Submitted by electroctopus t3_y7zzjt in todayilearned
Genie comes to mind, having been isolated since very young up to her 13.
Yes, I read the book about her and her case was uppermost in my mind when I commented because unlike the feral children, we know she got expert care and people who worked devotedly for many years but still were unable to help her become at all fluent.
She was making significant progress(not fluent but so hopeful and probably a 2-3 yo level) until her bitch of a mother reneged and ruined everything. Sorry, still a little bitter about it.
Sickening 😣
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Is this why it's so hard to learn a new language as an adult?
Possibly. There are stronger critical periods, like learning how to process vision with two eyes. A second language is a lot more debatable. It's easier to become fluent when you learn at a young age, but some adult learners become fluent so there's not necessarily a critical period where you can no longer learn a second language.
There's a whole section about second language in the article that is worth reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period#Second_language_acquisition
I was in 8th grade when I learned I was mainly using 1 eye my whole life and even after the correction surgery in university, trying to use both eyes at once is difficult, often results in headaches. I guess I missed out on the learning period.
Um. What condition did you have where you only used one eye but nobody noticed?
For a friend of mine, it was that one eye was nearsighted and the other wasn't. Her brain just started ignoring input from the nearsighted eye.
I forgot the actual name but it was misdiagnosed as a lazy eye (or the like) for years until a specialist figured out what was actually wrong. The surgery was for muscle correction. And that eye was also extremely near sighted while the good eye had perfect vision. Not anymore, though.
How exactly was the muscle corrected?
It was cut and reattached. I don't remember many of the details except that the stitches would dissolve on their own after the surgery and I was blinking out pieces for a short while after.
Did it actually correct your vision, though?
It’s called amblyopia
so lazy eye?
woogy woogy
I know when I went to military language school in my late 20s, the cadre said I might be too old. A few older people just breezed through, barely studying. I flunked out. I think it was more of a memorization issue, I got the grammar adequately, just couldn't remember enough words fast enough.
Nope language learning as an adult is way easier than as a kid, takes them a good 5-7 years to be semi fluent and they are practicing every day. This is more like if you are blind at birth from certain conditions that can be corrected if they are corrected too late you still won’t be able to see in your mind even if the eyes are sending the input forward.
There's some evidence that this is what makes learning a language with a very different set of phonemes more difficult as an adult. Babies have a developmental stage where they babble all sorts of sounds--pretty much anything our mouths/voices can make--then those sounds quickly get whittled down to the phonemes and tones we hear being spoken around us. The distinctions between certain sounds get washed out, and the barriers between others are established, and you continue the practice and muscle memory of making the sounds in your native language. If you're a baby in an English speaking country, a front-of-the-mouth "oo" sound is the same as a back-of-the-mouth "oo" sound (e.g. "duuuuude" vs "cooooool"). If you're a baby in a French speaking country, those are two distinct sounds that matter to your ability to understand words. That sound difference is as ingrained to someone raised speaking French as the difference between the "i" sound in "ship" and the "ee" sound in "sheep" is to an English-speaker--a sound difference that doesn't exist in the French language because it only has one close front vowel. Obviously it's not impossible to learn new phonemes as an adult, but babies who are raised bilingual are almost always going to have an ingrained level of phonetic fluency in the other language that's difficult for an adult to achieve.
If the topic is something you're interested in, there's a podcast episode by linguists Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch that covers this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-73oOgbmo
That's why it's critical for new baby check-ups, because acquiring certain skills, certain abilities before a certain age or time frame is critical to "normal" development.
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You ever looked into autism much? Sounds a lot like sensory overload to me.
Might be worth discussing this with a therapist.
I’ve recently become aware that I do the same thing. While I’m still pretty awkward in 1 on 1 conversations, I mostly do fine. But just add one other person and I shut down. It’s like I don’t know how the conversation is supposed to work so I try to take myself out of it.
Yes there is but it's not as well studied. You can see a difference in social skills between adults who were homeschooled during elementary school, and adults who went to public/private elementary schools.
But social skills can also be partially genetic, certain traits of the Big 5, including Extroversion, can be geneticly passed down from parents.
Or you might have mild autism which is also common.
Holy shit you've just described me to a T. Shutting down when it's more than two people in the group, but being sociable one on one. The alcohol and weed dependance to be fluid in social situations, though this has opened up the door to abuse in the past.
I find it bizarre that I can walk away from a social situation knowing immediately what I should have said in that moment, and yet I always tend to say the wrong thing, almost like my shutdown brain takes over and lowers my IQ by 50 points. But then the cloud lifts as I walk away.
It's really difficult, but it really makes me happy knowing I'm not the only one it seems. Do you have ADD, by chance?
> I find it bizarre that I can walk away from a social situation knowing immediately what I should have said in that moment, and yet I always tend to say the wrong thing, almost like my shutdown brain takes over and lowers my IQ by 50 points. But then the cloud lifts as I walk away.
...I fucking know this feeling, man. :-(
Nah, while we do get a lot of practice regarding social skills during kindergarten/early school years it isn't a critical period. Anyone can, unless hindered by mental illness, achieve decent social skills even if they start out as extremely socially awkward and/or shy.
I for one was bullied through all my school years and barely even had a friend, much less a good friend. I couldn't handle social situations at all, literal dread and nausea even thinking about them. But in my 30s I decided to change myself, I moved far away and tried to start a new fresh life. And I managed! Slowly but surely I could socialise more and nowadays its easy, even public speaking feels doable (formerly impossible). The fact that no one knew me allowed me to "fake it until you make it" and slowly but surely learn, train and conquer, basic social skills.
You seem like are describing dissociation/numbing out as a result of a stressful situation - your brain goes into fight or flight mode, is scared, and shuts down a lot of your processing. The fact that it happens when more people are present is likely tied to a over-sensory issue or a trauma.
It is often a symptom or sign of one of the following: C-PTSD, autism or ADHD (which are often comorbid so harder to tell which the symptom is tied to).
So you CAN’T do anything you put your mind to.
Also end childhood emotional neglect please.
Right on it boss
Redditors and the period of brain development that regulates arrogance
Maybe you should read the article next time.
Perfect/absolute pitch (the ability to recognize and internalize absolute frequencies) is something that you either learn young or never learn at all. Apparently the mechanism behind it resides in/uses the language center of the brain.
Edit I should’ve just read the actual link
Meirl
See how Genie never was exposed to spoken speech until being 13, leading her to not being able to speak properly.
She had improvements later, but she was removed from that environment, leading her to regress.
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And we do not yet know how much damage was done to speech development in young children during the period where everyone was masked up. Lip reading is a critical part of their ability to comprehend and mimic speech.
Sure but no one is talking to their baby at home with a mask on
If both parents work, most kids spend more of their waking hours with nursery/preschool/school staff than they do with parents. (
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Still a huge percentage of time either way that will impact them.
And I still see people driving in their car alone with a mask on, so these people are probably doing the same at home.
Just to be safe actually I did put on a mask because me and my wife had recently a newborn son, my son didn't see my unmasked face until his 3rd birthday and so far he seems alright, although he doesn't recognize me unless I wear my mask so I keep it on for his sake.
I think I saw a preliminary study the other day that talked more about this. But yeah, it’s going to take a few more years before I think there will be real meaningful data.
RandomChurn t1_isxvw2z wrote
Yes there are cases of feral / abused children who weren't exposed to human language until age 8 or later and these children never were able to communicate with words beyond a very rudimentary level for the remainder of their lives, despite being given intensive therapy and support once rescued.