This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

The everyday moments parents spend reading books, solving puzzles and playing with their toddlers may do more than create memories. New research shows these simple interactions engage young brains in ways that screen time cannot.

For the first time, Northwestern University researchers show how toddlers' brains respond during natural moments of play with their parent or caregiver using child-friendly electroencephalography (EEG). Comparing those moments with periods spent watching a movie together, the study found that those playful, interactive moments are associated with increased brain activity linked to attention, learning and social processing.

"We know that parent-child interactions are key for children's development, and this work highlights how meaningfully connecting with your child in play and book reading shifts their brain into a learning mode," said Elizabeth Norton, senior author of the study, associate professor in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and director of Northwestern's Language Education and Reading Neuroscience (LEARN) Lab.

Co-led by Norton and Laurie Wakschlag, professor of child psychiatry at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, the research is part of the larger study "When to Worry" about children's language and mental health development. It is published in a special issue of the journal Brain and Language.

Norton called the research a "paradigm shift" in studying brains in the "real world," not just in artificial lab environments.

Source link