Sensitive/Critical Periods – Flashcards

A period of time during development when an individual is more responsive ('sensitive') to certain types of environmental experiences or learning.

Frequently during pre-natal development before birth when the individual is going through rapidly occurring changes in physical growth and development.

Because they are optimal, or best possible, times for relevant learning to occur. -> Oral acquisition is believed to be easily acquired during a sensitive period -> Learning a language is substantially easier up until the age of 12.

That brain development goes through specific periods during which some synaptic connections are most easily made and some neural pathways are most easily formed, assuming there is exposure to the appropriate environmental stimulas.

Physical characteristics: relatively short sensitive periods Psychological characteristics: longer sensitive periods

A critical period is a specific period in development during which an organism is most vulnerable to the deprivation or absence of certain environmental stimuli or experiences.

"start and end times." (tending to begin and end suddenly, rather than gradually ((if at all)).

About the first six years of life.

Imprinting. e.g., a newly hatched mallard duckling will attach to and follow the first noisy moving object encountered after birth. However, psychologists have yet to identify any specific critical period for any human mental process or behavior.