Infants in the first year of life undergo extensive brain development in many areas. In fact, brain development is most rapid in the womb and during the first year of life and slows with time as the baby ages into a toddler and older child. Development of the infant brain takes place in all different areas, from sensory brain systems to motor skills to language, and these all develop rapidly in the first year of life.
The Newborn Brain
A newborn baby is primed to learn, and every waking moment, the baby is involved in taking in details about his surroundings and building synapses in the brain. The newborn brain already has billions of neurons, but the connections between those neurons have not yet developed in most cases. Bonding and stimulation such as reading to the baby, talking to the baby and interacting closely with the newborn activate those neurons and jump-start baby brain development.
Motor Skills
Motor skills and the brain areas that are associated with them grow differently in boy and girl babies. Boys will develop motor skills first as their brains develop from back to front, while girls develop the frontal parts of their brains first, where conscious thought is formed, and then the development will progress to the motor areas in the back. The brain areas involved in motor skills develop rapidly as the baby shifts from jerky large-muscle movements to fine movements of fingers, toes and other small muscles after 6 months of age.
Sensory Brain Development
In the first month or two of life, gentle sensory stimulation such as exposure to various forms of light, the sound of parents' voices, touch by parents and caregivers and different scents can stimulate these areas to grow and develop in the brain. The neurons for vision develop particularly quickly during the first year, starting with rapid synapse building during months 2 to 4, which peak in intensity around month 8 of the baby's life.
Memory
The memory functions of a baby's brain begin to develop even before birth. A newborn will recognize his mother and father's voices, indicating that these have been encoded in memory already. However, the hippocampus, the area of the brain most involved in forming memories, isn't fully developed until about age 3, so babies cannot create long-term specific memories of early events in their lives.
Language
Babies actually begin to understand language by 3 to 4 months of age, and they are even born with cries that mimic the tonal patterns of languages they heard in the womb. However, actual speech and the ability to make themselves understood doesn't usually come until age 12 to 14 months. Even before babies can speak themselves, their brain stores every sound they hear on a separate neuron, allowing them to set up their brain for speech.
