What goes on inside toddlers’ brains? A pioneering project is trying to find out

Two-year-old Henry is completely transfixed by the iPad in front of him. Every time a smiley face appears he taps the screen – and his tap transforms the face into a cartoon of a dancing animal.

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

It is a test of inhibitory control, one of the skills scientists at the University of Bristol are measuring in babies and toddlers, 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 these skills are critical – but they don’t yet know at what point they are established in an infant brain.

The development of hundreds of children – from the age of six months to five years – is being tracked as they form the key skills that will shape their academic and social abilities.

But what is really special about this pioneering project is that it is a human experiment within another decades-long human experiment. The mothers of 300 of the children being studied are themselves part of a project that has

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