Author Question: At age five, Pat set a neighbor's house on fire. At age 10, he burned down a barn. At age 20, he ... (Read 114 times)

kshipps · **on:** Jun 22, 2018

At age five, Pat set a neighbor's house on fire. At age 10, he burned down a barn. At age 20, he sets his old high school on fire. Pat's behavior best exemplifies

a. life-course persistent antisocial behavior.
b. learned helplessness.
c. adolescent-limited antisocial behavior.
d. chronic status offenses.

Question 2

Describe how the seemingly contrary concepts of brain plasticity and synaptic pruning are both beneficial to development.

What will be an ideal response?

Awesome · **Reply #1 on:** Jun 22, 2018

Answer to Question 1

a

Answer to Question 2

The immature brain's greater plasticity is beneficial when the normal course of brain development is disrupted by an injury or by deprivation of some essential ingredients of successful brain development. For example, someone with an injury to the left hemisphere of his brain and who has suffered an impairment in language skills can recover their language skills when other neurons take over language-related processing from the damaged neuron. Synaptic pruning is the gradual reduction in the number of synapses, beginning in infancy and continuing until early adolescence. This process is beneficial in weeding out unnecessary connections between neurons.