OCR Text |
Show How the Baby Learns to Talk THE process by which a baby learns to speak was explained by Dr. S. A. Klnnier Wilson in a lecture on aphasia delivered recently at the National Hospital for the Paralyzed and Epileptic, Epilep-tic, in London, England. "Long ere tho child has begun to articulate, his ears havo beccmo accustomed to many and varied sounds included in which arc the sounds of words, mere noises to tho child, without any meaning," said he. "Somo of these sounds are repeated in his earing much oftener than others, so that he gradually learns to distinguish them and to associate them with certain objects, animate ani-mate or inauimate. We have no reason to doubt that before articulate speech begins, the infant Is using both hemispheres (of the brain) for vision and bolh for audition. "The next step is the endeavor to imitate by articulation (he sounds ho hears constantly repeated re-peated by others, and in this way the movements necessary for the articulation of these sounds, or words, are learned. Again we must believe that both hemispheres aro being utilized for speaking movements. Before he learns to read or write, therefore bis 'inner language" consists of the memories of certain sounds closely linked to the memories of certain movements, and tho former of these is also intimatelv bound to the visual ideas of certain objects. When his nurse says 'bow-wow.' he will look for or point to his little toy dog, and when it is shown him he will say 'bow-wow.' Thus as early as he begins to think at all he is developing his 'inner language.' "When the child reaches the stage of learning to read and write, his inner language becomes considerably more complex He learns to write by letters and by syllables, which are the signs for sounds, be ft noted, since our writing Is phonetic. phon-etic. In this way ho acquires a visual picture for each sound, made up of a letter or combination combina-tion of letters, and so ho reaches hc stage of a visual knowledge of letters syllables and words. "He learns to write, howev-. with one hand, and that the right hand Hitherto, as we have seen, the presumption has been that both hemispheres hemi-spheres have been utilized for hearing sounds, for articulating sounds and for reading signs that stand for sounds. When he writes signs that stand for sounds, we must suppose he uses largely, if not entirely, a part of his loft hemisphere hemis-phere only, as far as the physiological mechanism mechan-ism is concerned." |