Early Intervention, The Next Steps: An Independent Report to Her Majesty's Government

Abstract

Chapter 1 Early Intervention: providing the social and emotional bedrock for all children What you see consistently are children at a very early age starting school already behind.That's why I've said that I'm going to put billions of dollars into early childhood education Every dollar that we spend in early childhood education, we get $10 back in reduced dropout rates, improved reading scores.That's the kind of commitment we have to make early on.Barack Obama Chapter 2 Using our brains A lack of appropriate experiences can lead to alterations in genetic plans.Moreover, although the brain retains the capacity to adapt and change throughout life, this capacity decreases with age. 1Thus, building more advanced cognitive, social, and emotional skills on a weak initial foundation of brain architecture is far more difficult and less effective than getting things right from the beginning.