When Toni Morrison died in 2019, the world lost one of its most influential authors. But Morrison was not an early success. Her first novel was not published until she was 39, and her last appeared when she was 84. And Morrison was not __26__ in this regard. Numerous writers produce masterpieces well into their 70s and beyond. Such __27__ accomplishments highlight an important point. Our capacity to speak, write and learn new vocabulary does not seem to __28__ with age. Our eyesight may dim and our recall may weaken, but, by comparison, our ability to produce and to __29__ language is well preserved into older adulthood.

Indeed, the latest research that has emerged on language and aging shows that language mastery is a __30__ that we begin as infants and continue on for the rest of our lives. Some aspects of our language abilities, such as our knowledge of word meanings, __31__ improve during middle and late adulthood. One study, for example, found that adults over sixty had an average vocabulary size of over 21,000 words. The researchers also studied a __32__ of college students and found that their average vocabulary contained __33__ 16,000 words. In another study, older adults, with an average age of 75, __34__ better than participants in their youth or middle years on tasks that require.d them to determine the meaning of words. Thus, language seems to be a skill that, contrary to what many might __35__ , does not weaken with age.