critical period for language acquisition

Question 1

what is the criticial period of language acquisition

Answer 1

is a window of opportunity for language to be acquired

Question 2

what is the link between the critical period hypothesis and brain development

Answer 2

critical period hypothesis occurs during the process of lateralization when the 2 brain hemisphere begin to each take over their different dominant roles for certain mental functions

Question 3

what are 4 pieces of evidence that point towards their being a criticial period of language acquisition

Answer 3

• brain damaged adults; the older the child the less satisfactory the recovery is seldom achieved if the injury occurs after puberty
• children with down’s syndrome; these children follow the usual patterns of development at a slower rate, normal linguistic skills will never be acquired.
• feral children; intragic cases such as genie who was socially isolated and without language until the age of 13 tend to have a massive gap with their ablity to learn language and normal linguistic level. they never fully leanr the language
• the pain of learning a second language, as someone gets older the harder it becoes for people to learn language no matter what if you learn a second language later in life u will never sound like a native. ( the info is kept in a differnt part of the brain).