Sensitive and critical periods

• Maturation is the orderly physical growth and development of the body, brain and nervous system
• Periods of development are classified as either sensitive periods or critical periods
• Sensitive periods are a flexible and broad period of time
• Sensitive periods are when an organism is most able to acquire a particular skill or characteristic, after this time development will take more effort, be incomplete and slower
• Critical periods are when an organism is most open to acquiring a specific cognitive, motor or socio-emotional skill as a normal part of development, these can't be acquired normally at a later stage of development
• Critical periods are a fixed and narrow period of time
• Language acquisition - developmental process which children learn to understand and use their native language/s
• Difficult to categorise language acquisition as either sensitive or critical