When a baby is born, the brain has significantly more neurons than it does as an adult. As a child matures many neurons do not survive. If the brain is damaged while a child is young, long term damage may not necessarily be the result. Other areas of the brain can take over for the injured part of the brain. Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge about the world.
Memory is the retention or storage of that knowledge. . .
It should be important to educators to understand how that alteration in the brain occurs and what educators can do to increase that growth. As a child learns to associate symbols in the environment, certain pathways within the brain are reinforced. These pathways within the brain are developed before birth and are composed of electrochemical messages between neurons. As a child begins to associate images with words, these electrochemical messages between neurons become routine. With use, the correlation between a particular sound like Mommy and the sight of a face become a well worn pathway.