In this chapter they discussed lots to do with the brain and connections people make in the brain. For example, they talked a lot about how younger children make more connections in the brain than older kids because their brains are busy detecting so many new things than older kids. As you grow older the more times you learn sometime creates a process known as myelination where a myelin sheath covers the connections you've made. It also talked about how malnutrition and diseases such as FAS can have an affect on the brain and can affect how well a child can learn. One question I did have over this section was when a child is born with some sort of disorder, typically a special needs one, do they create the same connections? Or are their connections slower made.. how exactly does that factor into these?
In the picture below at birth we see how neurons are being created and are being formed. And between there and 6 year olds connections are made such as learning sounds to help make words, familiarity with people, etc. At 6 years old the connections that are made keep producing because the child is being placed into new experiences where they learn many different things. The darker/bolder lines are there to show connections the child is making repeatedly. This could be something like learning 2 + 2 = 4. The child is asked that question so many times that it is naturally "engrained" into their brain that it becomes a bolder line/ something they will be able to recall easily. Between 6 years and 14 years, the child goes through the process of pruning where the brain decides which connections are important and which were less necessary. This is why there are less connections, because children may be presented with new information but they are not necessarily trying to remember all of it unlike how they did when they were younger.
In response to your question about special needs children. I think it just depends on the person and the diagnosis. I have met with some children with disabilities who can remember massive amounts of experiences, and I have also been around children with disabilities who cannot remember what they just learned in the previous lesson.
ReplyDeleteThese mechanisms of learning are pretty much common to call humans. Someone with special needs could have a variety of different underlying problems (based in biology). If the brain was malnourished, it may have developed very small, with fewer neurons overall, but the child would still make connections and myelinate in the same way. Many children have only one part of their brain affected (like the frontal cortex) and in very specific ways. For example, some children have very low impulse control, but they can store memories quite easily once they are able to attend to something. Others might have some difficulty in their limbic system (processing emotion), but again, they still myelinate and make connections as described in the chapter.
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