this call was answered, at first with delay, a little later immediately, by a turning of the look toward the clock. This proved that there was understanding long before the first imitation of words. Progress now became pretty rapid, so that at the end of the seventh month the questions, "Where is your eye? ear? head? mouth? nose? the table? chair?
sofa?" were answered correctly by movements of hand and eyes. In the tenth month this child for the first time himself used a word as a means of effecting an understanding, viz., _mama_ (soon afterward, indeed, he called both parents _papa_). The child"s inability to repeat distinctly syllables spoken for him is not to be attributed, shortly before the time at which he succeeds in doing it, to a purely psychical adynamy (impotence), not, as many suppose, to "being stupid," or to a weakness of will without organic imperfections determined by the cerebral development, for the efforts, the attention, and the ability to repeat incorrectly, show that the will is not wanting. Since also the peripheral impressive acoustic and expressive phonetic paths are intact and developed, as is proved by the acuteness of the hearing and the spontaneous formation of the very syllables desired, the cause of the inability to repeat correctly must be solely organic-centro-motor. The connecting paths between the sound-center and the syllable-center, and of both these with the speech motorium, are not yet or not easily pa.s.sable; but the imitation of a single sound, be it only _a_, can not take place without the mediation of the cerebral cortex. Thus in the very first attempt to repeat something heard there exists an unquestionable advance in brain development; and the first successful attempt of this kind proves not merely the augmented functional ability of the articulatory apparatus and of the sound-center, and the practicability of the impressive paths that lead from the ear to the sound-center--it proves, above all, the establishment of intercentral routes that lead from the sound-center and the syllable-center to the motorium.
In fact, the correct _repeating_ of a sound heard, of a syllable, and, finally, of a word p.r.o.nounced by another person, is the surest proof of the establishment and practicability of the entire impressive, central, and expressive path. It, however, proves nothing as to the _understanding_ of the sound or word heard and faultlessly repeated.
As the term "understanding" or "understand" is ambiguous, in so far as it may relate to the ideal content (the meaning), and at the same time to the mere perception of the word spoken (or written or touched)--e. g., when any one speaks indistinctly so that we do not "understand" him--it is advisable to restrict the use of this expression. _Understand_ shall in future apply only to the _meaning_ of the word; _hear_--since it is simply the perceiving of a word through the hearing that we have in view--will relate to the sensuous impression. It is clear, then, that all children who can hear but can not yet speak, repeat many words without understanding them, and understand many words without being able to repeat them, as Kussmaul has already observed. But I must add that the repeating of what is not understood begins only after some word (even one that can not be repeated) has been understood.
Now it is certain that the majority, if not all, of the children that have good hearing develop the understanding more at first, since the impressive side is practiced more and sooner than the expressive-articulatory. Probably those that imitate early and skillfully are the children that can speak earliest, and whose cerebrum grows fastest but also soonest ceases to grow; whereas those that imitate later and more sparingly, generally learn to speak later, and will generally be the more intelligent. For with the higher sort of activity goes the greater growth of brain. While the other children cultivate more the centro-motor portion, the sensory, the intellectual, is neglected. In animals, likewise, a brief, rapid development of the brain is wont to go along with inferior intelligence. The intelligence gets a better development when the child, instead of repeating all sorts of things without any meaning, tries to guess the meaning of what he hears. Precisely the epoch at which this takes place belongs to the most interesting in intellectual development. Like a pantomimist, the child, by means of his looks and gestures, and further by cries and by movements of all sorts, gives abundant evidence of his understanding and his desires, without himself speaking a single word. As the adult, after having half learned a foreign language from books, can not speak (imitate) it, and can not easily understand it when he hears it spoken fluently by one that is a perfect master of it, but yet makes out _single_ expressions and understands them, and divines the meaning of the whole, so the child at this stage can distinctly hear single words, can grasp the purport of them, and divine correctly a whole sentence from the looks and gestures of the speaker, although the child himself makes audible no articulate utterance except his own, for the most part meaningless, variable babble of sounds and syllables and outcries.
