mystery book (children who begin speaking in sentences)

[Celeste Kidd]

Hi, Jesse (& all).

I don't think it's likely that these are the books you are looking for, 
since they were only published in 1998 (does that count as years and 
years ago?) and they don't quite follow the flow you describe 
(evaluating various claims, then reaching a maybe reasonable 
conclusion), but I thought it might be helpful to point them out in case 
you hadn't already encountered them in your most recent search. Thomas 
Sowell's "Late-Talking Children" and "The Einstein Syndrome: Bright 
Children Who Talk Late" make reference to these sorts of claims. On page 
18 of "Einstein", Thomas Sowell writes:

"In short, there is no standard way in which late-talking children like 
these finally begin to speak ... Some begin to speak as other children 
do, first in babbles and isolated words, and then proceed in stages 
toward normal speech, only later than other children. In other cases, 
however, children with delayed speech development did not coo or babble 
as other infants do, but remained silent right up to the moment where 
they suddenly startle their parents by speaking a complete sentence."

He makes reference to kids in his own and Stephen Camarata's studies on 
late-talkers in this chapter. I am not sure about the reliability of 
these claims, as I have not actually sought out and read the studies he 
refers to. A Dateline NBC episode on Camarata I saw in high school 
called my attention to these.

Sowell mentions a bunch of famous sentences-before-words claims and 
claimers, like hydrogen-bomb inventor Edward Teller, Nobel-prize winning 
economist Gary Becker and physicist Richard Feynman. He also talks about 
a lot of acquaintances-of-friends who talked late and in whole 
sentences. I checked his website in the hopes of finding something more 
about the studies he refers to, but didn't find them. I did find a link 
to an article where Sowell expresses his skepticism that global warming 
is a thing though 
(http://www.creators.com/opinion/thomas-sowell.html?columnsName=tso), 
which is perhaps an indication of the value Sowell places on empirical 
evidence when making claims.

Good luck in your search!

Cheers,
Celeste

CELESTE KIDD | Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Meliora Hall 323F, Box 270268
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0268
Email: ckidd at bcs.rochester.edu
Web: www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/ckidd/
Mobile: 617 515 2461




snedeker at wjh.harvard.edu wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> Years and years ago I ran into a book when wandering through the
> library stacks and I've never been able to find it again.  The topic
> was on children who are reported to skip the early stages of language
> production and launch immediately begin into full sentences.  The
> author tried to track down some cases and concluded (if I remember
> correctly) that there did appear to be some valid reports but they
> were rarer than is usually believed.
> 
> Does anyone remember this book?  Or for that matter any other evidence
> validating this claim.  It crops up from time to time in review
> chapters and books but I can never figure out the origin of the claim.
> 
> gratefully,
> Jesse Snedeker
> 

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