system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How can very small children remember language, people, etc. and yet not retain any memories?

Infants and young children surly remember how to speak, certain faces, and a number of other things. So why is it that upon aging they cannot recall memories? Thanks!
gpt
Associative learning is intact even in baby insects.  Babies *are* forming and retaining memories, but they're doing it at the same time that they're forming a hippocampus, the structure that will be used for conscious learning and memory down the road.  It's present at birth, and used off and on throughout infancy, but takes a while to shape up and become the default assembly tool of sensory information.

tl;dr:  They retain memories, even at birth, but they aren't consciously learned, or even consciously accessible till the brain structures are in place.