The child : a study in the evolution of man / by Alexander F. Chamberlain.

  • Alexander Francis Chamberlain
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The child : a study in the evolution of man / by Alexander F. Chamberlain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the voice is subject to wide variations. Hence, also, variation in the power and scope of imitation, for which the child finds preparation in listening to itself, as well as to others at a later period. Though the difficulties of imitation are very great, the child profits by his good powers of observation, and often makes surprising advances; but no fixed conclusion as to the intelligence of the young human being can be drawn from the observation of a few peculiarities of speech and their develop- ment. Not alone ‘baby-talk,’ on the part of parents and nurses, may, grace to the child’s amazing talent for imitation, do his growing speech serious injury, but also forced attempts at hurrying on his language, especially where any defects of speech are present in the persons of his immediate environ- ment. Another possible cause of injury is the interference of parents and nurses with the child’s babble and play-talk; and at an opposite pole from the lullaby, which is so similar all over the world, we have the noise and din of the schoolroom, which to the ear-learning child means much of evil, the tone of voice and speech-action being often very much affected, while a very large percentage of stuttering and like disturbances of lan- guage is directly traceable to the contamination of the school, the greater family. Nor can the use of language in childhood serve as a sure criterion of intelligence, for it has not seldom happened that in the same family a child of five years, though quite as intelligent as his brother or sister, has, so far as the proper and skilful handling of speech is concerned, lagged behind one of three, and, if Gutzmann’s view is correct, children tend normally to speak late and to walk late, contrary to a current popular opinion. Dr W. Oltuszewski, of Warsaw, in his discussion of the mental and linguistic development of the child (462, p. 30), distinguishes three periods in the development of child-lan- guage: I. Primitive period—epoch of individual sounds and mute language, preceding the developmental period per se. This period is characterised by the reflex and pain phenomena of the primitive sounds, especially the vowels, dependent upon the innate capacity of the articulatory organs to function, and have nothing to do with the memory-centres of language, which develop considerably later; also by pantomime, gesture and mimic movements, which at this period belong to the instinctive reflexes, and not, as later, to the imitation move- ments—these are the child’s original language, expressing
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