[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 47 (Tuesday, April 26, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     HEAD START AND EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT AMENDMENTS OF 1993

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am here today to discuss our Nation's 
children and the people who care for them. Thursday, April 28, 1994, is 
``take-your-daughter-to-work'' day. This is a day when parents are 
encouraged to bring their daughters to the workplace, therefore 
providing them with a view of the work opportunities available to them. 
Many job positions, particularly professional positions, have been 
historically viewed as ``men's work'' or ``women's work.'' Thursday is 
therefore a day dedicated to demonstrating that employment positions 
are no longer dependent upon one's gender. It is a day to show that 
girls--as well as boys--should aspire to any job they desire. This 
year, take-your-daughter-to-work day is expected to include the 
participation of several million girls in not only the United States, 
but also in Africa, Japan, Ireland, Britain, and Puerto Rico. 
Additionally, some businesses, such as USA Today, are encouraging 
visits from employees sons, as well as daughters. This will hopefully 
lead to greater acceptance and understanding of all individuals in all 
employment positions while providing young people with firsthand 
knowledge about employment opportunities and responsibilities.
  Mr. President, as well as actively combating gender discrimination in 
the workplace, our Nation also faces the challenge of providing 
adequate salaries for certain jobs. There are numerous difficulties in 
attracting high quality people to work with young children, 
particularly in Head Start and day care positions, because of the low 
wages associated with these professions. For this reason, early 
childhood professionals in North Dakota, including the North Dakota 
Association for the Education of Young Children, recognized April 21, 
1994, as national ``Worthy Wage Day''--a day designated to draw 
attention to the low compensation received by child care professionals.
  Early education of children is an investment with huge social and 
economic returns. Since the 1960's, Head Start has been an important 
part of this investment. Head Start has proven to be one of the most 
successful Federal programs ever, distinguishing itself as an effective 
and cost-efficient way to build a solid foundation for learning for 
millions of American children.
  I believe it is important to take action to ensure that this great 
American success story can continue and meet the challenges of the 
future.
  For these reasons, Mr. President, I introduced the Head Start and 
Early Childhood Development Amendments of 1993 (S. 1193) on July 1, 
1993. I am proud that portions of my bill, including provisions to 
upgrade Head Start employee benefits, were recently incorporated into 
the Head Start reauthorization bill, which will soon be considered by 
this body.

  Head Start, however, is only one part of our continuing effort to 
ensure the future success of our children. We must also focus on the 
basic interaction between children and the people that care for them, 
whether in Head Start or day care.
  Over the years, we have gained a better understanding of the 
development of the human brain. A recent New York Times article 
explains the results of studies in neuroscience that began as early as 
the 1960's. The experiments focused on the neural and cognitive 
development of the very young and their developmental process. The 
conclusion of these studies, not surprisingly, is that lack of 
stimulation leads to lack of neural development. It is now widely 
believed that newborns begin life with a profuse tangle of brain cells 
and synapses--a massive cerebral short circuit. Lack of stimulation in 
early life leads to a failure of synapses to connect. The Carnegie 
Corp. of New York published a report last week, discussing the 
relevance of these studies to children's development. If children do 
not receive adequate and appropriate stimulation in their early years, 
irreversible damage results, preventing them from developing their full 
potential.
  Neglecting children and neglecting appropriate child care retards the 
mental development of our children.
  We need to focus more energy on these issues because of the large 
number of single parent families and the high percentage of women in 
the work force. In my State of North Dakota, approximately 70 percent 
of women with preschool-aged children are in the work force. We must 
ensure that our children receive the care necessary for their full 
development. We must ensure that we attract high quality, well-trained 
people to the child care profession. The problem is that we do not pay 
child care professionals very well. This Nation needs to develop a 
benefits package, including retirement programs, to attract the best.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the April 17, 1994, 
article from the New York Times regarding the importance of appropriate 
care for children, especially very young children, be included in the 
record immediately following my remarks.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           Ideas and Trends; Building a Better Brain For Baby

