From Stein Boddington, Sydney, Australia
Focusing on the physical palaeo-anthropological record in the story of how human childhood and adolescence became so prolonged neglects what is perhaps the lengthiest task a child has: mastering language. It takes around 20 years for an acceptable competence to embed itself in the neuro-architecture of our brains and to acquire enough factual and conceptual knowledge to be able to function well in the adult world (30 March, p 36).
