Synapses In Children

According to Ormrod (2016), young children have more synapses than adults do, however the high amount of synapses that are growing eventually comes to a stop (p. 24). The auditory cortex begins to stop at about 3 months of age, the visual cortex stops at around 12 months of age, and lastly the frontal lobes stop at the age of 2-3 years old. During synaptic pruning, synapses that are proven to be useless, will die off and disintegrate (Ormrod, 2016, p. 24). Being that the loss of synapses is guaranteed to happen to every child, many researchers find that when a child is surrounded in a stimulation-rich environment, the child has a head start with academics as well as athletics (Ormrod, 2016, p. 32). When the environment that the child is submerged in is high in rich learning, the synaptic pruning proves to be more of a positive and useful process, rather than a detriment. Ormrod (2016) states that visual perception and language are two major concepts that are experience-expectant, which means that the experiences that humans encounter within their
My mind started to change when my middle daughter attended preschool at 4 years old. She was in a dual language classroom (Spanish and English). She had only been exposed to English, until the first day of school. By the end of the year, she had acquired Spanish so well, that when others heard her speak, they would ask me why she had an accent. She knew her colors, alphabet, and was able to carry on a simple conversation in Spanish. My husband and I were blown away. We could not believe her growth not only in Spanish, but English as well. Her current elementary school does not offer this dual language program, so now that she is in 2nd grade, she has lost all the Spanish she acquired three short years