The benefits of culture for early years (Italy) Giorgio Tamburlini, Paediatrician & President, Centre for Child Health and Development, Trieste, Italy at the 5th edition of the OECD Summer Academy on Cultural and Creayive Industries and Local Development, 2022. More info https://oe.cd/sacci

1. The benefits of culture for the early years
Giorgio Tamburlini

2. outline
• How the child’s brain develops in the first years of life: the role of
early interactions
• Responsive caregiving, development- focused practices and their
benefits for child development
• What is a «cultural environment» for the child? and what
professionals of the culture system need to know?

3. Most of child brain
develops in the first
1000 days and brain
plasticity is maximal
in this period
Brain development
depends on early,
responsive
interactions
(nurturing care)

4. Interaction starts
before birth
Very premature babies
(<1250 gr, 28 weeks og
gestational age) exposed to
the voice of their parents
while in Intensive Therapy
Unit start their vocalizations
much earlier than VPN who
were not exposed
Pediatrics 2011;128:910–916

5. Interaction is
body contact,
voice, gaze,
movement, play

6. Responsive
caregiving is….
• Mindfulness of infant
thoughts and emotions
• «Contingent»
responsiveness to infants
cues
• Shared attention
• Affection, Praise….

7. The «miracle» of shared attention
The neuropsychological rationale: when
attention is shared between the child and
the caregiver, when the child ‘s action is
accompanied and valued, the activation of
the child’s neural networks is enhanced
The empiric evidence: when traditional
parenting classes are combined with
sessions of shared activities between
parents and their children, the results are
greater for both parents (responsiveness)
and children (developmental indicators)
Our experience with Nati per Leggere and
Villaggi per crescere (centres for children
and parents) confirms the results of several
studies

8. How to obtain and sustain
the child’s attention
• Through dialogue which
acnowledges, confirms, elicits…
• Through play…by asking, guessing,
playing roles, offer objects and
activities

9. Working with parents, all parents, is crucial,
particularly in the first years of life
…because it is an investment on factors that
synergically shape child development
Cognitive stimuli
Responsive interactions
Parental self-efficacy

10. The mechanism:
positive, responsive parenting neural networks
cognitive and non-cognitive skills
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Linguaggio ricettivo Linguaggio espressivo
Vocabolario
intervention
control

11. The benefits. Examples from shared reading
Socio-relational development
(emotions,mindfulness…)
Long term impact (numeracy and
literacy skills, life skills, overall school
performance) on individuals as well
as on communities
Cognitive development
(language, executive functions)

12. IDELA study (Italy, 2019) : child cognitive and social skills
related to parental SES, day care and…reading at home
Reading at home
Never or very rarely At least 3 times

13. Social and emotional skills at age 5 by frequency
of home reading
(OECD, 2020, Early Learning and Child Well-being Study)

14. What is a «cultural environment» for a 0-3 year-old child?
• Opportunities to see, feel, hear, touch new objects, environments,
people
• To share these experiences with the loved ones
• To have their attention recognized, their curiosity stimulated, their
wonder shared
• In pratice…culture is to have opportunities of responsive
interactions around many new experiences
• There are practices that are particularly effective in promoting child
development and caregiver-child responsive interactions

15. Development-focused good practices
(shared reading, music, play…but also looking together at and having a
dialogue on handicraft, art, gardens and natural landscapes…)
How do they work?
• By activating and developing neural
networks, particularly in sensitive
periods
• By activating virtuos cycles of
interaction between
parents/caregivers and children

16. «cultural» programs for young children in Italy
• Nati per leggere: shared reading
• Nati per la musica: shared sound and music experience
• Nati per la Cultura: free access to libraries, museums, concert halls

17. The «Nati per Leggere» way
• Multiprofessional training
• Local multiprofessional networks
• Working with all media
• Involving all possible partners
• Buiding awareness about the need of
investing in ECD among national and
local governments and professionals

18. What a professional of the culture system
should know
• Something about early child development and its determinants
• How attention develops and how it can be obtained and sustained
• How parents can be encouraged and facilitated in using a cultural
space/experience
• How a space can become a family-friendly space
• How to reach out for all families

19. grazi
One of the greatest challenges of our time is to improve the way
parents relate with their children, because whether or not the
other challenges (climate, peace, …) are addressed effectively
depends greatly on the way children are raised
www.csbonlus.org