A rare look inside infant research
This week, we visited the University of Oxford's BabyLab, one of the first dedicated developmental psychology research centres in the country. Founded in 1992, the lab has spent over three decades unlocking the secrets of the infant brain and is now housed in the university's remarkable new Life and Mind Building.
We were hosted by Dr Alex Hendry, whose work sits right at the frontier of what we understand about how young minds develop. Her research focuses on executive function: the planning, problem-solving and impulse-control skills that shape almost everything a child goes on to do. Her work helps explain how executive function emerges, and how we might better support the children most likely to struggle with it.
Seeing the research in action
CEO George Looker's children took part in some of the tests the lab runs, giving us a first-hand look at how this research is carried out in practice. Watching them work through the problem-solving games, while Alex explained what each one was measuring, was a reminder of how something abstract in research can feel very real for a parent.
From research to practice
Afterwards, we held a discussion at Oxford Edge to explore what we had seen. We asked ourselves how we can take research like this and make it useful to a parent in one of our hubs. That gap, between what the science knows and what families can actually do with it, is where we want to accelerate our collective understanding of how best to support parents and children.
Why it matters
Everything we build rests on a simple conviction: that confident parents raise thriving children. Days like this ensure that what we offer families is grounded in the best evidence available.
We thank Dr Hendry for her time, her generosity and for welcoming a team of curious adults and a couple of small, mostly willing test subjects, into her world. We came away better informed and more determined than ever.