Thursday, 5/1/97 Interest in childhood development on the
increase Clinical, scientific studies may contribute to new focus
on education, childcare
By Kathryn Combs Daily Bruin Contributor Both the Clinton
Administration and parents are taking an increasing interest in the
development and education of America’s children, with an eye on the
preventative power of childcare policies. The baby-boom generation
of parents is beginning to show increasing personal and political
interest in child-related policy, sparked by new research findings.
Director Rob Reiner’s film "I Am Your Child" aired earlier this
week, highlighting the importance of both biological and
educational aspects of child development. In addition, the Clinton
Administration has launched a campaign focusing on issues such as
child care, brain development, learning and social development.
Experts at UCLA involved in this movement say that the connection
between clinical practice and scientific research is one of the
factors causing this sudden interest. Dr. Jill Hoube, a fellow in
the UCLA Clinical Scholars Program spoke of new findings in the
area of childhood brain development. "(The welfare of children) is
becoming more visible because a lot of the recent neuroscience
research has become prominent," Hoube said. "A lot of what was
understood in clinical research and developmental psychology
research has become more understandable," Hoube continued. "People
have a better understanding of what is going on in the brain." Dr.
Harley Kornblum, an attending physician with the UCLA Children’s
Hospital, also cited an increase in brain development research as
one of the reasons for this sudden interest in child development.
"There’s been a lot of interesting things happening in research
about brain development," he said. "Brain development is a process
of growing or establishing connections and pruning these
connections," he said. "What happens is that some of these
developmental processes take place during life," he added.
Childhood is increasingly seen as a crucial phase in neural
development, said Dr. Michael Regalado, an associate professor of
pediatrics with the University of Southern California Medical
School, who also works with UCLA researchers. "A child’s
experiences play an active role in how the brain itself is
organized and develops,"Regalado said. "(Experience) affects all
the interconnections that brain cells make with each other. It’s
part of the brain’s hard wiring," he said. Dr. Edward McCabe, who
is executive chair and professor in the department of pediatrics at
UCLA further supported this. He cited a study published in 1994
that largely formed many of today’s ideas about the topic of child
development. "The Carnegie corporation in 1994 put out a report
called Starting Points," McCabe said. "They argued that how a child
functions in the preschool years and even into adulthood is
dependent upon their experiences before age three," he said. Hoube
backed this up, stressing the effect of environmental concerns on a
child’s development. "The things that we are seeing in the clinics
are the things that we are afraid of seeing, like the effects of
poverty, stress and diminishing resources," she said. One in two
American children are classified as ‘poor’ according to government
standards. Poverty is one factor increasingly impacting child
health and welfare. "The extent of poverty that effects children is
greater today than at any other time in our history," said Robert
Valdez, formerly the deputy assistant secretary of health and
director of Interagency Policy for the Clinton administration. "A
great number of children are living in an environment that keeps
them deprived of early stimulation," he added. "My involvement is,
largely, trying to bring people together in L.A.and the local
community." "One of the most frustrating things as a physician,"
Hoube said, "is that there’s not a lot of community, public or
private investment equipped to provide the kind of treatment
necessary." "Childcare demands outweigh developmental issues,"
Hoube said. A focus of the Clinton-led campaign is the issue of how
our children are raised and what education they receive. "By
investing our energy and our dollars in the early childhood years,
we might be able to prevent some of the problems that we have with
older kids in our society," Hoube added, presenting the example of
gangs and other peer related problems. "Topics such as prenatal
care are vitally important for brain development and we need to
take the long-term view," he concluded.