“There are critical periods when certain matters must be taught and learnt”
Most people believe that the best stage of life to learn new skills is early childhood. For a long time it was strongly believed that the human brain loses neurons with age.
A nerve cell is the most important brain cell. This is able to transmit electrical information from one cell to another. These cells establish a network which is in charge of memory, emotions, pain, perception and functional directions. When they suffer damage because of a trauma or a neurodegenerative condition, they are replaced by glial cells.
No critical period for learning has yet been found for humans. Scientists prefer to call this: sensitive periods. It is true that children (12 months children for example) have a “gift” to learn languages. But this does not mean that adults have less neurons or they are less capable to learn.
If children are surrounded by different cultures, they can learn other languages very easily. And actually kids would be able to sound like native speakers. All this due to their faculty to distinguish different sounds. We must not forget either that their neuronal plasticity process is just beginning. This is, in fact, what makes easier to integrate new data and create more synaptic bounds.
But...
It was probed that learning is not age dependent. Adults also have the change to learn. Actually new neurons are produced every day in the hippocampus (neuronal segment important in emotions). Neurons, unless you have an accident, do not die. They shrink!
It is very important to tell this to retired adults. To tell them they are not a machine that is just being turned off. They have a chance to learn new languages, to start a curse, to learn how to play the piano and to continue with their lives! 
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