Revealing misunderstandings about children’s brain science: The storage capacity of the right brain is 100,000 times that of the left brain?

Some time ago, a reader left a message in the background about his confusion. His child is 3 years old and does not learn things very quickly. He worries that this is because the child\’s brain is not developed enough. He would like to ask what parents can do to stimulate their children\’s right-brain potential. After asking him about his child\’s performance in detail, he felt that there was not much of a problem with his child\’s learning ability. If we insist on it, then children\’s learning will always be slower than that of talented players. So, I comforted her and said that life is like running a marathon. If you win at the start, you may not win at the end. Just because a child is slower in learning now does not mean that he will not be able to study well in the future. However, the other party did not believe it, and instead told me that he had seen this statement in an early childhood education institution: \”Children\’s brains have infinite possibilities, especially the right brain. The information storage capacity of the right brain is 100,000 times higher than that of the left brain, so it has greater High development potential. The reason why Einstein is so smart is because his right brain is developed.\” However, is our right brain really more powerful than our left brain? Does a child’s brain have unlimited possibilities? I think there are some misunderstandings here. ▼ It is not scientific to develop the left and right brains separately. Speaking of Einstein’s brain, Thomas Harvey cannot be mentioned. At that time, Harvey was the chief pathologist at Princeton Hospital. After Einstein\’s death, he was assigned to examine Einstein\’s body. It was this opportunity that gave him the opportunity to obtain Einstein\’s brain, cut it into 240 pieces, and made it into an experimental specimen. Maybe it was because Harvey\’s academic ability was insufficient, or maybe it was because he was restricted by the scientific research environment at that time. It was not until 30 years after Einstein\’s death that research reports on Einstein\’s brain began to appear. However, none of these studies mentioned that Einstein had a powerful right brain. On the contrary, according to a paper published by Harvey and other scientists in the famous journal \”The Lancet\”, Einstein\’s parietal lobe part of the brain is more symmetrical than that of ordinary people. This is mainly due to the fact that his left parietal lobe is larger than ordinary people, and the size and The morphology is similar to the right parietal lobe. In other words, Einstein\’s left brain seemed more developed than his right brain. Isn\’t this contrary to the views of those advocates of right-brain development? However, can we conclude now that if we want our children to be smart, we need to develop the left brain? I think the answer is no. First, there are many factors that can change the brain besides how you are raised. Continuing to take Einstein as an example, first of all, he was bilingual and a violin player. It is said that he was a little autistic and even had language difficulties and reading difficulties in his childhood. These innate traits and acquired experiences may make the brain different. . Second, for most people, the functional differences between the left and right brains are not that big. Because the size of the left and right brains is almost the same, the neurons are roughly the same, and the lateralization of the left and right is not absolute. If a child\’s left hemisphere is damaged during childhood, his speech function can be replaced by the right hemisphere. Until now, there is still no scientific evidence that the left brain is responsible for logic and the right brain is responsible for creativity. At present, the general view among neuroscientists is that although the functions of the two hemispheres of the brain existThere is asymmetry, but they do not operate separately, but complete all cognitive tasks together. Our brains are highly integrated, with few separate brain areas working. In other words, everything we do requires the involvement of both left and right brains at the same time. For example, learning mathematics involves not only abstract thinking ability, but also reading comprehension ability and emotional management ability, which will affect the learning results. Learning is a lifelong matter. In addition to left-brain and right-brain development, I also heard about children’s learning potential. It is said that children’s brains only develop when they are young. If this stage is missed, the child’s learning ability will be greatly reduced. People who agree with this statement once told me: The brain of a fetus develops rapidly in the mother\’s belly. Until 2 years old after birth, brain cells continue to divide, increase in number and size, and stop after the age of 2. proliferation. Learning relies on connections between neurons, called synapses. The growth of synapses in children\’s brains is in an inverted \”U\” shape. After the baby is born, synapses begin to be produced rapidly and in large quantities, and some synapses reach their peak at the age of 2 to 3 years. Therefore, it stands to reason that this is the time when a child’s learning ability is at its highest. However, is it good to have high synaptic density? The higher the synaptic density, the stronger the child\’s learning ability. For most children, the density of synapses in the areas of speech, vision, and hearing reaches its peak before the age of 1 year. The density of synapses in areas responsible for advanced thinking such as abstract thinking and logical thinking reaches its highest between 2 and 3 