Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882
Various
Science -- Periodicals
According to Preyer, from the first week to the fifth month the only
vowel sounds used are _ü_ and _a_. On the forty-third day he heard the
first consonant, which was _m_, and also the vowel _o_. Next day
the child said _ta hu_, on the forty-sixth day _gö örö_, and on the
fifty-first _arra_ All the vowel sounds were acquired in the fifth
month. We have no space to go further into the successive dates at which
the remaining consonants were acquired. In the eleventh month the child
first _learnt_ to articulate a certain word (_ada_) by imitation, and
afterward repeated the taught word spontaneously. The first year passed
without any other indication of a connection between articulation and
ideation than was supplied by the child using a string of different
syllables (and not merely a repetition of the same one) on perceiving a
rapid movement, as any one hurriedly leaving the room, etc.; but this
child nevertheless understood certain words (such as "handchen geben")
when only fifty-two weeks old. Inefficient attempts at imitative
speaking precede the accurate attempts, and at fourteen months this
inefficiency was still very apparent, being in marked contrast with the
precision whereby it would imitate syllables which it could already
say; the _will_ to imitate all syllables was present, though not the
_ability_. At the beginning of the fourteenth month on being asked: "Wo
ist dein Schrank?" the child would turn its head in the direction of the
cupboard, draw the person who asked the question toward it (though the
child could not then walk); and so with other objects the names of which
it knew. During the next month the child would point to the object when
the question was asked, and also cough, blow, or stamp on being told to
do so. In the seventeenth month there was a considerable advance in the
use of sign-language (such as bringing a hat to the nurse as a request
to go out), but still no words were spoken save _ma-ma, pa-pa_, etc. In
the twentieth month the child could first repeat words of two unlike
syllables. When twenty-three months old the first evidence of judgment
was given; the child having drunk milk which was too hot for it, said
the word "heiss." In the sixty-third week this word had been learnt in
imitative speaking, so it required eight and a half months for it to be
properly used as a predicate. At the same age on being asked, "Where is
your beard?" the child would place its hand on its chin and move its
thumb and fingers as if drawing hair through them, or as it was in the
habit of doing if it touched its father's beard; this is evidence of
imagination, which, however, certainly occurs much earlier in life. At
the close of the second year a great advance was made in using two words
together as a sentence--e.g., "home, milk," to signify a desire to go
home and have some milk. In the first month of the third year sentences
of three or even four words were used, as "papa, pear, plate, please."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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