The Wild Child of Avyron was 12 years old when they tried to teach him language.
(continued from the previous page)...make language impossible to learn after puberty, seems to be born out in cases of individuals with severe brain damage.
If the left cerebral hemisphere is removed from infants, they can still develop language. But should the same damage occur in adults, recovery of language is impossible.
We are concluding that the nature of the stimulation children receive during this window will have a major impact on their language development.
There are, of course, intriguing reports of cases of stimulation at the extremes of the continuum. On the low end would have to be the wild boy of Avyron.
This was a homeless boy around 12 years of age, who at the beginning of the 18th century was captured in France.
He had apparently been abandoned, after his throat had been cut, at a very young age.