Childhood

Mary Chadwick. Rudimentary Forms of Self-expression prior to Speech. Journal of Proceedings Child Study Society. Vol. IV, 1924, (Published 1925.)

When we come to investigate the earliest ways in which a child establishes contact with the outer world we are forced to recognize that it makes use of various means of communication with others long before it becomes proficient in the use of human speech. These forms will be found, speaking broadly, to be of two kinds, those typical of all children at certain stages of their development, as well as representative of different cultural levels in the history of civilization, and those peculiar to individual children; thus, besides the general forms which may be found approximately in all children, it is by no means seldom that we find some children departing from the customs of their contemporaries or even family forms in use among brothers and sisters, and establishing particular methods of their own.

The paper gives with some considerable detail descriptions of the prespeech methods of four children in whose early days such individual methods of communication were in use, and attempting at the same time to trace the causes leading to their adoption. It was clear that this individualistic method was nearly always used as a secret language or love-bond between the child and a beloved parent or nurse and was relinquished with difficulty proportionate to the degree of satisfaction it had formerly provided. The results of these peculiar methods of prespeech communication were many and various, good and bad. Frequently they gave rise to subsequent difficulties and neurotic symptoms, but occasionally seemed to predict talent of which the future would probably see the maturity, especially in those cases where drawing was a favourite means of expression, or when musical harmonies and rhythm represented emotional experience and feelings beyond the capacity of language at command of the child at the time.

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