Question: Is it true that babies are more intelligent when they are younger?

Ioana Grigoras answered on 21 Mar 2020: last edited 21 Mar 2020 4:11 am

Hi! Well, babies don’t really know a lot of things when they are born and, as they grow, they learn more and more things and thus become more intelligent.
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What people mean when they say that is actually that it is a lot easier to learn as a baby or as a child than it is when you become an adult. We don’t really remember learning our native language, we just… did, but we are aware of how hard we need to study to learn another language.
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A really cool thing about the brain is that it is able to change how different brain areas are connected with each other or how big a certain brain area is depending on its experience. If you learn how to play the piano very well, you probably have a slightly bigger brain area that controls the movements of your fingers than someone who does not play the piano, because you practiced moving your fingers so much. This is called brain plasticity and it is known to be a lot higher in babies and children than in adults. That is because as an adult, you’ve trained your brain to use different parts of it for different activities, but children haven’t. If the brain area that would normally be in control of an activity, like moving their fingers, is damaged in a child, the neighbouring areas (who have not been trained for very long to do something else) can step in and contribute to moving their fingers.
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I hope this answers your question! Let me know if you have any follow up questions!