I think that the physiological base of the common notion that kids are usually sponge-brained can't be really at stake.
But, you are right, nobody seems to take into consideration the very special situation in which kids find themselves: if a determined adult is let free to study and apply himself to a craft, 8 hours a day, without the need to provide or take care of others, without any need to think about money, mortgages and paying the bills... What would happen?
People like that exist and they are the proof that you can actually learn and be proficient even when you're older.
Professional soccer star Marco Van Basten retired when he was 32. He went on to become a golf champion and, incredibly enough, a backgammon champion.
Professional italian musician Franco Battiato never took up a brush in his life. Years ago he decided that he had to become a good painter and he went on to do it.
These are two examples I recall, but I think I made my point sufficiently clear: if you have the time, the resources, the commitment you can probably make a little talent flourish even in you late decades.
i'm having a hard time sourcing either side of the argument, but kids learn a ton of shit.
an adult learning a language has the benefit of both abstract and pragmatic knowledge of language, having spoken at least one for some time. they don't need to spend time learning, for example, how to move their tongue to make different noises. an adult learning a language also has the benefit of being able to read, or listen, to facilitate their learning. a child learns a language without any of this groundwork.
i feel like maybe you are underestimating the sheer amount of information a child has to process and how completely foreign everything we take for granted is to them.
On the other hand, children have little else to do but absorb new information and they take a good number of years doing it. Adults have a load of responsibilities that they have to occupy their minds with. Compared to the carefree oblivion of childhood I think it is remarkable that adults can learn anything new at all.
There does seem to be a lack of research that attempts to correct for this, or at least I can't find it. In the absence of data, I prefer to believe that I'm at least as able to learn new things as 6 year old me.
Do all kids really have such vast amounts of free time in their childhood, or is that heavily dependent on the culture? I can imagine that a lot of kids have had to work and take on responsibilities at a very young age (though I don't know if they had to do that at the so-called sponge brain age).
Unless you've found some telepaths all children learn language by constant massive exposure. Outside of multilingual societies it'll all be in the same language too. Modern hunyer-gatherers spend ~4 hours a day doing what we'd recognise as work and this is after agricultural civilisation took all the good land. Civilisation is evolutionarily very recent. And humans have extremely long childhood period to learn probably.
I remember learning about a study in a neuroscience class regarding language and how, before the critical period in a child's mind, they could learn many languages because their brain had not settled on any one particular language. The "shape" of words (word length, voxels, parts of speech etc) effectively became hard coded in their minds after the critical period ended so they could easily recognize that language, but from then on they can't learn languages easily as precritical period.
Anyone familiar with the topic care to further elaborate on this phenomenon? thanks
I have observed several children acquiring a first language. They struggle with pronunciation, repeat themselves again and again trying to get words right, mimic, ask for help, and generally work their little butts off. There's nothing effortless about it.
I've also seen many adults acquire second languages and fail to do so. I have also learned to speak a second language fluently as an adult myself.
My hypothesis is that adults' greater difficulty in learning a language is mostly based in fear of failure, social embarrassment, the vulnerability of asking for help, and the necessary process of making a fool of yourself along the way. Children are unafraid to blunder repeatedly until they get it right.
Wikipedia distinguishes between first and second language acquisition (FLA, SLA). FLA is done by children. SLA is done by children and adults.
The critical period hypothesis is that SLA is age dependent and can only be done properly as a child. However "The critical period hypothesis is the subject of a long-standing debate in linguistics and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age."
I am not familiar with the research in this field, but I don't think it is clear cut that SLA is age dependent. FLA does appear to be though.
FLA is most definitely age dependent. There have have been a couple of real sad cases where this has been tested - the case of 'Genie' is the most famous[0].
Children are phenomenal and unparalleled Multi-tasked learners. Kids learn more things than most of us even comprehend need to be learned.
However the reason I doubt the long term effectiveness of trying to recreate this state of learning - it would likely be highly effective if your boss said "we've got an opening in Japan, want it?" Being able to learn language like a child would be advantageous, body language for instance being from the UK living in North America my first reaction when someone says "peace out" and gives me the V I get an adrenaline surge because to me they just gave me a bigger insult than flipping me the bird. However I remember very little of my childhood or the things I learnt.
I remember a lot >10ya but very little <10. I have no problem with learning as an adult, I can learn a large amount of information on diverse subjects and not really try to retain it. There is no issue with learning, it's an issue with focus because the things I'm learning aren't as easy and it's easier to just not do it and no one but myself is going to punish me for not learning.
Children absorb knowledge from their environment fast, adults do goal directed learning faster. Children's brains are just more plastic. They pick things up better than adults.
That said I'm not sure there are any cases besides languages where adults don't crush children. Their superiority is best illustrated by the incredible rarity of L2 speakers who won't be obvious after 10 minutes by grammar or syntax slips or the unicorns who can do that and have native accents.
My favourite data point on children's superiority over adults at language learning is the list with one member.
Adult Learners of English Who Wrote a Classic Work of Literature in it.[a]
Joseph Conrad
[a] Nabokov grew up with English governesses and could read it before he could read Russian.
But, you are right, nobody seems to take into consideration the very special situation in which kids find themselves: if a determined adult is let free to study and apply himself to a craft, 8 hours a day, without the need to provide or take care of others, without any need to think about money, mortgages and paying the bills... What would happen?
People like that exist and they are the proof that you can actually learn and be proficient even when you're older.
Professional soccer star Marco Van Basten retired when he was 32. He went on to become a golf champion and, incredibly enough, a backgammon champion.
Professional italian musician Franco Battiato never took up a brush in his life. Years ago he decided that he had to become a good painter and he went on to do it.
These are two examples I recall, but I think I made my point sufficiently clear: if you have the time, the resources, the commitment you can probably make a little talent flourish even in you late decades.