The causes of the slowness of the progress in expressing in articulate words what is understood and desired, on the part of normal children, is not, however, to be attributed, as it has often been, to a slower development of the expressive motor mechanism, but must be looked for in the difficulty of establishing the connection of the various central storehouses of sense-impressions with the intercentral path of connection between the acoustic speech-centers and the speech-motorium.
For the purely peripheral articulatory acts are long since perfect, although as yet a simple "_a_" or "_pa_" can not be repeated after another person; for these and other sounds and syllables are already uttered correctly by the child himself.
The order of succession in which these separate sounds appear, without instruction, is very different in individual cases. With my boy, who learned to speak rather late, and was not occupied with learning by heart, the following was the order of the perfectly pure sounds heard by me:
On the left are the sounds or syllables indicated by one letter; on the right, the same indicated by more than one letter; and it is to be borne in mind that the child needs to p.r.o.nounce only fourteen of the nineteen so-called consonants of the German alphabet in order to master the remaining five also; for
c = ts and k v = f and w x = ks and gs q = ku and kw z = ts and ds
and of the fourteen four require no new articulation, because
p is a toneless b t is a toneless d f is a toneless w k is a toneless g
Of the ten positions of the mouth required for all the consonants of the alphabet, nine are taken by the child within the first six months:*
Months.
1. Indefinite vowels; a u, ua.
2. a, o, o; m, g, r, t; h, am, ma, ta, hu, or, ro, ar, ra, go.
3. i; b, l, n, ua, oa, ao, ai, [(ei], oa, ao, aa, ao; om, in, ab, om; la, ho, mo, na, na, ha, bu; ng, mb, gr.
4. e, [(au], a-u, ao, ea; an; na, to, la, me; nt.
5. u (y); k, ag, eg, ek, ge, ko.
6. j; the oi ([(eu], [(au]), io, oe, eu (French); ij, aj, lingual-l.a.b.i.al og, ich; ja, ja; rg, br, ch.
sound, 7. d, p, ae, ui; ma.
8. eo, ae, ou, [(au]; up; ho, mi, te.
9. ap, ach, am; pa, ga, cha.
10. el, ab, at, at; da, ba, ta, ta; nd.
11. ad, al, ak, er, ej, od; da, ga, ba, ka, ke, je, he, ne; pr, tr.
12. w, an, op, ew, ar; de, wa; nj, ld.
13. s (ss), en; hi; dn.
14. mu; kn, gn, kt.
15. z, oo, oa, is, iss, es, a.s.s, th (English), ith (Engl.), it; ha, di, wa, sse.
16. f (v), ok, on; do, go; bw, fp.
17. ib, ot, an; bi.
18. ai, ia; ap, im; tu, pa; ft.
19. on, et, es; sa, be; st, tth (Engl.), s-ch, sj.
20. ub, ot, id, od, oj, uf, at; bo, ro, jo; dj, dth (Engl.).
21. op; fe; rl, dl, nk, pt.
22. ol; lo; ps, pt, tl, sch, tsch, pth (Engl.).
23. q, uo; id, op, um, em, us, un, ow, ed, uk, ig, il; jo, ju, po, mo, wo, fa, fo, fi, we, ku (qu), li, ti; tn, pf, gch, gj, tj, schg.
24. ut, esch; pu, wi, schi, pi.
25. oe, ul, il, och, iw, ip, ur; lt, rb, rt.
26. nl, ds, mp, rm, fl, kl, nch, ml, dr.
27. x, kch, cht, lch, ls, sw, sl.
_____________________________________________________________________ * p.r.o.nounce the letters in the tabular view as in German.
