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The popular notion that younger children are better second language (L2) learners than older children, or as expressed by Penfield and Roberts (1959), that there is an optimal prepubertal age for L2 learning, has often been supported by contrasting the native-like fluency of young immigrant L2 learners with the obvious non-native L2 proficiency of many adult immigrants. In the present paper this popular notion is challenged on the grounds that'language proficiency'is not a unitary construct; specifically, some aspects of language proficiency, such as reading skills, are strongly related to cognitive and academic development, whereas others involving such basic interpersonal communicative skills as oral fluency and phonology, are less related to cognitive and academic development. Because of older children's greater cognitive maturity, we would expect them to display an advantage over younger children in acquiring those aspects of L2 which are strongly related to cognitive and academic skills. However, no advantage would necessarily be predicted for older learners in acquiring aspects of L2 which are unrelated to cognitive maturity. First the recent literature on this issue will be reviewed and then data from one of the lesser-known studies, that of Ramsey and Wright (1974), will be reanalysed in the light of these hypotheses. j