The critical period

What is the critical period? Also known as the sensitive period, the critical period is a time during early postnatal life when the development and maturation of functional properties of the brain, its ‘plasticity’, is strongly dependent on experience or environmental influences. The concept of a critical period therefore plays an important role in the ageold nature versus nurture debate — to what extent are our abilities determined by intrinsic factors, such as our genes, or by extrinsic factors, such as childhood experiences? To be precise, there isn’t a single critical period, but there are different critical periods for different brain functions, for example binocular vision or language acquisition.