Language and Survival in Infancy
Dr. Turben shares how thinking, feeling and communicating occurs naturally according to genetic growth patterns, demonstrating that the unborn child is at the mercy of maternal body size and fetal position in the womb, emerging with the wired-in physical need for safety and food.
At the time of birth, infants are incompetent learners, yet from the womb, infants gesture, listen and produce sounds, constituting a start-up language, unique to each newborn, but sharing significant survival traits that lead to the acquisition of language.
How it is possible for the healthy or sick newborn, incompetent and helpless, to vocalize these needs for protection and food It is the first language of life, as the newborn wails, screams, hiccups or regurgitates, interactive from the moment of birth.
The newborn learns from experience in the prior safety of the womb to gesture, move the body, look and listen and react with loving touch in order to take nourishment outside the womb. This is partially why the newborn and early infancy stages are often called a time for child and parent to bond and "fall in Love."
Kennell and Klaus, TB Brazelton, et all.
