An anonymous reader here forwarded an excellent article, The Two
Year Window from last year's The New Republic (December 1,
2011), which offers an example of the effects of nurturing on
brainwaves in children and the damage that occurs during harsh
conditions and neglect (access the full article as a pdf HERE).
I'm very grateful for the concise presentation, as it saves me
quite a bit of writing! (And I'm grateful to whoever went to the
effort of forwarding me a copy of the article.) A related
editorial at The New Republic website offers some additional
supporting material, but I have consistently been unable to get
the link to work. At the outset, I would like to point out that
the brain is a most “plastic” or mold-able organ and can develop
and reroute neural pathways, rewiring itself, but the early
years of childhood are critically important as this article
demonstrates quite well. The article details the study of
children in orphanages in Romania, and one of the assessment
tools they used to evaluate chil