Development; It is a dynamic process that progresses continuously, starting from the first minutes in the womb until it reaches the final stage with certain physical, mental, linguistic, emotional and social conditions. Healthy development in children is possible by providing appropriate environmental factors as well as hereditary factors. Growth, maturation and learning are different stages of development. While growth refers to volumetric expansion such as weight gain and height increase, it includes permanent changes in behavior as a result of learning, repetition and experience. Maturation proceeds spontaneously if there are no genetic disorders and lack of significant environmental stimulation. For example, when the muscles, bones and coordination skills reach sufficient maturity, the child begins to walk, hold a pencil, and ride a bicycle. Growth normally occurs in a healthy manner by providing appropriate and sufficient food intake.
Nowadays, developmental delays that do not have a genetic basis are becoming more common. The nervous system is the last system to complete its development in the human body and is therefore open to the positive/negative effects of external factors. With the disappearance of village life and neighborhood culture in cities, children became confined to housing estates and apartments. Developmental delays (especially autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit) have gradually increased as a result of children being deprived of the stimuli necessary for healthy development and being exposed to the harmful stimuli of city life. Among the negative external factors, the first thing we should mention is undoubtedly screen exposure. The age at which smartphones, tablets, computers and televisions enter a child's life has dropped below 12 months. If we summarize the negative effects seen in children who are exposed to these false stimuli, especially before the age of three; physical: headache, burning eyes, weakness, dizziness, sleep and nutrition disorders, Social-Emotional: communication problems, indifference to the environment, lack of self-confidence, behavioral disorders, emotional instability, Cognitive: speech, meaningful gestures and facial expressions, spelling, vocalization and sentence making, perception, memory, creativity, memory problems and academic failure.
What I see from my own experience is generally being able to feed him, prevent him from crying and take him home. We leave our children alone with screens for reasons such as returning home tired. However, we may be dealing with the disorders we cause, from speech disorders to autistic spectrum disorders, throughout our lives. We can achieve full recovery with the interventions we make, especially in the first three years of age, but some problems may become permanent at older ages. Autistic disorders, which are increasingly common today, may also develop due to hereditary factors, but we do not encounter autistic disorders without a genetic basis in children growing up in villages. We may not be able to escape from city life, but it is up to us to keep children away from screens, especially in the first three years.
For the development of the brain, appropriate stimuli of different qualities are required. The best stimulus is human relationship, nature, play and proper education. In summary, no visual program, including educational programs, is of any benefit to our children, especially in the first 3 years.
Read: 0
