The Innatist Perspective The Critical Period Hypothesis
Animals and humans are genetically programmed to acquire certain kinds of knowledge and skill at specific times in life
Difficult to apply this hypothesis for language acquisition because nearly all children are exposed to language (oral or gestural) at an early age
The proposal that there is a limited period during which language acquisition can occur. It suggests that there are biological mechanisms specifically designed for language acquisition and that these cease to be available at or even before puberty. Thus an older learner has to use general learning mechanisms that are not designed and thus not as effective for language acquisition