AI Is Disrupting How Young Brains Grow

[Dr CJ Yatawara - Tiny Brains expert]

What every parent needs to know about the risks, plus strategies to prevent the damage​

Created by author with openart.ai

Remember when the internet blew our minds?

I was 14 years old when we got it in our house, and I still vividly remember the urrr EEEE NNGG CRRrr keeee nnn ding ding sound of dial-up as I waited to chat on ICQ.

Life changed fast. No more flipping through Britannica at the library–we had the World Wide Web at our fingertips.

The internet changed our lives, but it also changed us as humans. The internet has changed how we think, focus, remember, and relate to others — we scan instead of reading and skim headlines instead of absorbing meaning. Our attention spans have shrunk, and our reliance on Google means we store less of what we learn.

For today’s generation, that same mind-blown moment is happening again — but with AI.

AI isn’t just writing for us — it is thinking for us. But how will this new phenomenon change us as humans? Especially our children, who are still learning how to think?

As a neuroscientist and mother of two, this honestly frightens me. Childhood is a time for getting messy with learning: for wrestling with words, piecing together meaning, and solving problems using multiple trial and errors. That is how strong, flexible minds are built.

But now we are robbing them of this mess— we are letting AI do the thinking for our kids. The consequences are showing up fast: studies reveal drops in school performance, and, most worrying of all, less active, less engaged brains.

Our brains are built, not born​

Our brains aren’t naturally programmed to read and write; we invented these skills as humans. This means, when a child learns these skills, they have to borrow circuits originally designed for vision, language, memory, and movement and rewire them.

And this is anything but simple!

When we read, our visual brain region (the occipital lobe) scans the shapes of letters, then the language systems (located across the temporal lobe) kick in to decode those squiggles into sounds and whole words. At the same time, the frontal lobe (the thinking part of the brain) steps in to make sense of it all.

Writing is even more complex: We need to plan our ideas (frontal lobe again), find the right words (language areas), and then guide our hands to write (motor cortex). This is a huge team effort with all parts of the brain working together.

So when my daughter insists that “w” is just an upside-down “m” and won’t acknowledge it is a real letter, this is literally her brain rewiring itself to learn something new.

But what we are really building here is thinking — when we read, our brain predicts and fills in gaps, it compares what we read to what we already know, and builds mental models to understand concepts faster — as shown by decades of research by the late Walter Kintsch, PhD, who was a professor of psychology at the University of Colorado. Writing pushes us even further by having to organise thoughts, choose the right words, and hold ideas in mind as we get them down on paper.

Why this effort matters​

When children rewire their brains for reading and writing, it is like reorganizing a kitchen into a home office — the fridge becomes a filing cabinet, the toaster holds pens, and the stovetop balances the laptop.

It is a lot of effort, but it is necessary fuel for growth — it forces new neurons to grow, rewires the brain, and improves the functioning of existing neurons. Stanislas Dehaene, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist at Collège de France and author of the book Reading in the Brain, coined this process as “neural recycling.” It is when the brain takes areas that normally recognize objects and trains them to recognize letters and words. This rewiring is so significant that it is allocated its own name, the Visual Word Form Area.

Learning to read and write also trains the brain’s CEO — the frontal lobe, which is home to executive functions such as focus, working memory, planning, and self-monitoring. Research shows that key components of executive functions become strengthened when children are challenged to predict and reason while reading a story. I can see that when my daughter sits down to write a story, she has to plan the plot, hold multiple ideas in working memory, shift between thoughts as the story unfolds, and self-monitor her work, all while trying to stay focused as her little brother throws popcorn at her head. She is getting the ultimate mental workout.

If we rob our children of this crucial brain workout, they risk missing out on the very process that builds a resilient, flexible, and creative mind — a mind that is capable of navigating complexity and thinking independently. Which, ironically, are the very skills they’ll need to thrive in a world powered by AI and technology.

How AI robs children of the learning struggle​

Children’s brains are under construction for the first 25 years of their life, and early experiences shape how brain regions grow and link together, building the networks they will later use as adults for essential skills and thinking.

When we let AI do our children’s thinking, we strip their brains of the workout needed to uniquely wire their brain and develop their unique personal way of thought. It’s like giving a child a calculator before they can count — they’ll get the answer but never understand the logic behind it.

This becomes most detrimental during critical periods of development — when the brain is most hungry to learn, grow, and refine itself. These are the years when effort literally shapes the architecture of the brain. Once those windows close, the chance to rebuild itself becomes much harder.

