There’s a common idea told over and over to parents that the first five years of development, from age 1 up to 5, are the most important years for learning. Parents are sold the belief that these early years are when most of a child’s learning will occur and that after this special early-learning window closes, then learning slows down.

What kind of messages are health and care professionals like pediatricians, psychologists, and educators giving parents for them to feel anxiety and pressure in a race against time for fear that their child will be too old for any meaningful development?

In this week’s AIM audiocast, we’ll learn how the concept of the five-year window was born and why it’s more myth than fact. I hope this AIM episode will be a game-changer for at least one young parent… let’s dive in!

1986

Simply Red’s top-40 hit song Holding Back the Years came out in 1986. And 1986 was also the year that the United States government launched a new policy that would change autism intervention and what we all believe about early education.

That year, the US government provided financial incentives for States to expand early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities from birth to three years old.

The new policy and funding incentives was prompted by a wave of research that showed that autistic children as young as 2 and 3 years old benefited from intensive therapy.  You see, before this time, early intervention programs, for pre-school aged children, didn’t exist. Back then, autistic children would begin to receive special education and other services when they started school around age 5.

This added funding spurred hundreds of new early-intervention programs and innovation in special education.  And of course, the more any child gets support, the more they will learn. The increased education led to improved results. It was self-fulfilling.  But instead of the obvious conclusion that more specialized intensive education at any age can lead to more learning, a non-sequitur emerged.

The belief spread that the early years up to 5 years old were the most critical. And if a child doesn’t get early intervention, the window of learning opportunity closes.

Marching Toward the Deadline

“90% of a child’s brain development occurs before they even walk into a classroom”

This quote is from a very positive video posted by an Australian parent support organization called FirstFiveYears.org and the video encourages parents to not feel stressed by the early years. I agree with everything they are teaching. Unfortunately, their claim that “90% of a child’s brain development happens before they even get to school” is simply not supported by science.

I don’t know about you, but I’m certain that 90% of what I know as an adult today I definitely learned since I started school. I mean, if I could challenge my 3-year old self to any game or any quiz, I’d totally crush it!

But it’s these kinds of messages, that children’s brains fully develop by 5 years of age, or even by 3 years of age, that cause an immense pressure and stress on parents, especially parents raising an autistic child.

Each month that passes, every day that goes by, feels like a march toward a deadline after which any future possibility and hope is taken away.

In my book Challenging the Myths of Autism, I dedicated a whole chapter to debunking this myth because I feel it’s a myth that is so pervasive and causes so much anxiety in parents. In the book, I reference science and then use real-life cases to explain where the myth came from and how we can re-frame what’s true into a more possibility-affirming message for parents.

I've pasted a brief part from the chapter in a section titled “Fact Versus Fiction” below:

Fact Versus Fiction

I have yet to see a study that demonstrates how learning slows down when children with autism turn five. Where’s the research to support this? In fact, there is no evidence strong enough to warrant parents’ hold on this belief.

The science behind the myths is very real and fairly accurate, but the assumptions and conclusions that educators often extrapolate aren’t. Here are two real-science concepts and the false conclusions we’ve drawn from them:

1. The first real science truth is that infants have an enormous amount of nerve endings or synaptic connections that link to form pathways when they learn something new. Young brains are so fertile for the huge amount that they have to learn in the first few years to survive that they, in fact, have an over-abundance of these synapses. Infants have millions more than they need or will ever use. However, nature is so efficient that we have a built-in “pruning” system that gets rid of nerve connections that aren’t being used by about three years of age. It’s like pruning the dead and extra branches on a bush or tree. Early education and intervention, it is said, rely on the abundant supply of synaptic connections before they shrivel up.

This early period of synaptic growth followed by pruning is where the “use it or lose it” pressure on parents comes from. And this IS fact from science.

The fiction is that scientists used to believe this abundance of synapses happened just once in life from birth to three years of age. However, we now know that there are several phases during development when an explosive growth and abundance of nerve synapses happens.

