Insights into Early Learning & the Brain

Understanding the "Brain Fuel" that Shapes How We Learn and Who We Are

You're invited to Skagit County Child and Family's Forum "Insights into Early Learning & the Brain" with Dr. Gina Lebedeva from UW's Institute for Learning and Brain Science. To register:

 

CLICK HERE

 

The exuberant learning that occurs during infancy and early childhood sets the foundation for a lifetime of learning.  Building on decades of basic research, we are now poised to integrate key findings across different disciplines, and apply converging principles to practice in classrooms, community programs, and everyday life at home.  There is now a more nuanced understanding of the "continuity of learning" that exists from infancy onward, where different "windows of opportunity" exist for optimal brain development in various areas of learning.  In particular, the last decade has revealed compelling evidence regarding how we can utilize measures of infants' and toddler's behaviors, brain and social environments to predict later skills, which in turn are directly linked to school readiness and social success.  Today, I will share some recent discoveries in developmental neuroscience that are not only revealing that the earliest roots of a person's cognitive and social characteristics start well before first words, but are also reshaping how we define the quality of environments for early learning, right down to the first relationships a child develops.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Gina Lebedeva is the Translation, Outreach, and Education (TOE) Director at the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS).

Dr. Lebedeva has experience as both a research scientist and a Speech-Language Pathologist. Her doctoral research explored language acquisition and relationships between speech perception, emergent language, early literacy and word learning in toddlers. Her clinical work focused on early intervention and infant mental health. With a foundation in evidence-based practice and coaching the caregiver-infant relationship, her areas of interest are in early social-emotional, linguistic, and literacy development.

Prior to joining UW, her research in psycholinguistics led to a magna cum laude BS from Cornell University, after which she managed the Language and Cognition Lab at Columbia University. Combining her interdisciplinary interests, she believes that by translating research on how early experiences sculpt the brain, we can better support children's learning, whether through policies, classroom practices or everyday interactions.

Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences Website:

ilabs.washington.edu