STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Lindsey Emmer smiled as she drew a Life Experience card that said her child had received parental leave for newborns so the parents could tend to its every need for the first months of its life. Stephanie Ernst followed that up with a card noting that that the parents had found a supportive caregiver.

A third card showed that the infant suffered from some sort of illness in its first year, but that didn’t affect it negatively, thanks to the support it was receiving.

Others sitting around the room at the Limelight Hotel Ketchum were not so lucky.

Sally Gillespie checks out the strength of a pipe cleaner as Andrea and Cam Evans look on.

One infant was born prematurely into a home where it encountered severe neglect. On top of that, its caregiver had severe depression.

These are a couple of the scenarios make-believe children in the room faced as dozens of people played the Brain Architecture Game, a game developed at Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child to show how adults can support relationships that strengthen children’s development.

The evening of brain building was sponsored by the Spur Community Foundation at Ketchum’s Limelight Hotel over a dinner of pizza and Pellegrino drinks.

Earlier, parent peer support specialist Florina Ruvio had given a brief premier on ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences. ACEs are traumatic things that happen to a child before the age of 18. They can include growing up in a home with substance abuse problems, divorce or even being left to grieve the loss of a loved one without the help of an adult to sort it out.

The Hunger Coalition’s Molli Linnet, Fernanda Hausske and Rosmery Serva work on what Linnet said was going to be a skyscraper.

“They occur across the spectrum regardless of your income, race or where you come from,” said Ruvio.

The more ACEs a child has the more likely they are to suffer from chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, in adulthood. Those with higher number of ACEs tend to have lower education levels and a harder time finding good paying, stable jobs.

“Even if you're not a smoker, you're three times more likely if you have four or more ACEs to develop lung disease,” said Ruvio.

Sixty percent of adults report one or more ACEs nationally and 12.5 percent, four or more. One in four Idahoans reported four or more, according to a 2020 study.

Betsey Aalfs and Pia Saengswang build their brain on behalf of the Flourish Foundation, along with Ryan Redman and Erin Kesselman 9not pictured).

But ACEs are not destiny, Ruvio added. Anytime you talk about ACEs, it's important to talk about HOPE—or Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences--as well, because they can change the trajectory.

The four building blocks of HOPE include social engagement that develops a sense of belonging, personal growth through playing and interacting with peers and safe stable environments for living, playing and learning, They buffer toxic stress, giving children the tools they need to help face challenges.

“The most recent research shows that positive childhood experiences are actually even more impactful than the ACEs,” Ruvio said. That’s because time spent on playing peek-a-boo or teaching a child to read causes certain circuits to be wired and strengthened during development.”

Wiring that’s used less does not become as strong and gets pruned away.

Stephanie Ernst, DeAnn Campbell, Lindsey Emmer and Narda Pitkethly built a brain that could hold three weights by game’s end.

The brain has a lot of little rooms and each room has a different function, Ruvio told those in attendance. They connect together like a house that’s wired together. That means teachers and coaches who spend time with kids can influence experiences and help build or wire the brain’s architecture as they play with the child or teach the child to read.

“What happens is that experiences you have cause brain cells to connect together, like a house that's getting wired up. Basic sensory abilities like vision and hearing are the first to get wired up. These act like a foundation for other abilities to be built on,” Ruvio said.

“As you age, the right experiences build new rooms. You learn how to walk and talk and eventually how to do more complex things like arithmetic and planning and reasoning. These last rooms are still getting wired up in your teens and beyond. And that's great news because it means that parents, teachers, coaches and all of us who spend time with kids can influence the development of these abilities right into a person's 20s.”

A brain experiencing toxic stress from things like prolonged neglect will have weaker architecture. But caring adults who work with the child to soothe the body's stress response and teach coping skills can prevent toxic stress, turning the experience to what scientists call tolerable stress.

Back at the tables the game players were tasked with building the tallest strongest brain in the room--the height representing the ability to withstand stresses. They rolled the dice to see how many straws and pipe cleaners they had to build the base, or the genetic starting point, for their brain.

Emmer and Ernst’s group got just enough straws and pipe cleaners to build a triangular base while Ryan Redman’s group got enough to create a large square.

The positive experiences they drew on their Life Experience Cards earned a pipe cleaner with a straw thrown in for support. Negative experiences got a pipe cleaner but no straw.

After going through the first five years, the players came to years 6 through 8, which is when a child can topple or thrive, said Ruvio.

One group drew a card saying the child was ostracized by peers at school, leading to them having to hang a weight from their brain structure.

Redman’s group, which included Erin Kesselman, Betsey Aalfs and Pia Saenswang, had seen their child’s brain develop through a language-rich environment. But it faltered upon a  death in the family. They held their breath as they hung a weight from the highest pipe cleaner only to see their brain lurch forward and crash onto the table.

A group made up of mentors at The Space, an afterschool tutoring and enrichment program, ended up getting tiny trophies for the tallest brain, despite their child having been exposed to a hazardous chemical and a flood or other natural disaster.

“We had a strong foundation and later in life we had few ACEs so we were able to build higher,” said Laura Schaaf Calvert.

Emmer and Ernst’s group was able to hang three weights on their brain, the second tallest of the groups.

“We had some tough challenges, but we built a strong base and were able to hang lots of weights and not fall over,” said Narda Pitkethly.

Deb Van Law, the executive director of Blaine County Education Foundation, said the exercise showed how critical early intervention is.

“It only takes one person to offer support, and you can be that person. Any one of our staff can be that person,” added Regan Nelson of The Space.

Emmer, a teacher at Sun Valley Community School, said the exercise was a creative way to show how things work in the brain and how important one-to-one relationships are: “I think we all need to look for opportunities to support young people.”

Ernest, who teaches at the Sun Valley Community School preschool, said her daughter was born with physical challenges but local organizations like Higher Ground, with whom her daughter skis, have helped her turn into a young woman who is now training for an upcoming triathlon in Boise.

“It really does take a village,” she said. “Raising her was stressful, but I had the support of the community.”

Sally Gillespie, the executive director of Spur Community Foundation, said she hopes the exercise will spark conversation about how adversity can affect learning, behavior and long-term health and how adults can support relationships that strengthen children’s development.

“We all can be a force of good,” she said.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HOPE?

Tufts Medical Center houses the HOPE National Resource Center, which offers a myriad of resources. Learn more at https://www.tuftsmedicine.org/about-us/news/new-research-positive-childhood-experiences-published-hope-national-resource-center.