The Brain Explained: Why Children Learn Faster Than Adults
Children tend to learn new things faster than adults because their brains exhibit greater neuronal plasticity, allowing them to absorb information more readily.
This plasticity allows them to absorb information quickly, especially during critical periods for language, motor skills, and social development. Children also have fewer responsibilities and distractions, allowing them to focus more on learning through play, exploration, and interaction with their environment.
While adults have more developed areas of working memory, this advantage comes with functional fixedness, causing them to perceive things exactly as they are, limiting flexibility. In contrast, children’s constantly growing brains allow for more creative and flexible thinking. A study comparing the memory of young children and college students found that children performed better, with a 31% accuracy rate in recognizing previously shown pictures of animals, compared to just 7% for adults. This difference is attributed to children’s use of similarity-based reasoning, where they focus on the resemblance of new images to ones they’ve seen, while adults rely on category-based reasoning, paying less attention once they’ve categorized an image. Children also learn languages faster because their brains form more synaptic connections when exposed to speech, and they handle less complex information overall. Encouraging children to engage in various activities could foster their creativity and help develop their talents early on. While younger brains excel in learning, older brains compensate by storing information more efficiently.