The weekly parent’s handbook

WHY IT MATTERS?

Read, Reflect, React

Issue 001 January—March 2015

Source (Flickr,2010)

1 The Brain - Physiology

How girl’s brain develops

throughout the early years?

2 Cognitive development

Description the cognitive

development. 3 Emotional and Social

Outline of social and emotional

development. 4 Multiple Intelligence

Identification of multiple

intelligence.

GIRL’S BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

FEATURE ARTICLES

This handbook was inspired by the Master’s

program where parents presented their research

in the form of this handbook. This contribution

is a reflection on current brain research and its

relevance to learning and our current

understanding of girl’s brain. We have covered

various areas such as physiology of the brain,

gender differences, cognitive development ,

social and emotional development and multiple

intelligence.

We have included few strategies that can help

parents guide their girl child.

Laxmi, Gloria, Noaur, Gisele, Sona, Shilpy.

This handbook, its information and

pictures were published for academic

purposes only.

Welcome from

The editorial team

The Brain—Physiology How girl’s brain develops throughout the early years?

t is noticeable that girls are more likely to show better engagement at elementary school than boys. It is scientifically proven that female brains are smaller than male brains, does it make a difference, then?

Girls can multitask better than boys because the female corpus callosum is 26 percent larger than the male. The corpus callosum is the nerv-ous tissue that sends signals between the two halves of the brain. Girls have the ability to transition between lessons more quickly and are less apt to have attention span issues. The neural connectors that create listening skills are more developed in the female brain and therefore enhance listening skills, memory storage, and tone of voice discrimination in girls. For the male brain to renew or recharge it will go into rest states, while the female brain does so without rest states or sleep. Girls make fewer impulsive decisions than boys due to a higher serotonin level. The female brain has 15 percent more blood flow than the male brain, allowing for enhanced integrated learning. Girls have more cortical areas devot-ed to verbal functioning, they are better at sen-sory memory, sitting still, listening, tonality, and the complexities of reading and writing (the skills and behaviors that tend to be rewarded in

school).

I

The NHI MRI Study of Normal Brain Development

(2012) A population based study from the National

Institute of Health NHI, reveals some of the first

studies of brain development of healthy population

of 325 aged 4.5 to 18 years old. The study was car-

ried out throughout the united states to a specific

population. In their study they had associations of

age, family income, body mas index, sex and paren-

Some of the results from the study where:

Lobar gray mater (GM) decline across age, by 1.11% per year of age, whereas lobar white matter (WM) in-creased by 1.54% per year of age.

Declines where more prominent in the parietal and occipital cortex.

The total brain volume was 10% larger in males than in females. The occipital gray mater were larger by 3.2% , the Putamen was >5% and cerebellum 2% larger in volume in males than in females.

The body mass index was associated with smaller gray matter volumes and larger white matter volumes across the sex and age.

The global brain volume has already occurred by the age of 5 and the total brain volume was 10% greater in males than females.

Socio-economic indicators where not associated with variations in brain volume.

More differences should be explored in relationship to genetic, pubertal and hormonal variables. To learn more about cerebral asymmetries reported in children

tal education. Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

MRI, they stablish a baseline of brain volume

growth. They measured gray and white matter of

left and right frontal, temporal, parietal and occipi-

tal lobes. Subcortical gray matter (Thalamus, Cau-

date, Putamen and Globus Pallidus). The Cerebellum

and Brainstem. Here are some results from the

study of girls brain development.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Re

gio

nal

Bra

in S

tru

ctu

re in

Cm

3

Population Age

Girl's brain volume

Whole Brain GM

Whole Brain WM

Subcortical GM

Lateral Ventricles

Cerebellum

Brainstem

Source (MRI Brain, undated)

Cognitive Development Description of the cognitive development

The importance of cognitive development for school age girls is essential for their success as adult. The transition from childhood to school-age years coincide with girls showing enthusiasm for learning new concepts, gaining self-confidence, and developing skills to understand the world and people around them. To ensure this enthusiasm is channelled so as to maximize the capacity of school-age girls, par-ents need to understand what these proven cognitive development methods are. The strong correlations between measures of cognitive development and school achievement are described by Piaget’s proposal of a hierarchical sequence of four cognitive developmental stages (two of which are related to school girls between age 3 to 11) - Pre-operational and Concrete operational.

Pre-operational (2-7 years)

During this stage children begin to use language; memory and imagination. Example, children engage in make believe and can understand and express relationships between the past and the future. The effective role that parents could take during this stage would be:

Art and Aesthetics (concern with nature): Develop the Art and Aesthetics tendency with their girls. For example, pro-vide an environment to do art and craft activities, and take their girls on nature discovery trips to experiment natu-ral beauty.

Literacy: This could be achieved by having parents reading for their girls in one-on-one setting with uninterrupted time.

Music: Parents could encourage their girls to take on music lessons, or go to musical event.

