Language Acquisition: personal note.

While our understanding of language acquisition is incomplete, this pursuit of understanding may be well worth the effort.

We still don’t understand how a child learns its first language, why some children have language disorders or how children and adults learn a second language. And, we still don’t understand what happens when a stroke or a disease such as Alzheimer’s seems to wipe out a person’s knowledge of language. Figuring out the process of language acquisition will not only help scientists answer these questions, but it will also help explain the basic features of learning and the human brain.