                          (By George Johnson)

       In a series of classic experiments beginning in the early 
     1960's, neuroscientists subjected kittens to all kinds of 
     strange childhoods. Some were raised with one eye sutured 
     shut or covered by an opaque contact lens. Others were reared 
     in a visual world consisting of nothing but vertical or 
     horizontal stripes.
       Then, all of a sudden, the veils were lifted. Normalcy 
     prevailed. But from the point of view of the kittens, nothing 
     had really changed. Eyes deprived of light in those first 
     crucial days were now blind. Kittens raised in a vertical 
     world were unable to see horizontal lines. They might as well 
     have been asked to detect radio waves. For lack of 
     stimulation, the neurological wiring--the connections, called 
     synapses, that pass signals from neuron to neuron--had not 
     developed.
       Not all was lost, however. If the blinders were removed 
     early enough, the brain would spring back from the 
     deprivation. In a matter of days, new synapses sprouted. The 
     blind eye would learn to see, the brain to comprehend 
     perpendicularity. But if the scientists waited too long, the 
     damage was irreversible. The window of development slammed 
     shut forever.
       Use them or lose them. This lesson about synapses--long 
     known to neuroscientists--created a stir when it surfaced 
     last week in a report by the Carnegie Corporation of New York 
     about the plight of American children living in poverty.
       Raising the frightening possibility that deprived infants 
     are left with permanently stunted brains, the group called 
     for more support for child care and preschool programs like 
     Head Start; it asked for more liberal policies on family 
     leave. Otherwise, the implication was, children were in 
     danger of ending up like the kittens, neurologically walled 
     off from all but a fraction of the world's informational 
     riches.
       The vast, gray expense of neuroscientific literature is 
     full of studies that lend support to this grim possibility. 
     Over the years, scientists have shown that rats raised in 
     stimulating environments--a Coney Island of treadmills and 
     tunnels, with fellow rodents joining in the fun--seem to 
     develop a greater density of synapses--more connections--than 
     those raised in duller surroundings.
       In fact, it is now widely believed that newborns begin life 
     with a profuse tangle of brain cells and synapses--a massive 
     cerebral short circuit. Then, through a process of neural 
     sculpting, the excess is pruned away. Neurons die, synapses 
     become disconnected. How this topiary work comes out seems to 
     depend on which circuitry is stimulated in the early years of 
     life.
       The implication, apt to incite anxiety among even the most 
     attendant families, is that neglectful parents are guilty not 
     only of a sin of omission--not providing enough mental 
     stimulation--but of a sin of commission as well: fating their 
     children to confront the world with underdeveloped brains. 
     One can inflict permanent damage, it seems, without striking 
     a blow.
       Philosophers usually blame Descartes for the deeply 
     ingrained assumption that there is an unbridgeable divide 
     between the physical and the psychological, between the brain 
     and the mind. We distinguish between hurting someone bodily 
     and hurting someone mentally. Terrible as it is, 
     psychological damage might be corrected, or so we like to 
     believe. But if parental neglect closes off forever the 
     sculpting of certain neural pathways, then the damage is as 
     irreversible as that inflicted by malnutrition, foot binding 
     or breakfasts of lead paint chips.
       But before rushing off to buy another armload of videos or 
     the latest educational toys, parents might pause to consider 
     another study, also cited in the report, indicating that too 
     much stress in the early years can unleash hormonal poisons 
     that eat brain cells.
       How do you distinguish between stimulation and stress? It 
     is no doubt stimulating in the extreme to grow up next to a 
     fire station or under the tracks of the El. In this regard, 
     the most dangerous urban neighborhoods provide a more 
     stimulating environment than placid suburbia. Can too much 
     stimulation--all those spinning, bright cribside objects and 
     mandatory nursery rhymes--result in its own kind of abuse?
       These are the kinds of judgments that lie beyond the 
     laboratory studies. For all the efforts of neuroscience, 
     parenting seems likely to remain as much of an art as a 
     science.

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