Every such chronological view of the sequence of sounds is uncertain, because we can not observe the child uninterruptedly, and hence the first appearance of a new sound easily escapes notice. The above synopsis has a chronological value only so far as this, that it announces, concerning every single sound, that such sound was heard in its purity by me at least as early as the given month. The sound may, however, have been uttered considerably earlier without my hearing it. I know from personal experience that in other children many sounds appear much earlier; in my child, e. g., _nga_ was observed too late, and I have no doubt that the first utterance of _f_ and _w_ was un.o.bserved, although I was on the lookout for them. When it is maintained, on the contrary, that _m_ is not heard from a normal child until the tenth month, then the _am_ and _mo_ which appear universally in the first half-year have escaped notice. Earlier tabular views of this sort, which have even served as a foundation for instruction of deaf-mutes in speaking, do not rest exclusively on observation. Besides, in this matter, even two children hardly agree. According to my observations, I am compelled in spite of this disagreement to lay down the proposition as valid for all healthy children, that the greatly _preponderating majority of the sounds the child makes use of after learning verbal language, and many other sounds besides these, are correctly formed by him within the first eight months_, not intentionally, but just as much at random as any other utterance of sound not to be used later in speech, not appearing in any civilized language. I will only mention as an example the labio-lingual explosive sound, in which the tip of the tongue comes between the lips and, with an expiration, bursting from its confinement is drawn back swiftly (with or without tone). All children seem to like to form this sound, a sound between _p_, _b_, and _t_, _d_; but it exists in few languages.
Among the innumerable superfluous, unintentional, random, muscular movements of the infant, the movements of the muscles of the larynx, mouth, and tongue take a conspicuous place, because they ally themselves readily with acoustic effects and the child takes delight in them. It is not surprising, therefore, that precisely those vibrations of the vocal cords, precisely those shapings of the cavity of the mouth, and those positions of the lips, often occur which we observe in the utterance of our vowels, and that among the child-noises produced unconsciously and in play are found almost all our consonants and, besides, many that are used in foreign languages.
The plasticity of the apparatus of speech in youth permits the production of a greater abundance of sounds and sound-combinations than is employed later, and not a single child has been observed who has, in accordance with the principle of the least effort (_principe du moindre effort_) applied by French authors to this province, advanced in regular sequence from the sounds articulated easily--i. e., with less activity of will--to the physiologically difficult; rather does it hold good for all the children I have observed, and probably for all children that learn to speak, that many of the sounds uttered by them at the beginning, in the speechless season of infancy, without effort and then forgotten, have to be learned afresh at a later period, have to be painstakingly acquired by means of imitation.
Mobility and perfection in the _technique_ of sound-formation are not speech. They come into consideration in the process of learning to speak as facilitating the process, because the muscles are perfected by previous practice; but the very first attempts to imitate voluntarily a sound heard show how slight this advantage is. Even those primitive syllables which the child of himself often p.r.o.nounces to weariness, like _da_, he can not at the beginning (in the tenth month in my case) as yet say after any one, although he makes manifest by his effort--a regular strain--by his attention, and his unsuccessful attempts, that he would like to say them, as I have already mentioned. The reason is to be looked for in the still incomplete development of the sensori-motor central paths. In place of _tatta_ is sounded _ta_ or _ata_; in place of _papa_ even _ta_, and this not once only, but after a great many trials repeated again and again with the utmost patience. That the sound-image has been correctly apprehended is evident from the certainty with which the child responds correctly in various cases by gestures to words of similar sound unp.r.o.nounceable by him. Thus, he points by mistake once only to the mouth (Mund) instead of the moon (Mond), and points correctly to the ear (Ohr) and the clock (Uhr) when asked where these objects are. The acuteness of hearing indispensable for repeating the sounds is therefore present before the ability to repeat.
On the whole, the infant or the young child already weaned must be placed higher at this stage of his mental development than a very intelligent animal, but not on account of his knowledge of language, for the dog also understands very well single words in the speech of his master, in addition to hunting-terms. He divines, from the master"s looks and gestures, the meaning of whole sentences, and, although he has not been brought to the point of producing articulate sounds, yet much superior in this respect is the performance of the c.o.c.katoo, which learns all articulate sounds. A child who shows by looks and gestures and actions that he understands single words, and who already p.r.o.nounces correctly many words by imitation without understanding them, does not on this account stand higher intellectually than a sagaciously calculating yet speechless elephant or an Arabian horse, but because he already forms many more and far more complex concepts.