years old. However, the density of synapses begins to gradually decrease at the age of 3, and shows a very sparse state by the age of 10. In the process of reducing brain synapses, children\’s learning ability has been greatly improved. When a child is 0 to 15 months old, the synaptic density of language and hearing neurons is at its highest, and the vocabulary can only reach 5 to 15 words; after the age of 5, when the density of neuron synapses in this area is very sparse, The vocabulary learned each week exceeds the vocabulary learned in the previous year. When a child is 2 to 3 years old, the neuron synapses for abstract thinking reach their peak, but they do not have the ability to think abstractly. However, children\’s abstract thinking ability needs to wait until after the age of 6 to develop. Learning is a regular thing. If you take your time and don\’t rush, you may be able to achieve better results. There are many misunderstandings about children’s education. For example, good education should start with prenatal education. Sorry, so far, there is no scientific evidence to prove that prenatal education products have any help to fetal brain development, and no relevant information can be found. There is no strong evidence to prove that prenatal education courses can permanently improve the intelligence level of fetuses. For the fetus, the greatest benefit of the womb is that it is dark, warm, quiet and safe. Playing Mozart to the stomach every day may damage the hearing of the fetus. Another example is to develop children\’s IQ early. IQ is the key to success – IQ is very important, but other things are still important. A child\’s behavioral and emotional self-control and learning motivation will have a profound impact on the child\’s future. The person with the highest IQ in the world is South Korea\’s Kim Eun-young. He has an IQ of 210. He learned to walk and talk in 5 months and mastered calculus at 3 years old., can speak many foreign languages ​​at the age of 4, and is currently engaged in scientific research. But when it comes to lifetime achievements, he is far behind Einstein and Hawking, whose IQs are 60 or 70 points lower than his. IQ is only one of the factors that affects a child\’s future. When the child is still young, it is also very important to allow the child to grow up healthily and happily, to be curious about the world, and to learn to resist setbacks. Finally, some small suggestions. Last year, the Center on the Development of Childhood at Harvard University published its thirteenth white paper. This book released research: Which children can resist the adversity of life and finally become successful? This decades-long survey found that children who can adapt to difficult situations and setbacks and ultimately succeed have at least one stable and reliable caregiver, a parent, a teacher or someone else during their growth. Rogers said: Day after day, we feed our children, change their diapers, dress them, arrange games, and wipe their tears. In such seemingly mundane life and work, we sometimes forget our own importance…especially in the lives of the children under our care and education. For children\’s education, our companionship is more important than various brain development. Because in the end, what has the greatest influence on our children is our sincerity and attitude towards the world. Of course, the following methods are also good for children\’s brain development. Encourage children to play. Not only children need time to play, but children over 12 years old also need time to play. For children, play is the best way to learn. For older children, play can also be fun and stimulate the secretion of dopamine. Playing can make children’s brains smarter, because during play, children’s imagination, communication, problem-solving, experimentation, cooperation, trial and error, creation and emancipation of ideas are all effectively exercised, which are all necessary for survival and development in the 21st century. required abilities. Encouraging children to exercise has a positive stimulating effect on the brain. In addition to promoting the body\’s muscle control of movements, this kind of exercise can also increase the energy supply to specific areas of the brain and improve the brain\’s memory and learning abilities. Ensuring 5 hours of exercise per week is very helpful for children to improve their concentration in learning, especially those who cannot sit still and have disease characteristics (such as ADHD). Lower your expectations and be willing to accompany your child to make progress slowly. There are two parts of our brain that are closely related to memory, namely the hippocampus and the amygdala. Among them, the hippocampus, as the manufacturing factory of memory, can classify external information as needed, select useful information and transfer it to the cerebral cortex for storage, forming a stable long-term memory. When the hippocampus is active, memory is enhanced accordingly. However, while the hippocampus is working hard, the amygdala attached to the end of the hippocampus is \”making trouble\”. The amygdala can be said to be the nerve group of emotional memory. It can judge whether the current situation is dangerous or safe as quickly as possible, and respond physically or emotionally, choosing to fight or flee. When the amygdala makes a danger judgment, the memory storage system and memory output system of the hippocampus are inhibited. When we give our children too high expectations and the children never meet them, anxiety will cause the amygdala to start working, affectingIt affects the normal operation of the hippocampus, causing memory to be unable to be stored and retrieved. The more anxious a child is, the less able he is to remember knowledge and study well.