[justinem]

The 'critical period' hypothesis is not the only theory and I don't believe its a useful one.

I think you're misinformed if you think brain development can be said to taper off in any way over 18 years. There is pretty clear evidence that it happens in distinct stages.

I think the real mechanism is that learning symbolic logic early causes a type of confidence that adults without find hard to acquire. Of course, my opinion doesn't really count here since my Karma is negative one now.

[jgg]

I think you're misinformed if you think brain development can be said to taper off in any way over 18 years.

That's not what I said, and the advantage you talked about supposedly does taper off until the child is around 12.

(edited for clarity)