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What's stress got to do with self-regulation?

"Chronic stress is toxic to the developing brain," Dr Eric Pakulak said, citing years of previous neuroscience research. Dr Pakulak was an original member of Professor Neville's PCMC-A team. He notes that: "The same parts of the brain that are important for learning in early development are the same parts of the brain that help moderate the stress response.

How does this program help?

Back in the first PCMC-A classroom, Neville said, improvements were visible. "With the children having changes at home that help their attention -- this is a multiplier. It helps in learning in the classroom, playing games and sports. It helps kids focus. It is rewarding for the kids and the parents. With less stress, the children are better able to focus their attention."

Parental and children stress

Several studies document that acute and chronic stress adversely affects brain development, particularly the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, which are central to many aspects of attention, working memory, and executive function. Parent stress levels are also negatively correlated with children’s receptive and expressive vocabulary, although this relationship may be mediated by the quality of parent-child interactions and aspects of parent language use with the child.

The home environment contains multiple pathways that may impact children’s attention development, perhaps most importantly stress and parent-child interaction patterns.