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The sensitive period as a developmental concept is discussed. Observations are made on various problems involved in attempting to explain adult difficulties with second language acquisition by in voking motivational and input factors.Sixty male Italian immigrants listened to English sentences masked with white noise at four signal-to-noise ratios. Comprehen sion scores were correlated with age of beginning English but were not predicted by number of years in the United States or by other variables investigated. Scores of those who arrived before early adolescence resembled those of native speakers, while those subjects who began English toward the end of adolescence showed a marked comprehension deficit. These results support the hypothesis that a sensitive period exists for the acquisition of a second language.When it has not been taken for granted, the ability of the young child to acquire its native language, with a minimum of observable effort and, of course, "perfect" results, has excited both wonder and puzzlement. That this childhood facility extends to second and even third languages (though more reliably when those languages are learned by exposure than when they are taught in the classroom) is especially noteworthy when it is compared with the limited success of older learners.Among teachers of languages and applied linguists there has long been a degree of consensus that the outcome of adult second lan guage learning is at least in some ways inferior to that of children (Larew 1961, Jones 1969. Until relatively recently, however, ex planations tended to reflect both the behaviorist view of learning that dominated the field for many years and the structuralist view of language that was associated with it; if a childhood advantage in lan