Using cutting-edge science to help parents unlock their brain-building powers
Foundational interactions: Vroom’s three core science principles
1. Positive Adult-Child Relationships
Positive, supportive experiences with parents and other adults are important to children’s brain development. These foundational interactions build brain architecture and help ensure that children will have strong and resilient brains.
Vroom Tips give parents effective, easy ways to promote learning and bond with their child. It’s ideal to brain build from birth, but it’s never too late to start.
2. Back and Forth Interaction
During the earliest years of life, back and forth interactions between a child and caregivers create millions of neural connections in the child’s rapidly growing brain. Keeping the realities of busy parents in mind, we designed the Vroom Brain Building Basics—Look, Follow, Chat, Take Turns, and Stretch—to turn interactions that happen during shared time into brain building moments.
These Basics (and our related Vroom Tips) encourage parents to build their child’s brain by making eye contact, chatting from birth on, stretching out moments with follow-up comments or questions, and more. Vroom makes it easy for parents to create connections that help their children thrive now and in the future.
3. Life Skills that Promote Executive Function
Life skills that promote strong executive functions—skills that might sound complicated to learn and promote—can actually develop naturally through positive childhood experiences. Life skills are critical during children’s earliest years as well as in the future. They include focus, self control, problem-solving, and taking on challenges. Vroom tips help parents build their child’s skills in these important areas.
Meet the experts dedicated to science-based early learning
To develop Vroom, we worked with other leaders in neuroscience, psychology, behavioral economics, parenting and early childhood development. Their work together informs Vroom Tips—and everything else we do.
Learn more about early learning’s groundbreaking studies
Diamond, Adele. “Why Improving and Assessing Executive Functions Early in Life Is Critical.” Executive Function in Preschool-Age Children: Integrating Measurement, Neurodevelopment, and Translational Research., pp. 11–43.
Blair, Clancy, et al. “Two Approaches to Estimating the Effect of Parenting on the Development of Executive Function in Early Childhood.” Developmental Psychology, vol. 50, no. 2, 2014, pp. 554–565.
Allan, Nicholas P., et al. “Relations between Inhibitory Control and the Development of Academic Skills in Preschool and Kindergarten: A Meta-Analysis.” Developmental Psychology, vol. 50, no. 10, 2014, pp. 2368–2379.
Best, John R., et al. “Relations between Executive Function and Academic Achievement from Ages 5 to 17 in a Large, Representative National Sample.” Learning and Individual Differences, vol. 21, no. 4, 2011, pp. 327–336.
Weisleder, Adriana, and Anne Fernald. “Talking to Children Matters.” Psychological Science, vol. 24, no. 11, Oct. 2013, pp. 2143–2152.
Brooks, Rechele, and Andrew N. Meltzoff. “Connecting the Dots from Infancy to Childhood: A Longitudinal Study Connecting Gaze Following, Language, and Explicit Theory of Mind.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 130, 2015, pp. 67–78.
Ramãrez-Esparza, Nairán, et al. “Look Who's Talking NOW! Parentese Speech, Social Context, and Language Development Across Time.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, 2017
Groh, Ashley M., et al. “Attachment in the Early Life Course: Meta-Analytic Evidence for Its Role in Socioemotional Development.” Child Development Perspectives, vol. 11, no. 1, 2016, pp. 70–76.
Brotman, Laurie Miller, et al. “Effects of ParentCorps in Prekindergarten on Child Mental Health and Academic Performance.” JAMA Pediatrics, vol. 170, no. 12, Jan. 2016, p. 1149.
Bindman, Samantha W., et al. “Do Children's Executive Functions Account for Associations between Early Autonomy-Supportive Parenting and Achievement through High School?” Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 107, no. 3, 2015, pp. 756–770.