Day 23 of 150 Language Difficulty 5/10
Native-like language acquisition gets harder after puberty
Quick answer
Native-like language acquisition gets harder after puberty. Today's question (Critical period for language) asks about a finding from Lenneberg, E. H. in 1967. The correct option is Roughly puberty — full explanation, primary source, and glossary cross-links below.
Today's question
Lenneberg's critical-period hypothesis claims that native-like language acquisition is hardest to achieve after:
Reveal the answer and explanation
Correct: B — Roughly puberty
Lenneberg (1967) argued that native-like grammar acquisition declines sharply around puberty, tied to brain lateralization and reduced neural plasticity. Subsequent research has weakened the strong version — some plasticity persists for vocabulary and even accent into adulthood — but the puberty inflection still appears robustly in second-language phonology data and in studies of late-acquired sign language by deaf children.
About the source
Lenneberg, E. H. (1967). Biological Foundations of Language. Wiley.
Every Cognition Bible question cites a primary source — a paper, book chapter, or monograph that exists, that we can point to on Google Scholar, and whose finding the question accurately summarizes. No fabricated authority strings, no name-drops without paper-level grounding.
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