Although Brain Under Construction follows William Staso's first book, What Stimulation Your Baby Needs to Be Smart, it works quite well as a stand-alone book. It targets a specific age group (8 months to 18 months) and contains research and suggestions with a somewhat balanced amount of theory and practice. Even though this is a rather small window (10 months), it is a crucial time for brain development.
Staso's book explains the reasoning behind the need for appropriate stimulation, and details how young toddlers learn. Best of all, it contains loads of suggestions of activities to help develop your baby's understanding of key concepts and ideas. The author presents a very convincing argument that many experiences a young toddler has can be arranged in such a way to help improve cognitive and adaptive skills.
I have found the practical applications very helpful. Specific suggestions of activities are detailed and really seem to work in practice! Interestingly, Staso's suggestions for activities don't require fancy materials or toys — in fact, regular household items are used and actually are preferred. He reasons that manipulation of "real" items have much more power in terms of development of the brain than toys. For example, the idea of a child learning that if he turns a knob on a toy, an object will pop up is not as powerful as the idea of turning a doorknob to enter a room.
Throughout the book there are real-life examples of babies and their development. Staso presents a list of concepts that he feels are valuable to teach babies 8-18 months (for example, the more obvious concepts of up/down, in/out, off/on, etc., and even less obvious ones like center/edge and more/less) and presents real-life practical activities that will help a child learn them. He emphasizes teaching babies basic science concepts like placing an item at the top of a ramp to see what will happen — a toddler will see how a ball and a banana react quite differently. Another example activity involves taking tours around the house that get increasingly more organized ("let's find all the places where there is water") as children develop. Staso suggests activities that demonstrate the meaning of the words "who", "where", and "what", and even the more complex concepts of "why" and "how". An appendix discusses academic readiness and the expectations for a child entering Kindergarten in terms of his or her understanding of basic concepts. The book clearly helps a parent to lay a solid foundation for learning these concepts.
I have used many of the suggestions from this book and found them to be extremely practical and realistic. The activities are simple yet powerful, and it is evident that Staso actually worked with real babies before presenting his findings. The book got me thinking and inspired me to extend the activities beyond the 18 month period. After reading Brain Under Construction, never will I look at babies' play the same way! It is well-written, easy to understand, and clearly organized so that if you want to skip the theory and go right to the practical applications, it is easy to do so. Also, the 10 month period is further divided into 8-12 months and 13-18 months (which is logical -- an 8 month old child's abilities are dramatically different than an 18 month old's aptitudes). An important theme throughout the book is an emphasis on having fun with your child, and cautions about overstimulation (quantity of arranged experiences is not as important as their quality).
