Question: Is it harder to learn things the older you get?

Paul Matusz answered on 5 Nov 2018:

This is a fantastic question and one of those that are the motive of all of my research at this moment.
The short answer is: Yes, and, potentially, no.
On the one hand, as young children, we learn A LOT, and very fast – the science demonstrates that between the age of 2 and 5 children can easily learn 2 (if not more ) langauges spoken at the same time to them, which will result in them being proficient (the 2 or more are their native tongues) in all of them. This is quite striking, as children brains don’t apparently get confused by mulitple languages spoken at the same time. What this tells us is that during that period of time the brain is like a “sponge”, as it can develop such complex functions like speaking a language with very little conscious effort – compare young children “trying out” words to you when you were starting to learn algebra. Quite a difference, no?

On the other hand, I think, we are just currently starting to understanding how adults and children really learn in everyday situations. Much of what we know comes from studies that use just visual objects or just sounds to study memory – or attention, which is very important to learning anything. However, if you think about it, the classroom is full of stimulation that is “multisensory” , which is in other words engaging many of your senses at the same time! One of the main lines of my research is understanding how attending to and learning visual information is different to attending to and learning multisensory information. To read a short summary of one of my studies on multisensory attention, see here – https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2017.00008 . I also wrote a blogpost on how we learn multisensory information – https://bold.expert/learning-occurs-in-multisensory-environments/. Both these articles are written in an easy to understand way.
Beside that, I think that there are important new ways in whihc we can motivate the brains to learn when they are a bit older – by making learning material that we need to learn fun – by presenting is part of interesting, fun, dynamic games, where you collect rewards – and maybe presenting them in whole new universes, like through virtual reality goggles – these may be some very important potential new ways of engaging brains to learn – and we are only starting to understand these new methods and their potential. So it’s all quite exciting. Imaging for example a virtual reality games that after a few hours of playing could treat dyslexia in your classmate. How exciting is that!?

Scientists are also currently exploring the ways in which we can motivate the older brains to learn fast and well – maybe not 100% as well as infants learn langauges but maybe a bit like that. On the one hand, neuroscientists have been showing that certain drugs can help adults to learn, for example, musical skills, that are thought to be available only if trained when people are children. Have a look at the interview with Prof Takao Hensch – https://bold.expert/windows-of-opportunity-and-vulnerability-in-brain-development/ – and the written interview that is linked to under the video.

So to summarise we are right now in very exciting time to understand how people are really learning in the classrooms, and how to use technology and biology to improve these learning processes even more!