[SnazzyJeff]

> But no matter how well the gene therapy works, the researchers recognize that Aissam may never be able to understand or speak a language, Dr. Germiller said. The brain has a narrow window for learning to speak beginning around ages 2 to 3, he explained. After age 5, the window for learning spoken language is permanently shut.

This is trivially false. How are you acting like this person can be taken seriously? At best, they're wildly hyperbolic in their statements. At worst, they're funded to push a polemic.

[Tor3]

I too have to ask why this is "trivially false". We hardly have even anecdotal references to people who never heard language until after five (except for stories about children raised by wolves and couldn't learn to speak - not exactly stories we can trust).

Of course that's goes the other way too - which studies are Dr. Germiller referencing? But again - if it was "trivially false" this would mean that it's something generally known because it's observable. And it isn't, as far as I'm aware.

[MathMonkeyMan]

How is it trivially false? I know nothing about it.

[SnazzyJeff]

Well, the part that was claimed. "The brain has a narrow window for learning to speak beginning around ages 2 to 3, he explained. After age 5, the window for learning spoken language is permanently shut." The person seems to mistake the term "speech" for the phrase "language comprehension"—the field moved past that decades ago.

[iteria]

I was extremely confused by this statement because well... I exist. I didn't start speaking until around 5 because of various health issues and I wouldn't say I was reasonable at it until I was a preteen, but I definitely acquired language, just extremely slowly.

[judge2020]

Maybe the quote is about the critical period hypothesis[0], which is not universally accepted.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis