Many children who would have started preschool earlier and would have started learning numbers and letters there missed out on this chance because of the pandemic. Despite missing this traditional classroom setting, many of them are still learning letters and numbers on their own – like the author’s 3-year-old son. Many people describe children as sponges in that they are great at learning new information.
Neuroscience research has shown that infants are born with a large number of synapses – connections between neurons. This causes them to be adaptable to situations and change depending on the world around them, which is called plasticity. This plasticity allows infants to learn in a way that adults are not able to. One instance of this is that infants can tell the difference between the sounds of all languages. Infants can also tell the difference between all kinds of faces – no matter the species. For example, in one study, 6-month-old infants were better able to tell the faces of pairs of chimpanzees apart compared to adults. The ability to tell the difference between a variety of sounds and faces and then get more specific in our distinguishing skills as we get older is a phenomenon called perceptual narrowing. As we live and gain more experience with the sounds of our native language and the types of faces that we see most often, we become better at distinguishing the sounds of that specific language and the faces that are most common in our environment. We also lose the ability to tell the differences between the sounds of the languages that we rarely encounter and the faces that we rarely see. In the brain, as babies gain more experiences, the number of synapses they have ends up decreasing, which results in this “use it or lose it” situation.
When it comes to learning languages, many scientists believe that there is a critical period of time in which a child’s brain is more receptive to learning a language. In a study analyzing the English language skills of those who had immigrated to the United States between the ages of 3 and 39, the performance on language tests was more related to the age at which they immigrated rather than how long they had been in the United States. In general, the younger that these immigrants were when they came to the United States, the better their English fluency.
Learning all about how great infants’ brains are at learning makes it seem as if adult brains are at a disadvantage. However, our brains as adults are still adaptable, especially when we go through changes in our environment. One example is the change in the structure of a mother’s brain that happens during pregnancy – scientists think that these changes help mothers to be more attentive to the needs of their newborns.
To conclude, children’s brains can still be sponges even through a global pandemic, and they can still learn a lot.
Ethel Dvoskin
Research Assistant, UConn KIDS
Article Link: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-baby-scientist/202205/why-children-are-so-good-learning