Observations and speculations on the emotional responses of the aphasic child

Abstract

The paper discusses several ideas about the way language is integrated in the whole personality of the developing child, particularly focusing on the intensive gazing between the dyadic couple in the early months. In the aphasic child, this gazing remains at the intense pre-verbal level and does not become an adaptive response, as in the normal child. Without the subtlety of the adaptive response, body language is often the only way aphasic children can express their own innermost feelings. Through our cueing-in and interpretation of these non-verbal affective states, the child learns that these feelings are understood and accepted, so establishing trust and mutual reciprocity — the raw material which serves as a base for the development of early learning, verbal understanding, and growth of language.