Dr. Jay Giedd of the National Institute of Mental Health in the USA pioneered game-changing research to show there is a second wave of brain growth in adolescents between ten and thirteen years of age!

Therefore, the window of learning opportunity doesn’t close at three, or five, or even at ten!

What’s more, science has not been able to demonstrate that learning for autistic children is any faster or easier during these abundant synaptic phases. In fact, on average, the rate of learning remains fairly stable throughout youth and into adulthood. Learning does not slow down at age five. In fact, for many of us, learning feels easier, not harder, over the years. The more you know, the easier it is to learn more.

2. A cousin to the first concept is the scientifically proven fact that providing stimulation increases synaptic (nerve) growth in the brain. The more a child’s senses are stimulated (with activities, language, socialization, sounds, sights, smells, etc.), the more neural pathways and connections are made.

It’s absolutely scientifically true that infants and young children benefit from all of the rich sensory input that their natural social and play environments provide.

The fiction is that there is a time limit. The truth? Sensory stimulation, input, and cognitive exercise will stimulate brain development at any age.

There are now thousands of published research studies proving neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to adapt and to grow throughout the entire lifespan… even after stroke or brain damage later in life. Fact: the brain does not stop growing and learning as long as it is stimulated.

As with each of the myths, however, there are important nuances to the discussion that can’t all be addressed in a single chapter. Individuals with ASD are indeed individuals, each with unique strengths and challenges. Our science and understanding of the brain and learning is still not sophisticated enough to account for all of the individual differences and nuances that occur in the human spectrum. For some, it may be that the rate of learning certain kinds of skills like language slows down at age five while it speeds up for other kinds of learning like math. It’s not uncommon to hear that a child with ASD started to make more friends in middle school between eight and twelve years of age, for example.

Geraldine Dawson, a professor of psychology and director of the University of Washington Autism Center, whose research I admire, offers her opinion that “for all we know, a child with a developmental delay may have a longer window of opportunity for growth. I think it’s not helpful to alarm parents. I’ve seen kids who start late and quickly catch up, and a lot of kids with intensive early intervention who progressed slowly and then took off in elementary schools.”

No matter the reason for delayed development, five is an arbitrary age that has more to do with the age most children are during the first year of school than with learning or science.

Well-established concepts in neuroscience show how ready the brain is to learn early in life but there is no evidence that learning stops or slows down at three, or five, or at any specific age. There’s a scientific basis to tell parents that lots of learning can happen in the early years, but not one for suggesting it stops at five or gets more difficult later on.

I’ll stop there reading from my book. If you’re interested to read the full chapter or any of the other 6 myths of autism, you can get a copy on Amazon or order it at any bookstore.

Your A.I.M.

This week, I invite you to A.I.M. for a hopeful feeling that learning IS possible for any child, for any person, at any age and stage of development.

In directing therapy programs, I never promise what exactly a child will learn or how far they will go. But I always believe that some learning, a next best step, is possible.

In my work Directing the Integrative Multi-Treatment approach and deeply embedded in the curriculum of the amazing ThriveGuide app, we leverage what science has shown is one of the super-highways to learning that is positive human reciprocal relationship.

Jack Shonkoff, former Director of the Center on the Developing Child at the Harvard Graduate School of Education explained it this way:

“The interaction between genetics and experience that shapes brain architecture is embedded in the reciprocal relationship, the relationship that children have with the adults in their lives. By that, we mean what we refer to as the serve-and-return nature of children’s interaction with adults”

Basic, playful, loving back-and-forth interaction. Your turn, my turn. I throw, you catch. You run, I chase. A.I.M. to stimulate your child’s brain with reciprocal play to build strong neural connections for reciprocity.

Now, let go of any limiting beliefs about limited windows of learning time, and instead, commit your energy to the possibility that exists in this present moment.

Today, in this hour, right now learning is possible. Change IS possible!

If you enjoyed this AIM, please help us reach other parents by first liking this episode with a thumbs-up and then take one minute right now to forward it to another parent or educator who you think would benefit from hearing these ideas. 

Thank you and make the most of the week ahead.