The older brain has a tougher time assembling the most basic building blocks of learning. This makes it somewhat more challenging for adults to learn entirely new things and explains, for example, why it seems to be easier to learn a foreign language early in life. On the other hand, adults seem to be better at learning by association. With a bigger knowledge base to begin with, and long-established habits of logic and deduction, grown-ups are more likely to grasp new concepts by way of their connections to ideas already known.