The animal phase of intellect lasts, in the sound, vigorous, and not neglected child, to the end of the first year of life at the farthest; and long before the close of this he has, by means of the _feelings_ of pleasure and of discomfort, very definitely distinguishable by him even in the first days of life, but for which he does not get the verbal expressions till the second and third year, formed for himself at least in one province, viz., that of food, _ideas_ more or less well defined.
Romanes also rightly remarks that the _concept_ of food arises in us through the feeling of hunger quite independently of language. Probably this concept is the very first that is formed by the quite young infant, only he would not name it "food," if indeed he named it at all, but would understand by it everything that puts an end to the feeling of hunger. It is of great importance to hold firmly to this fact of the origination of ideas, and that not of sensuous percepts only but of concepts, without language, because it runs contrary to prevailing a.s.sumptions.
He who has conscientiously observed the mental development of infants must come to the conclusion that _the formation of ideas is not bound up with the learning of words, but is a necessary prerequisite for the understanding of the words to be learned first, and therefore for learning to speak_. Long before the child understands even a single word, before he uses a single syllable consistently with a definite meaning, he already has a number of ideas which are expressed by looks and gestures and cries. To these belong especially ideas gained through touch and sight. a.s.sociations of objects touched and seen with impressions of taste are probably the first generators of concepts. The child, still speechless and toothless, takes a lively interest in bottles; sees, e. g., a bottle that is filled with a white opaque liquid (Goulard water), and he stretches out his arms with desire toward it, screaming a long time, in the belief that it is a milk-bottle (observed by me in the case of my child in the thirty-first week). The bottle when empty or when filled with water is not so long attractive to him, so that the idea of food (or of something to drink, something to suck, something sweet) must arise from the sight of a bottle with certain contents without the understanding or even utterance of any words. The formation of concepts without words is actually demonstrated by this; for the speechless child not only perceived the points of ident.i.ty of the various bottles of wine, water, oil, the nursing-bottle and others, the sight of which excited him, but he united in one notion the contents of the different sorts of bottles when what was in them was white--i. e., he had separated the concept of food from that of the bottle. Ideas are thus independent of words.
Certain as this proposition is, it is not, however, supported by the reasons given for it by Kussmaul, viz., that one and the same object is variously expressed in various languages, and that a new animal or a new machine is known before it is named; for no one desires to maintain that certain ideas are _necessarily_ connected with certain words, without the knowledge of which they could not arise--it is maintained only that ideas do not exist without words. Now, any object has some appellation in each language, were it only the appellation "object," and a new animal, a new machine, is already called "animal,"
"machine," before it receives its special name. Hence from this quarter the proof can not be derived. On the other hand, the speechless infant certainly furnishes the proof, which is confirmed by some observations on microcephalous persons several years old or of adult age. The lack of the power of abstraction apparent in these persons and in idiots is not so great that they have not developed the notion "food" or "taking of food."
Indeed, it is not impossible that the formation of ideas may continue after the total loss of word-memory, as in the remarkable and much-talked-of case of Lordat. Yet this case does not by any means prove that the formation of concepts of the _higher_ order is possible without previous mastery of verbal language; rather is it certain that concepts rising above the lowest abstractions can be formed only by him who has thoroughly learned to speak: for intelligent children without speech are acquainted, indeed, with more numerous and more complex ideas than are very sagacious animals, but not with many more abstractions of a higher sort, and where the vocabulary is small the power of abstraction is wont to be as weak in adults as in children.
The latter, to be sure, acquire the words for the abstract with more difficulty and later than those for the concrete, but have them stamped more firmly on the mind (for, when the word-memory fails, proper names and nouns denoting concrete objects are, as a rule, first forgotten). But it would not be admissible, as I showed above, to conclude from this that no abstraction at all takes place without words. To me, indeed, it is probable that in the most intense thought the most abstract conceptions are effected most rapidly without the disturbing images of the sounds of words, and are only supplementarily clothed in words. In any case the intelligent child forms many concepts of a lower sort without any knowledge of words at all, and he therefore performs abstraction without words.
