Cynthia Simmonds (January 23, 2012) - “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
I’m sure that we have all heard this phrase before—and you might even believe it. Perhaps you have even used this as an excuse, “I’m too old to learn how to use a computer,” when you did not want to change your current way of doing things. However, from a purely “brain” standpoint, this is simply not true. One of the most amazing features of our brains is that they have plasticity—our brains can be shaped or changed by the environment. In essence, our experiences actually change the physical structure of the brain. This plasticity lasts throughout our lifetime. So, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but it might take longer and the dog actually needs to want to learn the trick.
A study of London cab drivers beautifully illustrates this eloquent fact (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16086233). Before becoming a London cabdriver, an individual needs to learn the “All London Knowledge,” a series of 320 routes through London, covering 25,000 streets and 20,000 landmarks. A team of researchers scanned the brains of trainees before, during and after learning the “Knowledge” (a process which typically takes two to four years). The posterior hippocampus of the successful individuals increased in size during this process. The researchers hypothesize that learning “The Knowledge” lead to the changes in their brains. “Prof Eleanor Maguire, who led the study, said: ‘The human brain remains 'plastic', even in adult life, allowing it to adapt when we learn new tasks.’”
From a more pragmatic point of view, think of it this way: Each time you learn something new (a new recipe, the location of a new store, the name of your new neighbor), you are literally creating new connections within your brain and actually changing its structure.
The brains of children are far more plastic than an adult’s. In fact, if a child and an adult had damage to the exact same portion of the brain, the child would, more than likely, recover greater function than the adult. For example, think about how quickly kids pick up new information—my son regularly (and correctly) uses words like “download,” “reboot,” “shutdown” and “full screen” when it comes to computers. Nick is five. I suspect he can already use a computer more adeptly than any of his grandparents. Now that’s not to say that Grandma and Grandpa cannot learn this information—it’s just going to take a lot more effort.
This plasticity allows us to adapt to our environment. If our brains could not change, we would not be able to learn new information. We would, literally, be stuck in a rut! Just imagine not being able to learn from our mistakes...or our successes.
By now you are probably wondering what this has to do with language. In my next blog, I will talk specifically about plasticity of the brain with respect to language. Specifically, I’ll discuss the importance of exposing Nick and Katie to a second (and third) language. In the third blog of this series, I will discuss how the brain changes with early versus late second language acquisition—why Nick and Katie’s brain will forever process language in a fundamentally different way than mine.
Cindi
