There’s an interesting wrinkle to this. There’s a faculty called Prefrontal Synthesis that children learn from language early on, which enables them to compose recursive and hierarchical linguistic structures. This also enables them to reason about physical tasks in the sane way. Children that don’t learn this by a certain age (I think about 5) can never learn it. The most common case is deaf children that never learn a ‘proper’ sign language early enough.
So you’re right, and children pick this up very quickly. I think Chomsky was definitely right that our brains are wired for grammar. Nevertheless there is a window of plasticity in young childhood to pick up certain capabilities, which still need to be learned, or activated.
> Children that don’t learn this by a certain age (I think about 5) can never learn it.
Helen Keller is a counterexample for a lot of these myths: she didn't have proper language (only several dozen home signs) until 7 or so. With things like vision, critical periods have been proven, but a lot of the higher-level stuff, I really doubt critical periods are a thing.
Helen Keller did have hearing until an illness at 19 months, so it's conceivable she developed the critical faculties then. A proper controlled trial would be unethical, so we may never know for sure.
Thanks, it’s good to get counter arguments and wider context. This isn’t an area I’m very familiar with, so I’m aware I could easily fall down a an intellectual pothole without knowing. Paper below, any additional context welcome.
I misremembered however. The paper noted evidence of thresholds at 2, 5 and onset of puberty as seeming to affect p mental plasticity in these capabilities so there’s no one cutoff.
So you’re right, and children pick this up very quickly. I think Chomsky was definitely right that our brains are wired for grammar. Nevertheless there is a window of plasticity in young childhood to pick up certain capabilities, which still need to be learned, or activated.