When Sigismund showed to his son, not yet a year old and not able to speak a word, a stuffed woodc.o.c.k, and, pointing to it, said, "Bird,"
the child directly afterward looked toward another side of the room where there stood upon the stove a stuffed white owl, represented as in flight, which he must certainly have observed before. Here, then, the concept had already arisen; but how little specialized are the first concepts connected with words that do not relate to food is shown by the fact that in the case of Lindner"s child (in the tenth month) _up_ signified also _down_, _warm_ signified also _cold_. Just so my child used _too much_ also for _too little_; another child used _no_ also for _yes_; a third used _I_ for _you_. If these by no means isolated phenomena rest upon a lack of differentiation of the concepts, "then the child already has a presentiment that opposites are merely the extreme terms of the same series of conceptions"
(Lindner), and this before he can command more than a few words.
But to return to the condition of the normal child, as yet entirely speechless. It is clear that, being filled with desire to give expression in every way to his feelings, especially to his needs, he will use his voice, too, for this purpose. The adult likewise cries out with pain, although the "Oh!" has no direct connection with the pain, and there is no intention of making, by means of the outcry, communication to others. Now, before the newly-born is in condition to seek that which excites pleasure, to avoid what excites displeasure, he cries out in like fashion, partly without moving the tongue, partly with the sound _a_ dominant, repeated over and over monotonously till some change of external conditions takes place. After this the manner of crying begins to vary according to the condition of the infant; then come sounds clearly distinguishable as indications of pleasure or displeasure; then syllables, at first to some extent spontaneously articulated without meaning, afterward such as express desire, pleasure, etc.; not until much later imitated sounds, and often the imperfect imitation of the voices of animals, of inorganic noises, and of spoken words. The mutilation of his words makes it seem as if the child were already inventing new designations which are soon forgotten; and as the child, like the lunatic, uses familiar words in a new sense after he has begun to learn to talk, his style of expression gets an original character, that of "baby-talk." Here it is characteristic that the feelings and ideas do not now first _arise_, though they are now first articulately expressed; but they were in part present long since and did not become articulate, but were expressed by means of looks and gestures. In the adult ideas generate new words, and the formation of new words does not cease so long as thinking continues; but in the child without speech new feelings and new ideas generate at first only new cries and movements of the muscles of the face and limbs, and, the further we look back into child-development proper, the greater do we find the number of the conditions expressed by one and the same cry. The organism as yet has too few means at its disposal. In many cases of aphasia every mental state is expressed by one and the same word (often a word without meaning). Upon closer examination it is found, however, that for the orator also, who is complete master of speech, all the resources of language are insufficient. No one, e. g., can name all the colors that may be perceived, or describe pain, or describe even a cloud, so that several hearers gain the same idea of its form that the speaker has.
The words come short, but the idea is clear. If words sufficed to express clearly clear conceptions, then the greater part of our philosophical and theological literature would not exist. This literature has its basis essentially in the inevitable fact that different persons do not a.s.sociate the same concept with the same word, and so one word is used to indicate different concepts (as is the case with the child). If a concept is exceptionally difficult--i. e., exceptionally hard to express clearly in words--then it is wont to receive many names, e. g., "die," and the confusion and strife are increased; but words alone render it possible to form and to make clear concepts of a higher sort. They favor the formation of new ideas, and without them the intellect in man remains in a lower stage of development just because they are the most trustworthy and the most delicate means of expression for ideas. If ideas are not expressed at all, or not intelligibly, their possessor can not use them, can not correct or make them effective. Those ideas only are of value, as a general thing, which continue to exist after being communicated to others. Communication takes place with accuracy (among human beings) only by means of words. It is therefore important to know how the child learns to speak words, and then to use them.
