Quantifying the Benefits of Stimulation over Neglect in Early Childhood
Today’s post is about the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), which really deserves a mention somewhere in any autism blog. It has been going for many years but they recently added some very tangible MRI data. BEIP is a long term study lead by Charles Nelson, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. It compares the effect of neglect versus stimulation in early childhood. You may be wondering the relevance of this to autism, in particular since Kanner’s old theory about refrigerator mothers was debunked long ago. The study shows how physical development of the brain can be altered by the living environment of a young child. It reinforces the fact that institutionalized of young children, with or without developmental disorders, is precisely the wrong strategy. Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) The Bucharest Early Intervention Project was a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an intervention for children a...