Sunny's AP Psychology Blog

Fertile Minds

1. What does it mean to say that the infant’s brain is plastic?
An infant brain, like plastic, can be molded into many different forms, in the sense of connections and pathways between neurons and subsequently the brain’s mass. Depending on the frequency of use, any neural pathway may be strengthened and developed. 2. What would happen to a child deprived of a stimulating environment?When neural pathways are never or rarely activated, they are discarded when the child reaches the age of 10. With fewer stimuli in the child’s environment, the fewer synapses, or neural pathways the brain has when the child grows to a certain point, and that would mean that the child is less imaginative or skilled than it would be otherwise.
3. While genes control the unfolding of the physical development of the brain, what else is needed? Why is this so?While genetics takes care of the production of neurons, experience shapes the neural pathways, or connections between neurons. This is because the brain needs so many connections that it would be impossible for genes to encode and specify every one of these connections. By having experience shape brains and thought patterns, humans also acquire individuality; since everyone has different experiences, everyone’s brains develop into their own unique patterns.
4. What advantages are provided by the brain’s profusion of connections?Because of the myriad connections between neurons during infancy and childhood, the brain is flexible and resilient. Loss of certain areas in the brain can cause permanent damage in an adult, but it is much easier for children to recover because other areas take over the functions of that particular area. In the case of Brandi Binder, severe epilepsy led to the surgical removal of the right hemisphere of her brain when she was six. However, she is now alive and has recovered many of those faculties that are usually conducted by the right brain. Because she was so young at the time, and consequently the number of neural connections in her brain was at it’s peak, her left brain was able to compensate for her right brain.
5. What are windows of opportunity? Give examples.Windows of opportunity are periods in lifetimes when certain skills can be acquired. While some windows do not close completely in one’s life, such as the ability to acquire new words, many others close after childhood, resulting in permanent deprivation of certain abilities. The window for acquiring syntax closes around five or six years of age, so if a child has been raised without language up till then, he or she will never master language properly.
6. What are some of the practical implications of our new understanding of the brain?
We can now modify educational policies and parenting techniques to further education and development of children. Also, as the importance of detecting problems such as dyslexia, autism, and so forth at an early age become apparent, we may be better able to fix these problems.

posted by 미카 @ 7:12 AM