Introduction: special issue on age effects in child language acquisition

Abstract

While age of acquisition effects have been researched extensively in adult second language (L2) acquisition, there is less research focused on examining age of acquisition effects in child language learners. Importantly, for child learners, delays in exposure to language can occur not only for a second but also for a first language (L1). In regard to delays in exposure, it is a widespread assumption that these are detrimental to language outcomes, and that younger is always better for successful language learning. One of the aims of this special issue was to take a closer look at the evidence for this assumption with respect to language learning within the childhood years, both for delayed L1 and L2 exposure.