The brain prunes out some of the excess connections over the next years, but at age 12 it begins a massive effort to get rid of the excess connections. This is a very important question. The brain eliminates connections that are weaker than others. This means that if we want our children to learn to read well, we must provide language experience often. It can be seen in the example of children who don't experience human language in the early years will have a very difficult time learning to speak.
Children learn within the context of important relationships.
Children's brains develop depending on the experiences provided or withheld by their environments and caregivers. We have an impact either way. Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory Email Webmaster Tel.