Читать книгу The Complete Parenting Collection - Steve Biddulph, Steve Biddulph - Страница 49

The brain of a baby in the womb grows very rapidly, developing in a month or two from just a few cells into one of the most complex structures in nature. By the sixth month of pregnancy, a foetus has impressive abilities, all controlled by its brain – such as recognising your voice, responding to movements, even kicking back when prodded! It can be seen with ultrasound to be actually moving its mouth as if it is singing in the womb.

At birth the brain is still only partially formed and only a third of its eventual size. It takes a long time for the brain to be completed. For instance, the language part of the brain is not fully formed until about the age of thirteen, which is why it is so important that boys are kept up with reading through the primary school years.

From very early on, gender differences are evident in the unborn baby’s brain. One difference is that a baby boy’s brain develops more slowly than a baby girl’s. Another difference is that the left and right sides are less well connected in a boy.

All animal brains have two halves. In simple animals (like lizards or birds) this means that everything is duplicated. A bang on the head might wipe out part of one half of the brain, but the other half can take care of things! However, in humans (who have a lot more to think about), the two brain halves specialise somewhat. One half handles language and reasoning; the other, movement, emotion and the senses of space and position. Both halves ‘talk’ to each other via a big central bundle of fibres called the corpus callosum. The corpus callosum in boys is proportionately smaller in size, so there are fewer connections running from one side to the other.

Boys tend to attack certain kinds of problems (such as a spelling quiz or word puzzle) using only one side of their brain, while girls use both sides. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain-scanning technology shows us that: the ‘lights go on’ all over a girl’s brain, while in a boy they tend to be localised on one part of one side only.