We can already see the price of AI — not just in declining test scores, but in brain scans that show crucial regions of children’s brains failing to turn on:

Test performance: In a study of more than 1,000 high school students, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that students using a ChatGPT-style tutor became 127% better at solving problems. But when the AI was removed, their performance dropped, falling 17% below the students who never used AI. This shows that while AI can provide instant results, it may threaten the development of critical thinking skills.

This happens for a simple reason: the brain is a muscle. Effort strengthens it; shortcuts weaken it.

Brain activity: In an EEG study at Cornell University, students who used ChatGPT were found to have the lowest brain engagement during essay writing. Their essays were coherent, but described by English teachers as “soulless.” When they were asked to rewrite their essays later without help, they barely remembered what they’d written. It was like trying to recall a dream someone else had for you.

Meanwhile, students who wrote without AI showed higher brain activity. This showed up as better memory, greater originality, and a stronger sense of ownership in their work.

Other EEG studies have shown that writing by hand activates more brain areas and strengthens connectivity between regions compared to typing. It’s not just about forming letters, it’s about feeling them — the pressure of the pen, the scratching sound of pencil against paper, the visual tracking of letters as they are formed on the page — all of this gives sensory and motor regions a workout.

One child in a study put it beautifully: “When I write by hand, I can see what I’m thinking.”

Ying Xu, PhD, assistant professor of education at Harvard University, put it perfectly when she asked the critical question: “Are they actually engaging in the learning process, or are they bypassing it by getting an easy answer from the AI?”

Real learning only happens when kids wrestle with ideas, make mistakes, and figure things out for themselves.

If we shortcut that struggle, we shortcut their brains.

And no computer can ever match the limitless potential of a child whose brain is well-connected, creative, and endlessly adaptable.

Strategies to avoid the AI brain drain​

I’m not suggesting AI is evil. It’s revolutionary, and here to stay. The goal here isn’t to ban it, but to reframe its role– AI should be a support, not a substitute.

The first strategy that comes to mind is simply: “Let kids try first on their own, then turn to AI for help.” Sounds good in theory. But I still remember how my kid-brain worked — if I knew the answer was coming, my first attempt would be half-baked. Why wrestle with the problem when a shortcut is waiting?

So, putting my child psychologist hat on, here are some potential ways around that trap — giving kids the struggle back.

1. Become a detective: “Can you trust this?”​

Teach kids that AI doesn’t know things — it predicts them. It looks at all the data on the internet and then uses probability to guess what word or answer will come next. This means it doesn’t understand what it is saying, which makes errors highly likely.

How to do it
When your child gets an AI answer, try saying, “Awesome. Now our job is to be a detective and see if this is a good answer, and how we can make it even stronger.” Here are a few questions to ask:

• Should we trust this? Where can we check if this is true?
• What’s the source? How could we find an expert or a reliable book/website to back this up?
• What’s missing? Is there another side to this story or an important detail the AI left out?
• How can we make it better? What information do you need to add to make it clearer or more interesting?

Why it works
Cautioning that AI is not always right flips the brain from passive to active. This means higher-order executive functions get a workout, like analyzing, evaluating, and reasoning. Research shows that when students are prompted to question and justify information, they deepen their comprehension and problem-solving skills.

2. Use the Feynman protocol: “Teach it back to Teddy.”​

Nobel physicist Richard Feynman’s principle was simple: You don’t truly understand something until you can teach it.

How to do it
Let your child use AI and say, “Ask AI to explain the concept to you. Once you think you have all the information you need, close the screen. Your mission is to help someone else understand the concept– you can choose me, the dog or your teddy, we are all great listeners.”

For an additional brain workout, you can say “If you get stuck [which they will], find out more information to fill in the gap.”

Why it works
Explaining something strengthens memory more than rereading ever could. It also exposes what they really know, not just what they’ve skimmed. And it flips motivation: The goal is no longer “finish the assignment,” but “master it well enough to teach.”

3. Protect the analog brain: “Unplug and play with me”​

Make space for activities AI can’t replicate: board games that train strategy, unstructured play that builds creativity, physical books that train focus, and family dinners that nurture empathy and conversation.

How to Do It
The idea is to make it fun and enticing (never give away your hidden agenda). To do this, try:

“I was about to set up [Suggest a specific game]. I haven’t played it in forever and I need a partner in crime/need someone to destroy me. You in?”

Or

“This game is hilarious when people get competitive. The person who loses has to wash the dog next.”

Why It Works
Brain imaging studies show that face-to-face conversation, reading offline, and handwriting light up more regions of the brain than typing or screen time.

As parents and teachers, it’s our duty to safeguard the sacred work of childhood: the messy, but always beautiful, process of learning how to think.

Remember, brains are built, not born.

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AI Is Disrupting How Young Brains Grow was originally published in Wise & Well on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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