Who says at-risk infants and children can’t do it? Raise potential and grow grit by offering challenge amid rich milieus

Ideas drive social innovation, but unjust mindsets hurt babies; social and physical pain fire along the same neural circuits. Bias facing young babies born with congenital or other early medical conditions puts them at risk of less optimal cognitive functioning. Early vulnerabilities such as neurologically rooted quests for safety make stopping bias against infants with early cognitive risk uniquely compelling. I highlight a novel theory that others’ expectations of these babies is a game-changing factor in how they eventually think and function. I illustrate using anecdotal data from my now adult son with Trisomy 21. I draw from my published and unpublished data on bias by pediatricians and early intervention workers, and my model for re-writing medical narratives, I point to the Rosenthal effect where bias plays out to cause what an observing group expects—learned helplessness and giving up on trying to think well. I build a case that all brains are neuroplastic—that it is milieu enrichment which matters in whether at risk children thrive despite lower anticipated outcomes. A growth mindset aids young brains to optimally function amidst social threats of judged incompetence and stigma. Ample Romanian orphanage data show disrupted brain structure and function after growing up with chronic social threat in less enriched milieus, but animal models demonstrate repair and prevention of neurocognitive decline. I close with the idea that we must leverage a paradigm shift. Diagnoses that signal lower abilities do not match families’ impressions or accumulating scientific data which speak to the brain’s amazing ability to recover after insult.

To be updated shortly..