We made headlines in the Newspaper Público on July 22, 2021: “Playing creates highways in the brain”.
As part of the celebration of World Brain Day, marked on the day of launch of this news, Raquel Corval, a researcher at ProChild CoLAB warned that in the baby “the rhythm of synapses is mind-blowing, there are more than one million synapses per second” and that “it is very associated with the experiences that one has”.
Thus, the motto was laid for the importance of the child’s development in the first years and of the stimuli to which they are exposed in this period for this to occur. Parental involvement and sensitivity in these topics are critical. It is through play, interactions, the lap and the affective bond that is created, that the baby finds the comfort and conditions necessary for his learning.
This initiative comes as part of the First Years Our Priority campaign, coordinated in Portugal by the Nossa Senhora do Bom Sucesso Foundation and also had the interventions of Andreia Furtado, psychologist of the Aga Khan Foundation, also a partner in this campaign. In addition to mentioning the phrase that gave title to this news, Andreia Furtado stressed that “it is to play that children learn to learn” and that parents should go “to meet the child, with openness and curiosity”.