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At What Age is it Easier to Learn?

Posted by Cliff on from the depends-on-the-subject-matter dept.

Maria D asks: "At what age do people learn faster? Suppose you want to learn to write code at a certain level. What age ranges will absorb the lessons the best? There is surprisingly little research on post-early-childhood development. A language won't be quite native if you start learning it after five or so, but what about adult differences? From informal observations in graduate schools, I've concluded that older people learn faster because of their experience in learning techniques, which seems so counterintuitive!"

3 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'm Hardly the Person to Ask on This... by Ieshan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Koko isn't capable of using language.

    Koko is capable of using pseudo-language. Real language is generative and recombinatorial.

    Koko and other gorillas/chimps/bonobos can do things like "me me food me me me food", "banana give banana give banana me banana" or identify symbols that stand for people or objects. Some can count (see Alex the parrot, very cool stuff). But none actually use a real language.

    I feel somewhat justified to answer *this* question as I do research on animal cognition.

  2. No subject... why woudl there be a subject? by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Personally I started learning HTML in about 5th or 6th grade. I could do some BASIC coding as well. But even at the top of my classes in math and science, I'll admit learning C structure at 10 was much more difficult than when I tried again at around 14 with algebra and geometry under my belt. Anything I suppose could be taught to anyone. But do you all remember struggling with Times tables in 3rd grade? It's challenging to do rudimentary programming without at least addition, subtraction and multiplication memorized pretty good.

  3. cognitive ability declines with age by beliavsky · · Score: 3, Informative

    Quoting the site http://www.infoaging.org/b-neuro-1-what.html , whose findings agree with other material I have read:

    "Most studies show that, in general, cognitive abilities are the greatest when people are in their 30s and 40s. Cognitive abilities stay about the same until the late 50s or early 60s, at which point they begin to decline, but to only a small degree. The effects of cognitive changes are usually not noticed until the 70s and beyond."