The development of the nervous system does not stop at birth. The mechanism of synaptic reinforcement associated with neuronal activity continues to influence a baby’s synapses after birth. At birth a baby’s brain already has about 200 billion neurons, which is about the same number as it will have in adulthood. The difference is that there are very few neural pathways have formed, the bundle of neurons right there waiting to be wired into the intricate circuitry that we call the mind. This is why babies are particularly open to learning during their first years of life. In response to the demands of the world, the baby’s brain sculpts itself, billions of neurons were primed to organize themselves and make the connections in response to the new environment.
Therefore, during infancy, baby’s experiences in the larger world result in building connections between neurons, which are reinforced as the experiences repeated. Learning strengthens the connections in a neural network, and the environmental inputs through the sensory stimuli, such as learning to read, shape the architecture of the baby’s brain. This eventually becomes the neural circuitry integrated to the nervous system, which lays the foundation for the baby’s learning life long. The memories stored in a computer can be cleared at any time, but the first memories formed in baby’s brain last permanently. It is the circuits laid down during these processes that become the source of the baby’s vast repertoire of behaviors and learning.