Boys' Brains

She wasn’t even two- years-old.

“Hi. How are you? My name is McKenzie,” the blue-eyed little girl said to me with a sweet smile as her mother placed her in the toddler swing.

Minutes earlier, I had entreated a small grunt that resembled, “hi,” from my son Alex, exactly the same age as McKenzie. And I had been so proud.

Shattered, I stared in awe at the little girl swinging happily next to my son, equally happy.

Was my son not as smart as McKenzie? Was he “developmentally delayed?” This wasn’t the first time that I had noticed a marked difference between Alex’s language ability and that of little girls his age.

Boys ARE different from girls.

At two, a girl has a vocabulary double that of a boy the same age, said Abigail James, an educational psychologist at Germanna Community College.

That does not mean that boys are less intelligent than girls. Scientists have found that the part of the brain where language is processed develops earlier in girls’ brains than in a boy’s brain, said James, who studies how boys learn and will publish a book, Teaching the Male Brain, next year.

James is part of the growing new “gender” science, which has uncovered fascinating details about how male and female brains work, how brain cells communicate with each other with the use of PET scans, magnetic resonance imaging and other new technology.

The results are not only interesting but important to understand how and when to teach children of each sex so that they can maximize their learning potential.

Can you hear me now?

Part of the reason for earlier language development in girls, scientists have discovered, is that girls hear sounds significantly better than boys.

Researchers have found that from birth, a girl can hear up to 80 times better than a boy her age, especially in the range critical for understanding speech.

Medical doctor and psychologist Leonard Sax writes in his new book, Why Gender Matters” that many of the differences in how girls and boys learn stems also from differences in how the sexes hear.

For example, a young boy in a kindergarten classroom is more likely to be taught by a female teacher, Sax says. Female voices have a higher sound frequency, which boys may not hear. So the young boy may miss a lot of what the teacher says, especially if he sits towards the back of the classroom. He gets bored and misbehaves. A worst case scenario could be that the teacher gets frustrated and believes the boy has attention deficit disorder because he doesn’t sit still like most of the little girls in the class.

Thus beings the young boy’s negative experience with school, which may remain throughout his school life.

Although this doesn’t happen all the time, it is a sad fact that boys are lagging behind in school, particularly in the last two decades. The U.S. Department of Education reports that boys are less committed to school and less likely to go to college. In 1997, college fulltime enrollments were 45 percent male and 55 percent female.

Coloring in the lines: In the eye of the beholder

As Alex grew, I noticed that he loved to color. But he never “made” anything. There were scribbles all over the page. Even in coloring books, there was not even an attempt to color in the lines.

Girls his age, three and four years old, were neat and colored inside the lines, drew people, fish, and faces. McKenzie was by that age writing her alphabet and drawing objects that started with the alphabetical letter.

Again, scientists who study the brain can tell us why there is this marked difference between boys and girls.

The reason lies in the anatomy of the eye. Males have thicker retinas than females, which affects the colors and details to which they are sensitive. In addition, a male eye does not directly communicate with the part of the brain responsible for language and connection with the outside world, the cerebral cortex. Girl’s eyes do.

These differences in the make up and the function of male and female eyes explain why boys usually respond better to things instead of people, which toys boys and girls prefer, and marked differences in drawing, spatial and navigational skills.

So what do we do about these brain differences?

Biological differences between the sexes have been able to dislodge many, if not all, beliefs regarding gender equality put forward in the 70s and 80s.

In addition to the critical information about differences in sight and hearing, there are many other biological differences scientists are now exploring: how boys and girls articulate emotions and feelings; differences in risk taking; and aggression in boys and girls.

But gender science does not proclaim one sex more intelligent than the other, instead they see male and female brains are organized differently and develop in a different sequence and at a different rate.

A large study at Virginia Tech found that areas of the brain involving language and fine motor skills mature about six years earlier in girls than boys. They also found that the areas of the brain involving spatial memory mature about four years earlier in boys than in girls.

But what may be of primary importance is shifting the focus from helping our girls become more confident in school to understanding that boys learn differently, especially in the elementary grades, when language skills are being taught.

For example, starting very young 5-year-old boys in kindergarten, in which the stated goal is to learn to read and basic numerology, may be a mistake. These boys are (usually) not developmentally ready for language and the fine motor skills needed for pencil and paper work.

There are such marked differences in how boys and girls learn, researchers, including James, advocate single sex schools, particularly for late developing boys, girls who are more advanced and minority boys.

But that is another story.

The point is, as Sax says, there are no differences in what girls and boys can learn. But there are big differences in how we can teach them.

If you want to learn more:

Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences , by Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D. 2005.

The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life , by Michael Gurian & Kathy Stevens. 2005.

Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A guide for teachers and parents , by Michael Gurian. 2001.