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Caregiver Handouts: Games and Activities that Build Brains and Executive Function Skills

Here you’ll find handouts with suggestions for games and activities to do with children of different ages. They can be shared at well child visits or when caregivers are looking for support with behavior. These activities can promote child-caregiver bonding, executive function skills, and build children’s brains through play.

Handout

Early Brain and Child Development 101: Why Peekaboo Matters

For Medical Students and Residents In medical school, we learn the science behind health and disease. How do nephrons filter blood that runs through the network of capillaries in the glomerulus, and what disease occurs when that process goes awry? How do myocytes conduct electricity, and how do aberrations in…

Handout

Executive Function: Information for Providers

This handout helps explain what executive function skills are, why they are important and how supporting their development can promote healthy child and adolescent development.

Handout

How to Help Families and Staff Build Resilience During the Covid-19 Outbreak

What can we do to build up and strengthen resilience during the COVID-19 outbreak? How can we build resilience to plan ahead for future times of crisis? This resource, with practical tips and suggestions for providers looking to support caregivers and each other, presents three science-based ways that we can…

Third Party Link

How to Motivate Children: Science-Based Approaches for Parents, Caregivers, and Teachers

How to Motivate Children: Science-Based Approaches for Parents, Caregivers, and Teachers…

Third Party Link

A Guide to Toxic Stress

This area of the website for the Center on the Developing Child provides a collection of resources for understanding toxic stress and resilience. A Guide to Toxic Stress…

Third Party Link

A Guide to Serve and Return: How Your Interaction with Children Can Build Brains

This page contains a collection of resources about the concept of “serve and return” interactions. It includes an introduction to the basics of serve and return and the science behind it and includes videos that can be shared with caregivers about how serve and return interactions build brains. For…

Third Party Link

Key Concepts: Brain Architecture

Brain Architecture…

Reading

Building Core Capabilities for Life

Third Party Link

Building Adult Capabilities to Improve Child Outcomes: A Theory of Change

Building Adult Capabilities to Improve Child Outcomes: A Theory of Change…

Brief

InBrief: The Foundations of Lifelong Health

This brief summarizes essential scientific findings from the Center publications, “The Foundations of Lifelong Health Are Built in Early Childhood”.

Brief

InBrief: The Science of Early Childhood Development

Brief

InBrief: The Impact of Early Adversity on Children’s Development

Third Party Link

The Lifelong Effects of Early Childhood Adversity and Toxic Stress

Read the article at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Third Party Link

Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Role of the Pediatrician: Translating Developmental Science into Lifelong Health

Read the article at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Third Party Link

Capitalizing on Advances in Science to Reduce the Health Consequences of Early Childhood Adversity

Read the article at JAMA Network.

Third Party Link

Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Impacts of Racism on the Foundations of Health

Read the article at Annual Reviews.

Brief

InBrief: The Science of Neglect

Brief

InBrief: Applying the Science of Child Development in Child Welfare Systems

Brief

InBrief: Early Childhood Mental Health

Third Party Link

Establishing a Level Foundation for Life: Mental Health Begins in Early Childhood

Establishing a Level Foundation for Life: Mental Health Begins in Early Childhood…

Brief

InBrief: Understanding the Science of Motivation

Working Paper

Understanding Motivation: Building the Brain Architecture That Supports Learning, Health, and Community Participation

Brief

InBrief: Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning

Working Paper

Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function

Brief

InBrief: The Science of Resilience

Third Party Link

Genes, Environments, and Time: The Biology of Adversity and Resilience

This February 2021 article by Tom Boyce, Pat Levitt, Fernando Martinez, Bruce McEwen and Jack Shonkoff article in the journal Pediatrics is one of two companion pieces. The article uses a gene-environment-time framework to look at the roles of genetic variation, environmental context, and developmental timing as they relate to…

Third Party Link

Leveraging the Biology of Adversity and Resilience to Transform Pediatric Practice

This February 2021 article by Jack P. Shonkoff, Thomas Boyce, Pat Levitt, Fernando D. Martinez and Bruce McEwen is one of two companion pieces in the journal Pediatrics. The article highlights how the different outcomes experienced by children are shaped by ongoing adaptations to context that begin very early and…

Working Paper