Sensitive Periods are time spans in which the child is sensitive to an incredible degree to a particular activity or interest. They are universal in all children and provide the child with powerful capacities to attain specific skills. Once the skill is obtained the sensitive learning period disappears. Montessori identified specific periods for the development of language, movement, order, refinement, obtaining culture, social cohesion, and of sensory perceptions. (Boehnlein, Haines)

“The child has a great power, a great inner sensitivity, a great drive to observe and be active…a creature of intense passions...what we might call instincts, vital drives, or inner energies—that give him a power of observation, a passion for certain things and not for others….We call these sensitivities sensitive periods.” (Montessori, Maria, Education and Peace, p.47-48) “These periods correspond to special sensibilities to be found in creatures in process of development, they are transitory and confined to the acquisition of a determined characteristic. Once this characteristic has evolved, the corresponding sensibility disappears.” (Montessori, Maria, The Secret of Childhood, p. 28)