Black – experience and brain development

In development sometimes we think about two kinds of experiences. There is experience expectant and experience dependent. Experience expectant are things that the organism, primarily the brain, is expecting – to be able to develop. 

So an example of that is that as the auditory cortex is developing then the brain expects to be able to hear sounds and then responds to those sounds, develops in response to those sounds, expects to have sight and responds in – to those, expects to have some of the nutrients available and responds to those nutrients. And if not, then development can be challenged or can be thwarted to some extent. 

Experience dependent has to do with the individual. So the easiest example is probably language, so that if a child hears French then they will start to understand French and then they will be able to form words in French that sound like baby French. If a child hears Japanese, then they will – the same thing will apply. They will learn to understand and they will learn to start make sounds that then are moulded into Japanese. So those vary by the individual, but certainly shape early development.