I have above designated, as the chief difficulty for the child in the formation of words, the establishment of a connection between the central storehouse for sense-impressions--i. e., the sensory centers of higher rank--with the intercentral path of connection between the center-for-sounds and the speech-motorium. After the establishment of these connections, and long after ideas have been formed, the sound-image of the word spoken by the mother, when it emerges in the center-for-sounds directly after the rise of a clear idea, is now repeated by the child accurately, or, in case it offers insurmountable difficulties of articulation for p.r.o.nunciation, inaccurately. This fact of _sound-imitation_ is fundamental. Beyond it we can not go.
Especially must be noted here as essential that it appears to be an entirely indifferent matter what syllables and words are employed for the first designation of the child"s ideas. Were one disposed to provide the child with false designations, he could easily do it. The child would still connect them logically. If taught further on that two times three are five, he would merely give the _name_ five to what is six, and would soon adopt the usual form of expression. In making a beginning of the a.s.sociation of ideas with articulate syllables, such syllables are, as a rule, employed (probably in all languages) as have already been often uttered by the child spontaneously without meaning, because these offered no difficulties of articulation; but only the child"s family put meaning into them. Such syllables are _pa_, _ma_, with their doubled form _papa_, _mama_, for "father" and "mother," in connection with which it is to be observed that the meaning of them is different in different languages and even in the dialects of a language. For _maman_, _mama_, _mama_, _mamme_, _mammeli_, _momme_, _mam_, _mamma_, _mammeken_, _memme_, _memmeken_, _mamm[)e]l[)e]_, _mammi_, are at the same time child-words and designations for "mother" in various districts of Germany, whereas these and very similar expressions signify also the mother"s breast, milk, pap, drink, nursing-bottle; nay, even in some languages the father is designated by _Ma_-sounds, the mother by _Ba_-and _Pa_-sounds.
It is very much the same with other primitive syllables of the babe"s utterance, e. g., _atta_. Where this does not denote the parents or grandparents it is frequently used (_tata_, _tatta_, _tata_, also in England and Germany) in the sense of "gone" ("fort") and "goodby."
These primitive syllables, _pa-pa_, _ma-ma_, _tata_ and _apa_, _ama_, _ata_, originate of themselves when in the expiration of breath the pa.s.sage is stopped either by the lips (_p_, _m_) or by the tongue (_d_, _t_); but after they have been already uttered many times with ease, without meaning, at random, the mothers of all nations make use of them to designate previously existing ideas of the child, and designate by them what is most familiar. Hence occurs the apparent confounding of "milk" and "breast" and "mother" and "(wet-) nurse" or "nurse" and "bottle," all of which the child learns to call _mam_, _amma_, etc.
But just at this period appears a genuine echolalia, the child, un.o.bserved, repeating correctly and like a machine, often in a whisper, all sorts of syllables, when he hears them at the end of a sentence. The normal child, before he can speak, repeats sounds, syllables, words, if they are short, "mechanically," without understanding, as he imitates movements of the hands and the head that are made in his sight. Speaking is a movement-making that invites imitation the more because it can be strictly regulated by means of the ear. Anything more than regulation is not at first given by the sense of hearing, for those born deaf also learn to speak. They can even, like normal children, speak quite early in dreams (according to Gerard van Asch). Those born deaf, as well as normal children, when one turns quietly toward them, often observe attentively the lips (and also touch them sometimes) and the tongue of the person speaking; and this visual image, even without an auditory image, provokes imitation, which is made perfect by the combination of the two. This combination is lacking in the child born blind, pure echolalia prevailing in this case; in the one born deaf, the combination is likewise wanting, the reading-off of the syllables from the mouth coming in as a subst.i.tute.
With the deaf infant the study of the mouth-movements is, as is well known, the only means of understanding words spoken aloud, and it is sight that serves almost exclusively for this, very rarely touch; and the child born deaf often repeats the visible movements of lips and tongue better than the hearing child that can not yet talk. It is to be observed, in general, that the hearing child makes less use, on the whole, of the means of reading-off from the mouth than we a.s.sume, but depends chiefly on the ear. I have always found, too, that the child has the greatest difficulty in imitating a position of the mouth, in case the sound belonging to it is not made, whereas he easily achieves the same position of the mouth when the acoustic effect goes along with it.
