Playtime With Mom Helps Boost Toddlers' Under-Developed Brains - NPR Audio

Due to malnourishment, some 200 million toddlers in poor countries have under-developed brains. A study in the journal Science suggests more play time with mom can dramatically reverse the damage.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Now we have a story about the power of play. Some 200 million toddlers in poor countries are starting life with an extra burden. Because of malnourishment or disease, these kids are small for their age and their brains are underdeveloped. The consequences of this can haunt them into adulthood. But here's some positive news - there's a study in the journal Science suggesting that more play time with parents can dramatically reverse the damage suffered by these kids. NPR's Nurith Aizenman reports.

NURITH AIZENMAN, BYLINE: The year was 1986, the place Kingston, Jamaica. Susan Walker and some other researchers from the University of the West Indies, they were driving around the city's poorest neighborhoods, a lot of one-room huts with no electricity. They were looking for children, children whose bodies and brains were developmentally behind. And they wanted children who were very young, babies as little as 9-months-old to toddlers.

SUSAN WALKER: Often, you could go into the home and see a child just sitting there, not really doing very much. There were very few toys in the home, very few things for the children to play with. There wouldn't be anybody actually necessarily sticking with the child and trying to engage them in an activity.

AIZENMAN: Walker and the others wanted to test a theory they had been working on - what if you could get the mothers to play more with their children? Would the stimulation help these kids' brains catch up? So they trained community health workers to go into the homes once a week for an hour to teach the mother's to engage more with their children. Like this.

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