Colloquium on English - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

150
Acquisition of Speech and the Development of the Brain
These steps from below upward in the process of listening also correspond
to the process that the child undergoes when it learns to speak.
Here too, the starting point cannot be found in the cool, registering head,
but in the completely unconscious, rapt movement of the body. This activity
takes place simultaneously with the speech movements of the speaker
and in this light we will have to correct the familiar idea of childhood imitation:
It is not imitation after the event but a concurrent interplay. The
case of the American newborn mentioned above, whose physical movements
resonated to the sounds of the Chinese language as much as to the
English language, demonstrates how this process is really functioning. The
child does not wait motionlessly listening to the incoming speech sounds,
in order to try to imitate them with its own attempts at movement. Rather
it puts itself from the first moment onwards with its whole physical body,
into the movement sphere of sounds. It “dances,” with full precision and
regularity, and in unison to the flow of speech of the adult, without adding
its own interpretation. Condon has summarised this in the title of his research
report: “Neonate Movement is Synchronised with Adult Speech.”
This does not have anything to do with feeling or thinking, but is pure
activity: form-giving movement. And out of this movement the child forms
its speech.
A profound mystery is dwelling in this process, which we should
became more and more aware of if we want to support the development of
speech in the child in the right way. While the child learns to form sounds
it simultaneously works on the development of the brain, which only through
this experience reaches its final maturity. In this way the foundation is laid
for all later intelligence, with the adult participating in a decisive way.
Whether we recognise it or not, we have an effect on the physical body of
the child through the spoken word and we consequently influence the emotional
and spiritual possibilities for the child’s development later in life.
Which of us is aware of this immense responsibility when we talk to a
child?
The Autistic Loudspeaker
No loudspeaker can take this responsibility. Actually the loudspeaker
proves to be hopelessly deficient in providing what is essential in early childhood.
The sounds are lacking the most crucial quality on which speech
development depends: the human being and the intention in speech. It is
precisely this human intention that works deeply into the child, shaping
the musculature so that speech arises; sounds formed by the warm, moist
breath sculpting ever-changing forms in the surrounding air. An active will
is at work and it awakens the will in the child to form sounds for itself. For
only the will ignites the will; only a fully present “I” awakens the “I” of the
child and arouses it to engage the instruments of speech and to fully develop
their function. What speech scientists blandly call “interaction” reveals
itself as a spiritual event between two beings, between two wills; a