. Why do you believe it’s so important for health professionals to promote reading to children?

If you think about it, one of the biggest factors in terms of lifelong health is education. Don’t get me wrong, nutrition and exercise are certainly important, but if you have a good education, you’re very likely to have a career and the understanding and knowledge to be able to take advantage of things in life. Purely from a health perspective, when we promote educational success, we’re promoting health. And outside the traditional health area, we want kids to be successful in school. We want their families to take pride in their child’s ability to be successful in the educational system. So, by talking about reading together, sharing books together, developing that love of books and familiarity of principles of text and emergent literacy, we are setting kids up for lifelong health and lifelong learning. That’s why early literacy is so important. The evidence is astoundingly clear. We just need the willingness as a society to make the investment in it.