Social learning is an important part of development because it is a way that individuals can acquire patterns of behavior appropriate for the environment. Often, socially-learned behavioral patterns persist throughout the lifespan, making developmental learning an essential component to understanding adult behaviors. For example, in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) both juvenile males and females form memories of song they hear from adult males and these memories have behavioral consequences for both sexes as adults. However, it is unknown if juvenile males and females are learning song in the same way because adult males learn to sing and adult females do not. In this thesis I investigated different molecular signatures of learning during development to try and elucidate whether or not juvenile male and female zebra finches are capable of learning song in the same way. The existing literature investigating known molecular mechanisms of learning in juvenile males and females is inconclusive. This is largely due to the imbalance of information we have about song learning between juvenile males and females – we know much more about males than we do females. Given that we know that long-term memory formation requires that experience initiates new protein synthesis, my approach was to measure a molecular indicator and a molecular mechanism that influences the rate of translation across a known window of song learning in both juvenile male and females. I did so in a way which would allow me to account for age, sex and acute song experience - all factors that can influence learning throughout development. In Chapter 1, I reviewed the current literature and provide the relevant background to ground the reader in the experiments which make up my doctoral work. In Chapter 2, I investigated a molecular marker of new protein synthesis during the song learning period of development in juvenile males and females. I used a counter-balanced design to compare birds with and without acute song experience across sex at different ages spanning the song learning period of development. The results from this study suggest that one molecular indicator of song learning in males may be different from that of females during this period of development. In Chapter 3, I designed an experiment to explore the abundance of a molecular mechanism which is a potential regulator of song learning in juvenile males and females during development. In this chapter I described the experiment, the challenges that I faced in running the experiment, and the conclusions I drew from this experience. In Chapter 4, I described an experiment I designed in order to answer the questions posed in Chapter 3 but using a different technique. I layout the methods and the results I expected to see using this technique. In Chapter 5, I summarized the main conclusions from my doctoral work and the potential future directions. Altogether, my work helps advance questions focused on the relationships between molecular mechanisms of social experience and behavior and how regulatory mechanisms and indicators of new protein synthesis can be utilized to characterized learning ability.