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everyone in a community has a vested
interest in everyone else's children
because everyone else's children
determine the next adult population that
makes for a successful society built
into our biology is the need to have
responsive interactions with adults
neglect for children is when they don't
get what the brain is expecting to get
what the child is expecting to get what
we are biologically prepared and waiting
for which is input from those around us
it's this back and forth serve and
return interaction that literally shapes
the architecture of the brain certain
return begins when a child looks at
something or observe something makes an
utterance and that that represents the
serve and the return is when the parent
notices the child doing these things and
responds to the child
under conditions where servant returned
is broken you literally are pulling away
the what is the essential ingredient of
the development of human brain
architecture it was a really compelling
series of experiments where they started
by videotaping the mother and the baby
engaging in cooing and smiling and then
they asked the mother to basically put
on a blank face and not respond at all
when a baby is not attended to that is a
sign of danger so that may be
biologically so the stress systems
become activated in a brain that is
constantly bathed in stress hormones not
that's up and down that comes with
normal development certain key synapses
the connections between nerves fail to
form and critical regions of the brain
so neglect both fails to provide the
stimulation that's needed to develop the
basic architecture and when it's at a
certain level is one of the most potent
activators of the stress biology of a
young child so you get a double whammy
science points to four categories of
this spectrum of neglect the first
category would be what's called
occasional inattention where children
experienced responsiveness most of the
time but occasionally adults don't
respond there's no harm in that and in
fact this probably some benefit a child
can learn to self-soothe and explore the
environment and all of those
opportunities build brain architecture
the second category scientists would
call chronic under stimulation is we're
an irregular basis children have less
interaction with the adults around them
then is needed for healthy development
those children typically when provided
with enriched learning opportunities and
more typical levels of serving returned
will show catch up the third category is
what science would call severe neglect
in a family where not only are there
prolonged periods of inattention and
lack of responsiveness but often also
associated with not being fed enough not
being bathed enough not having basic
needs met neglect is a huge problem in
the u.s. children are much more likely
to be neglected than they are to
experience any other kind of
maltreatment we see the child really
being at risk for much more substantial
kinds of deficits down the road that
don't necessarily get easily fixed or
ameliorated this is where we really need
to think about more complicated and
often more intensive strategies to help
undo those effects the fourth category
called severe neglect generally found in
institutional settings as a result of
children living in kind of warehouse to
type situation in orphanages and it
doesn't have to even be as Extreme as
orphanages it can be experiences that
are regretfully occurring in many many
parts of our country often institutional
care in this country is under the
euphemistic name of transitional care
temporary care or assessment facilities
if you think about what institutional or
residential care would look like for an
infant where there's somebody new coming
on to the shift every eight hours it
really alters the development of the
child's brain architecture and other
aspects of the child's development we
have the potential to change children's
developmental trajectories interventions
can apply to parents to foster parents
or adoptive parents childcare settings
Head Start settings and other kinds of
settings and really what they're about
is tuning people to the serve in return
process neglecting young children is
neglecting the foundations of a healthy
next generation the community pays a
huge price later in terms of the
problems of the next generation whether
it be educational achievement economic
productivity good citizenship the
ability to parent the next generation
all of the things that have to do with a
healthy prosperous society
you