The Plasticity At A Young Age

The court said that because of their youth, their brains are less developed, they are more impulsive, more subject to peer pressure and less able to see the consequences of their actions. Researchers have started to look into the development of the brain from the ages of 3 to 20 years old. Brain research by Thompson and others suggests that teenagers are unformed, less mature and less resistant to peer pressure than adults are. According to Thompson’s research, “gray matter, which brain researchers believe supports all our thinking and emotions, is purged at a rate of 1 percent to 2 percent a year” (89). He also states that, “these frontal lobes, which inhibit our violent passions, rash actions, and regulate our emotions, are vastly immature throughout the teenage years” (89). Teens do know what they have done and they are capable of understanding right from wrong but their brains aren’t developed enough to make fully mature decisions.

Each and every child develops at a different rate to other children, no two are the same.

When one compares the structure of the adult brain and the teenage brain, there will be several differences between the two. Adults have stronger connections from one nerve cell to another, and they all have essential communication skills. However, teenagers have more synapses and have weaker nerve connections. Also, their frontal lobes aren 't fully developed. This causes adolescence to have impulsive behavior and they typically do not recognize consequences in a situation. In the early twenties the brain becomes fully developed, so people are very good at making decision and they are able to think abstractly. There are many factors that contribute to the construction of the brain; some things help the brain develop normally, other things interrupt the process. There is a substantial amount of distinctions between the adult brain and the adolescent brain, and these includes behavioral and structural differences.

It impacts the maturation of specific brain areas at particular ages, the physiological and neuro-endocrinological responses as well as impacting the ability to coordinate cognitions, behaviours and emotional regulation. Therefore, the effect of trauma is different in different developmental stages. Ornitz (1996) has listed critical periods of major structural changes in brain development in accordance with Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. This includes the periods between early childhood (1.5-4 years), late childhood (6-10 years), puberty and mid-adolescence. This ensures that there are widespread implications of trauma in childhood especially in terms of the age at which exposure to trauma occurs as well as the areas of the brain affected. For example, the volume of the brain shows a rapid increase in first two years (Matsuzawa et al., 2001), a time when the development of attachment also takes place. Moreover, this growth is more experience- dependent (Schore, 2001). Children below the age of two also show a greater right brain than left brain

However, trying to change behavior or build new skills on a foundation of brain circuits that were wired improperly when they were first formed requires more work and is less effective than getting it right the first time. Therefore, remedial education, clinical treatment, and other professional interventions are more costly and produce less desirable outcomes than the provision of nurturing, protective relationships and appropriate learning experiences earlier in life. As a result, our brains retain the capacity to change and adapt even as we age, once it develops the exaggerated neurological response to toxic stress never goes away, with

Brain plasticity is significant in criminal research and crime prevention methods because it shows that certain experiences in the first three to four years of life are significant in the prevention of antisocial behavior and persistent, criminal behavior throughout life. The fact that the brain has plasticity shows that early deprivation and harm can be treated and modified during later years, even in adults. Plasticity is such a crucial concept when it comes to understanding the effects of maltreatment on the brain, especially during infancy and early childhood. By analyzing developmental plasticity, researchers can find evidence for altered brain functioning as a result of early abuse and neglect. Plasticity is proof that our brains are much more easily shaped and molded by the outside world than we

According to (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2013), the brain begins to mature even before birth and it continues to mature throughout life. According to (Jetha & Segalowitz, 2012) all the brain functions do not mature at the same rate. A child with highly advanced verbal skills may develop gross and fine motor control more slowly and have trouble learning to write clearly (Jetha & Segalowitz, 2012). Learning differences are also related to genetics, temperament and environment (Thierry, 2008). As child born it has a function govern like their heartbeats, eating and sleeping.

Between the age of two and six years, the brain experiences a rapid growth. By the age of six, the brain is 90% developed as compared to that of the adult. However, the child lacks experience and knowledge. The brain becomes a trainee of what happens around them and imitates what is

The effects of trauma can be looked at into two separate categories however, they both are interrelated: neurodevelopment and psychosocial development. From the onset of birth, we are born with 100 billion neurons, much more than we will ever need and much more than we will ever have. Between these neurons, trillions of synapses are created. Depending upon the early life experiences in relation to attachments with caregivers and our environment, some synapses will be strengthened whilst others will be discarded.

The changes in adolescence brain create a dimension that will be difficult in making the right choices in human agency and the decision or actions of the adolescence is unpredictable, because their thinking capacity in choice making is still developing. This changes in the brain is constantly being influences by multiple interaction.

The article “Inside the Teen Brain” by Marty Woltner, states that recent information on the human brain gives new information to parents and explains the behavior of teens. Even though the brain is almost physically mature the grey matter in the thinking part of the brain( Pre-Frontal Cortex).Without benefit of higher level processing in the prefrontal cortex may result in risky behavior. Each interaction with a teenager will affect development of his or her brain, helping the teen make connections in the prefrontal cortex. During this time of heavy construction. As parents decide how to more efficiently communicate with the developing teen brain, it’s vital to also consider who a child actually is, and what kind of parenting styles the child

Adults and children are clearly different psychologically, they respond, react to, and comprehend things differently. Some research has been done to discover exactly why adolescents and adults behave differently. According to the studies, “frontal lobes [that] inhibit our violent passions,

brain is simply underdeveloped at this stage in their life. To contribute to providing valuable

The first support for this aurgument is that a childs prefrontal cortex does not actually stop developing until age 25. This means that before age 25 you are much more prone to errors in judgement and lack of self control. Also the adolescent brain is at a crucial stage of development and therefore is very receptive to various disorders and can be controlled easily by whatever is popual at the time (Welsh). Your brain is somewhere in beetween feeling emotions and knowing how to deal with them.

The brain is built in a very special way and so is the subconscious mind. Our awareness and thought processes form the foundation of the human spirit and the human character and this information is weaved into us from young. Freud called this the Id, the Ego and the Superego of our brains, and each of them has a specific function in determining needs, morality, character and mindset. The formative years is when this is most important, because when we are an adult and have the mental faculties of rational thought and critical thinking well in place, we are better able to siphon off the stimuli of the world, crunch them into raw data and apply them to our brains and accompanying consciousness substructure.