Accordingly, the connection between the ear and the speech-center must be shorter or more practicable in advance (hereditarily) than that between the eye and the speech-center. With regard to both a.s.sociations, however, the gradually progressive shortening or consolidating is to be distinguished in s.p.a.ce and time. With the child that does not yet speak, but is beginning to repeat syllables correctly and to a.s.sociate them with primitive ideas, the act of imitation takes longer than with the normal adult, but the paths in the brain that he makes use of are shorter, absolutely and relatively--absolutely, because the whole brain is smaller; relatively, because the higher centers, which at a later period perform their functions with consciousness and accessory ideas, are still lacking. Notwithstanding this, the time is longer than at a later period--often amounting to several seconds--because the working up of what has been heard, and even the arrangement of it in the center for sound-images, and of what has been seen in the center for sight-images, takes more time apart from a somewhat less swift propagation of the nerve-excitement in the peripheral paths. The child"s imitation can not be called fully conscious or deliberate. It resembles the half-conscious or unconscious imitation attained by the adult through frequent repet.i.tion--i. e., through manifold practice--and which, as a sort of reminiscence of conscious or an abbreviation of deliberate imitation, results from frequent continuous use of the same paths. Only, the child"s imitations last longer, and especially the reading-off from the mouth. The child can not distinguish the positions of the mouth that belong to a syllable, but can produce them himself very correctly. He is like the patients that Kussmaul calls "word-blind," who can not, in spite of good sight, read the written words they see, but can express them in speech and writing. For the same word, e. g., _atta_, which the child does not read off from the mouth and does not repeat, he uses himself when he wants to be taken out; thus the inability is not expressive-motor, but central or intercentral. For the child can already see very well the movement of mouth and tongue; the impressive sight-path has been long established.
Herein this sort of word-blindness agrees fully with the physiological word-deafness of the normal child without speech, whose hearing is good.
For he understands wrongly what he hears, when, e. g., in response to the order, "No! no!" he makes the affirmative movement of the head, although he can make the right movement very well. Here too, then, it is not centrifugal and centripetal peripheral lines, but intercentral paths or centers, that are not yet sufficiently developed--in the case of my child, in the fourteenth month. The path leading from the word-center to the dictorium, and the word-center itself, must have been as yet too little used.
From all this it results, in relation to the question, how the child comes to learn and to use words, that in the first place he has ideas; secondly, he imitates sounds, syllables, and words spoken for him; and, thirdly, he a.s.sociates the ideas with these. E. g., the idea "white+wet+sweet+warm" having arisen out of frequent seeing, feeling, and tasting of milk, it depends upon what primitive syllable is selected for questioning the hungry infant, for talking to him, or quieting him, whether he expresses his desire for food by _mom_, _mimi_, _nana_, _ning_, or _maman_, or _mam_, or _mem_, or _mima_, or yet other syllables. The oftener he has the idea of food (i. e., something that banishes hunger or the unpleasant feeling of it), and at the same time the sound-impression "milk," so much the more will the latter be a.s.sociated with the former, and in consideration of the great advantages it offers, in being understood by all, will finally be adopted. Thus the child learns his first words. But in each individual case the first words acquired in this manner have a wider range of meaning than the later ones.
By means of pure echolalia, without a.s.sociating ideas with the word babbled in imitation, the child learns, to be sure, to articulate words likewise; but he does not learn to understand them or to use them properly unless coincidences, intentional or accidental, show him this or that result when this or that word is uttered by him. If the child, e. g., hearing the new word "Schnee," says, as an echo, _nee_, and then some one shows him actual snow, the meaningless _nee_ becomes a.s.sociated with a sense-intuition; and later, also, nothing can take the place of the intuition--i. e., the direct, sensuous perception--as a means of instruction. This way of learning the use of words is exactly the opposite of that just discussed, and is less common because more laborious. For, in the first case, the idea is first present, and only needs to be expressed (through hearing the appropriate word). In the second case, the word comes first, and the idea has to be brought in artificially. Later, the word, not understood, awakens curiosity, and thereby generates ideas. But this requires greater maturity.