Human Growth and Development / Unit 5 HGD 0605 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Experience-Expectant and Experience-Dependent
The idea
Brain development runs on two kinds of process. Experience-expectant processes are universal: the brain is primed for input nearly every child meets, such as patterned light and language, during sensitive periods. Experience-dependent processes reflect each child's particular experiences, such as learning a specific language or an instrument, and they continue across life. Overproduction of connections followed by pruning probably continues into the third decade, above all in the prefrontal cortex.
In practice
Every child's visual system expecting light in infancy, and one particular child's brain shaped by years of violin practice.
Where people slip
The distinction explains two kinds of risk. Missing expected input, such as sight or language, during a sensitive period can have lasting effects, as the cataract and orphanage cases showed. Missing a particular experience, such as music lessons, affects one skill, not the brain's basic organisation. Low SES and poor nutrition are linked to less brain growth, and warm, sensitive parenting to more advanced brain networks.
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