The two -year -old Henry has been completely transfixed by the iPad in front of him. Every time a smiley face appears, he taps the screen – and its tap converts the face into a dancing animal cartoon.

It looks like a simple, repetitive game, but is actually a fundamental skill test that is developing in the growing brain of the child. Henry is wearing a sensor -laden cap, emerging with wires that are associated with a large piece of analytical machinery. While Henry plays the game, the cap is scanning its brain activity and making a picture how well he can control his decision.

It is a test of preventive control, one of the skills scientists of the Bristol University is measuring in infants and children, as part of a mission to understand how and when very young children develop abilities that enable them to focus and learn.

Scientists already know that these skills are important – but they do not yet know at what point they are installed in an infant brain.

Development of hundreds of children – from six months to the age of five – being tracked because they create major skills that will shape their educational and social abilities.

But what is really special about this leading project is that it is a human experiment within another decades long human experiment. Mothers of 300 children being studied are part of a project themselves, which also monitored their health in the 1990s, as they were also children.

Lifetime data are being collected that can now reveal the brain development of children being done and relationships between their parents’ health, experience and genetics.

For a study of child development, already all the rich information about parents is “completely unique in the world”, the lead researcher Dr. Carla Holmbo says.

“We have to know when different skills develop and we need to understand how individual children develop over time.”

Dr. Holmbo explains that the children who start schools continue to struggle.

“This may also continue in adulthood. Therefore, this is the entire period of development that we need to understand so that we can support children at a very young age.”

During the study, young participants and their parents are invited to the university psychology laboratory to play scientific games and measure their brain activity. Many people have MRI scans at the age of six months, three years and five, which create a true picture of their young, developing minds.

The key to the smiley face game is playing Henry where the face appears on the iPad screen. Just as the child is used on the face to pop up on the right side of his screen, it also appears randomly on the other side.

“We are seeing if Henry can only oppose the urge to tap on the right,” Research assistant carmel brow explains, “and instead see where the smiley face is.”

This skill, Dr. Holmbo explains, it is important when children start school.

“In a classroom, a child should be able to focus and not allow her attention to be attracted,” she says. “To learn new things, we must be able to stop old habits.”

In another room, Jackson, who is also two years old, is playing a game designed to test his working memory.

A research assistant encourages him to see him as he puts stickers in different utensils. The child is then asked to remember which vessels have stickers, and those who do not. Motivational factor? Jackson can keep all the stickers that he finds.

Dr. Holmboi explains, “The task memory happens when we need to keep some knowledge in our head to solve a problem or do a task – such as a puzzle, or even remembering that we put something two minutes before.” “For children, you can imagine that we need these skills when we learn mathematics or learn to read.

“These are what I really call the ‘building block’ of important skills.”

The study will also assess the development and speed of processing of language – a solution to how quickly children get new information.

Emily, who was studied as a child of the 90s, is Henry’s mother. Today, his young son sits on his lap as he works on one of the riddles designed by the research team.

“We both have been part of it since birth,” Emily says. “It was not an option for me in the beginning – my mother signed me. But it’s now, and I think it’s attractive.”

Dr. Holmbo says that it is aim to help children flourish in future. Because when children start school, she explains that “a lot of things are already set.

“This is the ground task that will help us support children at the right time.”

Henry and Jackson finished their puzzles and games and took off their brain-scanning cap.

“My boys just like to come here,” Emily says. “They all love toys – they get free snacks. So I will keep coming as long as they want.

“Why wouldn’t you want to be a part of it and may help in the coming generations to come?”

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