When does Adolescence end for us?

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I never said that wasn't true. I said naturally the neurplasticity is larger when your brain is still having to develop. It's larger in a 2 year old than a 20 year old. It's larger in a 20 year old than a 40 year old. It doesn't suddenly stop at 3 or at 25. It's just that developmentally, there are things that actually matter about these ages. When you are a toddler, the brain is going through a lot of developmental stages, as well as the body. When you are in your early 20s, your body has finished developing, but your brain has. By about 25, your brain has finished developing.

That doesn't mean you can't learn, or that you have neuroplasticity. That means until that point you innately don't have a complete frontal cortex because your body hasn't gotten a chance to finish growing it, and its working on growing it still. After that point, you are still learning and adapting, and the brain is much more capable of adapting than people give it credit for, but you don't have the advantage of also growing. You also don't have the disadvantage of growing meaning you have problems in the area that isn't fully developed yet.

The reason that adolecence ends at 25, is because that's the age where the frontal cortex has grown (the last area of the brain to complete). After that point people will generally go through and stop having as much emotional regulation problems, because emotions are translated into how they are outputted into the frontal cortex, an while its growing they end up with emotional regulation problems. While growing to 25 people will improve on things like decision making, and executive function and a variety of things, just by aging.

All types of things we have issues with The frontal cortex is rather a relevant part of the brain for us to think about.

But, that doesn't mean that suddenly after that point, there's no neuroplasticity. It just means that the brain has actually developed all the part of it by that point. It hadn't before then.

But, new connections can be made, and sometimes, what's done is really rather impressive. Knowing what people manage after TBIs as adults, those can be some really impressive stories.

In another thread a member brought up the subject of "encapsulation" where very young children with AS are unable to relate and interact with the NT world and it's rules, regulations and expectations and become "separated" from the normal social flow and create their own "imaginary" rules, regulations and expectations which widens and widens the existing social "gap." This "division" or "divide" becomes greater as the child ages. These children create their own "fantasy" world where thing go much better than the NT world.

If I keep the above in mind when I review my own childhood and beyond I can see many of the experiences which hasten the growing-up-process in NTs seem to have little effect on me (and I'm 70 now). I've worked at various jobs throughout my life and we've done fairly well: we recently celebrated our 51st anniversary, we've raised two beautiful and successful children, but for me, emotionally, Never Never Land is just around the corner.

The thought I could live another way without being able to constantly see the beauty and newness around me is depressing and I feel so sorry for people that have lost this "early" unencumbered sight and have had to abide 100% by society's rules and upbringing.

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My decline started around 45.