Although you don’t have to be a neuroscientist to notice that children are amazing learners, actual neuroscientists have confirmed what we have always suspected. Infants’ are born with brains that have an overabundance of what we call synapses, or connections between neurons, which are the most fundamental parts of our brains. These connections make it so that infants’ brains are incredibly flexible to adapt and change based on what they experience in the world and the specific challenges they face. This flexibility is what researchers refer to as plasticity. It’s no coincidence that the word plasticity has “plastic” in it, reminding us of substances that can bend and flex when you need them to.