Play: The play-based nature of preschool learning experiences, is one of the most important pillar in cognitive develop-mental theory. Parents could spend special time playing with their girls and take them on play dates.

In addition, girls between 5 to 7 year-olds, will develop the following skills:

Vocabulary increasing to approximately 2,000 words, and can compose sentences with five or more words. Begin to reason and argue; uses words like why and because. Are able to sit at a desk , follow teacher instructions, and inde-pendently do simple in-class assignments.

Concrete operational (7-11)

begin to use language; girls experience intellectual development through the use of logical and systematic manipulation

of symbols, which are related to concrete objects, and they will shift thinking from egocentric to external awareness of

others. The effective role that parents could take during this stage would be:

Hands-on projects: This is one of the most widely implemented pedagogical outcomes of cognitive developmental theo-

ry, by having parents encouraging the girls to adapt the hands-on approach to mathematics and applied science learning

in the grade school years.

The problem-solving approach: This could be accomplished by have parents

engage with their girls to think for the selves about discovering and solving

problems; using problem-based learning methodology.

Emotion Regulation: For this concept, and when girls are emotionally upset,

parents could teach them how to see the perspective of other people's experi-

ence and feeling, and regulate their emotion accordingly.

Social and Emotional Development Outline of social and emotional development

Children's Social and emotional skills are im-portant for early childhood and later on school success and later adjustment. Research has docu-mented that children without adequate social and emotional skills are at risk for difficulties in-cluding peer rejection, behavior problems, and poor academic achievement. At 2 to 4 years girls develop emotions like pride, good self esteem but if they are insecure then they can develop traits of stubbornness, and this is why it is said ‘’terrible twos’’ as this causes to make them throw tantrums. When the child grows older from ages 4 to 8 which is the ‘‘play age’ ’they be-come more cooperative , sensitive and independ-ent and also develop emotions like fear and guilt which leads them to insecurity with other children and they tend to then depend on certain kids only which are in their comfort zone. In girls this leads to groups and jealousy devel-

oped between friends. From ages 8 to 11 which is “school age” peer pressure plays a huge role in the child’s personality .If they are socially not happy in their environment they cannot emo-tionally be happy. For girls it becomes more im-portant to have friends of the same sex. Emo-tional ups and downs can lead to increased con-flict in their brains. When your child was younger, she may have become angry, but was unable to express why? They find it difficult to express their feelings and emotions .For example if in kinder-garten the teacher puts them into groups and if a

particular child wanted to be a member in the group, it would disturb him/her and would just burst out in tears without any explanation. However, girls’ brain matures earlier than boys’.

Rapid development in the prefrontal cortex between ages 3 to 6 means the pre-school period is a crucial time for acquiring so-cial skills. When observing family members, children learn appropriate social rules and be-havior which they apply to interactions outside of the family. The quality of the parent-child attachment relationship also predicts girls’ so-cial skills. Positive interactions with peers help girls develop interpersonal skills, communica-tion skills, the ability to control aggressive be-haviors, and early learning-related skills. One protective factor of girls’ social skills develop-ment is parenting. Parents who are warm and sensitive and set appropriate limits for children are more likely to have children with strong interpersonal and learning-related skills. Girls work well in groups when they are facing one another or the teacher. Find activities that al-low them to help the teacher. Don’t protect girls from activities that may cause them to get dirty or skin their knees a bit, which could pro-mote “learned helplessness.” Parents should encourage them to join the school community and sports team to give them a high emotion-ally balanced life .

Multiple Intelligences Identification of girls multiple intelligence

1. Linguistic intelligence: Girls verbal abilities tend to develop earlier so they rely more heavily on verbal communication. 2. Spatial intelligence: Girls can discriminate between objects and they take in more information through their fingertips. Boys have better spatial awareness. 3. Bodily kinesthetic: Girls have develop fine motor skills much faster than the boys but boys have better gross motor skills. 4. Musical intelligence: Girls absorb more sensory data, they hear better. Music is a whole brain activity involving both hemispheres of the brain. 5. Logical-mathematical intelligence: Boys usually do better in higher math and physics. 6. Interpersonal Intelligence: Girls focus their friendship on other girls. Young girls react to nov-elty in people and social grouping. Girls like to be their friends when they are under stress. 7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: Girls like to have a conversation when they are under stress. They are better at controlling impulse behaviour. 8. Naturalistic Intelligence: Girls when asked to paint and draw like to paint more people and nature whereas boys like to paint objects.

(Connections Education, 2013)

Glossary

Aesthetics: A set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in

art.

Cognitive development: Is the developmental process by which an infant be-

comes an intelligent person, acquiring knowledge with growth and improving

his or her ability to think, learn, reason, and abstract.

Gray Matter: The gray nervous tissue found in the cortex of the cerebrum and cerebellum and the core of the

spinal cord.

Problem-based learning (PBL): Is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of creating a problem. Students learn both thinking strategies and domain knowledge. White Matter: The tissue of the central nervous system and much of the part of the cerebrum.

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