How to make a smarter child

With educational toys, of course! All kidding aside, information enters the brain through the five senses, making the use of multi-sensory toys beneficial to hardy brain development. Products like a bright- colored, textured ball that squeaks and has a scent (Tangiball) or building blocks that double as rattles (EZ Blocks) help to wire the brain's neurons and dendrites, the pathways in the brain. This is particularly true during the earliest months and years of a child's life when the changes in the brain are most dramatic.

There are windows of opportunity for certain skills to be cultivated (e.g. learning a second language without a foreign accent needs to take place before a child turns 9). A child who is in a body cast when the window of opportunity is open for learning to walk, may eventually walk, but will not likely have a natural gait.

My advice: expose a child to as many different situations and stimuli as possible, and read to them every day.