#  AH125/SBS299 Course Description 

 



The primary aim of this course is to leverage advances in the biological, behavioral, and social sciences to catalyze more effective strategies to strengthen the foundations of healthy development in the early years of life. Drawing on a diversity of perspectives, students will learn how interactions among early experiences, variation in sensitivity to context, and developmental timing shape brain architecture and other biological systems that affect learning, behavior, and lifelong health. Particular attention is focused on how adverse experiences and exposures related to structural inequities (e.g., systemic racism, intergenerational poverty) as well as to individual disruptions of the caregiving environment (e.g., abuse or neglect) are embedded biologically and lead to significant disparities in educational achievement and both physical and mental well-being. Students from a diversity of backgrounds work on team projects over the course of the semester to explore how enhanced understanding of causal mechanisms that disrupt early development can stimulate fresh thinking and drive innovation in policy and practice to achieve greater impacts at scale on the lives of young children facing adversity. Permission of instructor required. Recommended/intended for students who are motivated to be change agents in practice, policy, and/or research.