Sensitive Periods for Development

The best time to grow the most in certain areas of the brain. Researchers call this preparation period a sensitive period of development

Sensitive time opens the opportunity window, experience has a big impact on certain areas of the brain's development. In sensitive times, the brain is most likely to strengthen important connections and eliminate unnecessary connections in certain parts of the brain.

Even after a sensitive period, there is still the possibility of growth in this field, but this is not easy or not automated. Our brain is flexible and adaptive, and if you missed important experience early, many of them may develop later in life. However, supplementing the lost experience is far more difficult, time consuming and requires intensive intervention.

An example of a sensitive period lies in the development of vision. A baby has the basic ability to see the time of birth (unless it is affected by prenatal damage or genetic defect), but the neonatal field of vision is not as good as the 8 - month vision. The opportunity to see people and things during the first few months will strengthen the connection of the brain to control vision

Due to what is known as "sensitive period", certain types of development can only occur during a certain life period. If development is interrupted during an affected period, normal development that occurred at that time will not occur. Efforts to restore affected skills and abilities may be partially successful at the end of an affectable period, but it is not common to completely recover lost ones. For example, it is particularly easy for young children to learn languages, but older children are particularly difficult to learn. Children begin learning the second language in early childhood, but children who do not hear the language after a certain period of time do not choose the second language. Later, even if they come in contact with the second language later, they may not be fluent in the second language.

In the studies of the first language and the second language, the concept of "sensitive period", the concept of "critical period", was established to explain the advantages that children may possess in the process of language acquisition. The purpose of this semester thesis is to investigate whether there is a period of sensitive second language learning and to explore possible interpretation methods. In this research, "critical period hypothesis" (CPH) is the main focus. According to this hypothesis, "someday acquisition of language is easy and complete (ie ability to master a mother tongue), and it is difficult and often incomplete beyond this period" (ELLIS, 1997: 67 ). This means that language learners are supposed to have to learn languages ​​since childhood to achieve localized proficiency.

In a critical period, it seems that development of utterance at the early stage and development of grammar are accompanied. Weakened versions are often referred to as sensitive period assumptions. There is a time to learn languages ​​carefully, but seems to be limited to complex aspects of syntactic processing. (Bialystok & Hakuta, 1994). Locke (1997) argues that the development of specialized nervous systems has emerged as a sensitive period of interaction between early recognition experience and discontinuity of language development. The lack of adequate activation during development is like physical damage to specific areas of the brain. The difference between the critical period hypothesis and the sensitive period hypothesis is whether the acquisition is "possible only within a certain age group" or "it is easier during this period". Selig's proposal (1978) states that there may be multiple important periods or confidential periods on different aspects of the language.