motor impairment and language

[Peter Gordon]

I wonder where Chomsky had anything at all to say about motor development
and language development?  This seems to be another example of the total
misreading (or rather non-reading) of Chomsky that gets translated into
something like:  "children learn language in the absence of any relevant
information."  If you read Aspects, he quite explicitly says that children
might require all kinds of environmental supports to acquire language.  The
only point he makes is that such environmental supports do not affect the
shape of the language (i.e., Syntax).  Unfortunately, this has been passed
on like a game of Chinese whispers into all kinds of outrageous claims
about children being able to learn language from the radio etc etc etc.

Peter Gordon


At 11:02 PM 3/25/1999 +0000, Bencie Woll wrote:
>We would like to respond to the recent correspondence from Jordan
>Zlatev and Brian MacWhinney relating to the relationship (if any)
>between language development and sensorimotor experience. In a paper
>presented at the Boston Child Language Seminar in 1997 and published
>in the proceedings* we report on a study of 10 severely motor-impaired
>children with Spinal Muscular Atrophy aged 18-35 months. These
>children are confined to wheelchairs, unable to stand independently or
>ambulate, but have normal cortical functions. Using the MacArthur CDI
>we found average levels of vocabulary (with slightly below-average
>levels in the youngest subjects due to deficits in items related to
>mobility) but significant advancement in morphological development,
>with 8/10 at or above the 75th percentile, and 6/10 above the 90th
>percentile in over-regularisations. These scores are up to 10 times
>those of normal children.
>
>On this evidence, neither the Piagetian perspective (as Monod phrases
>it): that a paraplegic child would have difficulties in developing
>language; nor Chomsky's prediction: that there is no or only a
>marginal relationship between language and motor development, is
>supported. Our findings suggest instead that the inability of children
>with SMA to explore objects and forms in the environment may advance
>the analysis of patterning in language, independently of vocabulary.
>These children examine language in place of a world they cannot reach,
>practising the way words are formed while able-bodied toddlers are
>engaged in motor and spatial learning.
>
>We propose two mutually compatible explanations: 1) different objects
>of learning in early childhood are in competition and language can
>advance if the child is less engaged in motor and spatial learning; 2)
> the mechanisms of procedural learning, identified as fundamental for
>motor and behavioural skills arising from direct actions and
>experiences, are also implicated in the development of the
>morphological rule system.
>
>Further studies are being undertaken to explore syntactic, pragmatic,
>and other aspects of these children's language development.
>
>*Sieratzki JS & Woll B (1998) Toddling into language: precocious
>language development in motor-impaired children with spinal muscular
>atrophy. In A Greenhill, M Hughes, H Littlefield & H Walsh (eds.)
>Proceedings of the 22nd annual Boston University Conference on
>Language Development, Vol. 2. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press. pp.
>684-94 (a revised version will be submitted shortly for journal
>publication)
>
>As well as the paper in the Proceedings, an informal version may be
>read on the Jennifer Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy website
><http://www.jtsma.demon.co.uk>
>
>Harry Sieratzki & Bencie Woll
>
>Professor Bencie Woll
>Chair of Sign Language and Deaf Studies
>C.C.S.
>City University
>Northampton Square
>London EC1V 0HB
>
>Tel: +44 171 477 8354
>Minicom/TTY: +44 171 477 8314
>Fax: +44 171 477 8577
>e-mail: b.woll at city.ac.uk
>
>
>