DOWNLOAD VIDEO

Essential question

How much of an influence does a baby’s environment and care have on how they later do in school and as an adult?

---

A national program focused on supporting new mothers and their babies has demonstrated that early learning improves lives later on. Nurse Family Partnership provides low-income, first-time mothers with support through at-home visits from nurses to help them through pregnancy and the first two years of their child’s life. Even before a child speaks its first words or takes its first step, its environment and those around it begin influencing cognitive development. Nurses explain to the new mothers why talking and reading to their babies improves their language development and helps them avoid developmental delays. Since high-poverty homes are most vulnerable to the negative effects of stress, depression and sometimes abuse, early intervention to improve the lives of both parent and baby helps avoid more need for social services down the line, experts say. So far, the program has shown a 48 percent reduction in child abuse and 82 percent increased employment for mothers. Both Democrats and Republicans see the benefit of the program, and Congress recently voted to supply home-visit programs with $800 million in new funding.

---

Key terms

brain (neural) development — refers to the study or processes that generate and shape the nervous system, from the earliest stages of development to the final years of life cognition – relating to conscious intellectual activity, such as thinking or reasoning cognitive development –the construction of how thoughts come together in the brain, including memory, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood to adulthood

Warm up questions ( before watching the video)

1. What do you think are some of the challenges of being a new parent?


2. What is unique about how babies’ brains develop?


3. Why is it important for new mothers, particularly from low-income backgrounds, to receive support and information about raising a healthy baby?

Critical thinking questions ( after watching the video)

1. Why do you think the Nurse Family Partnerships program has proved to be so beneficial for the child?


2. How has technology played a role in showing how early support for mothers in the Nurse-Family Partnership program has had a positive impact on their children’s brain development?


3. Do you think home visit programs like the Nurse-Family Partnership should continue to receive government funding?