About Us
Collaborative Effort
The Brain Game was born when the Director of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families spoke to the Rotary Club of La Crosse, WI. She was excited to spread the word of new, cutting-edge research into early child brain development. More than ever before, scientists had discovered that proper stimulation of children in the first three years could play a huge role in growing a healthy brain.
Interested in getting this information into plain English (and later Spanish) that regular parents could use, a coalition was formed. This group effort involved pediatricians, early childhood development experts, and neonatologists, in partnership with two major medical centers, local schools, and parenting resource agencies.
After two years of research, the first book was published. Since that time, every new parent in the La Crosse, WI area has received a free copy. The book has been purchased for use by major city charities, medical centers in many states, and service clubs across the US and Canada. It has even been translated into Spanish. Now in its fourth edition, it has been substantially revised after surveys, follow-up discussions with pediatricians, a child neurologist, and feedback from parents/caregivers.
The Science Behind the Book
The Brain Game isn’t a collection of general parenting tips. Every activity in it is grounded in what researchers have learned about how a young child’s brain actually grows and timed to match the stages when that growth is happening.
A brain built through experience. A baby is born with roughly 100 billion neurons, nearly all the brain cells they will ever have. What the early years build is not new cells but the connections between them. According to Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, a young child’s brain forms hundreds of new neural connections every second in the first years of life—a pace never matched again. These connections are the “wiring” that lets a child see, hear, move, speak, think, and feel.
Use it or lose it. The brain builds far more connections than it will keep. The ones a child uses regularly grow stronger and last; the ones that go unused are gradually cleared away in a natural process called pruning. In other words, a child’s everyday experiences literally shape the architecture of their brain. That’s why what parents and caregivers do—early and often—matters so much.
The power of “serve and return.” One of the most well-documented drivers of healthy brain development is simple back-and-forth interaction. When a baby babbles, gestures, or cries and a caring adult responds—with words, eye contact, a song, or a hug—it strengthens the exact neural circuits that support language, learning, and emotional health. This is the heart of The Brain Game: turning ordinary moments into building blocks for a child’s future.
A critical, time-sensitive window. By age three, a child’s brain has reached roughly 80% of its adult size. Simpler connections for the senses form first, followed by the more complex circuitry behind language and higher-level thinking. Because these foundations are laid so early, and are much harder to build later, the first 36 months are a genuinely unique opportunity. The good news, and the reason this book exists, is that parents and caregivers are in the best possible position to make the most of it.
The Brain Game takes this research and puts it into plain, encouraging language, organized by the child’s age, so that every parent can confidently do the things that help a child’s brain grow strong.