Corresponding to this inability to say words after another's utterance of them is an articulation as yet very imperfect. Still, there is indication of progress in the distinctness of the s, the frequent English th with the thrusting out of the tip of the tongue between the incisors, the w, which now first appears often, as well as in the smacking first heard in the sixty-fifth week (in contented mood). The tongue is, when the child is awake, more than other muscles that in the adult are subject to cerebral volition, almost always in motion even when the child is silent. It is in various ways partly contracted, extended, bent. The lateral bending of the edges of the tongue downward and the turning back of the tip of the tongue (from left to right) so that the lower surface lies upward, are not easily imitated by adults. The mobility of my child's tongue is at any rate much greater than that of my tongue, notwithstanding the fact that, in consequence of varied practice from an early period in rapid speaking, the most difficult performances in rapid speaking are still easily executed by mine. The tongue is unquestionably the child's favorite plaything. One might almost speak of a lingual delirium in his case, as in that of the insane, when he pours forth all sorts of disconnected utterances, articulate and inarticulate, in confusion; and yet I often saw his tongue affected with fibrillar contractions as if the mastery of the hypoglossus were not as yet complete. Quite similar fibrillar movements seem to be made by the tongue in bulbar paralysis, and in the case of dogs and guinea-pigs whose hypoglossus has been severed.
To the number of words heard that already produce a definite movement are added the following new ones. The child is asked, "Where is the moon? the clock? the eye? the nose?" and he raises an arm, spreads the fingers, and looks in the proper direction. If I speak of "coughing," he coughs; of "blowing," he blows; of "kicking," he stretches out his legs; of "light," he blows into the air, or, if there is a lamp in sight, toward that, looking at it meantime—a reminiscence of the blowing out of matches and candles often seen by him. It requires great pains to get from him the affirmative nod of the head at the spoken "ja, ja." Not till the sixty-fourth week was this achieved by means of frequent repetition and forcible direction, and the movement was but awkwardly executed even later—months after. On hearing the "no, no," the negative shake of the head now appeared almost invariably, and this was executed as by adults without the least uncertainty.
The holding out of his hand at hearing "Give the hand," occurs almost invariably, but is not to be regarded as a special case of understanding of the syllable "give," for the word "hand" alone produces the same result.
All these accomplishments, attained by regular training, do not afford the least evidence of an understanding of what is commanded when the sound-impression is converted into motor impulse. It is rather a matter of the establishment of the recollection of the customary association of both during the interval of deliberation. The words and muscular contractions that belong together are less often confounded, and the physiological part of the process takes less time, but its duration is noticeably prolonged when the child is not quite well. He deliberates for as much as twelve seconds when the question is asked him, "Where is the rogue?" and then responds with the proper gesture (p. 115).
The sixteenth month brought few new articulate utterances of sound, none associated with a definite meaning; on the other hand, there was a marked progress in repeating what was said to the child, and especially in the understanding of words heard.
Among the sounds of his own making are heard—along with the hä! hä-ö! ha-ĕ! hĕ-ĕ! that even in the following months often expresses desire, but often also is quite without meaning—more seldom hi, gö-gö, gö, f-pa (the f for the first time), a͡u, and more frequently ta, dokkn, tá-ha, a-bwa-bwa, bŭā-bŭ-ā, and, as if by accident, once among all sorts of indefinable syllables, dagon. Further, the child—as was the case in the previous month—likes to take a newspaper or a book in his hands and hold the print before his face, babbling ä-ĕ, ä-ĕ, ä-ĕ, evidently in imitation of the reading aloud which he has often observed. By giving the command, "Read!" it was easy to get this performance repeated. Besides this, it is a delight to the child to utter a syllable—e. g., bwa or ma—over and over, some six times in succession, without stopping. As in the previous month, there are still the whispered attö and hattö, at the hiding of the face or of the light, at the shutting of a fan, or the emptying of a soup-plate, together with the dakkn, with the combinations of syllables made out of ta, pa, ma, na, at, ap, am, an, and with mömö. The papa and mama do not, however, express an exclusive relation to the parents. Only to the questions, "Where is papa?" "Where is mamma?" he points toward them, raising his hand with the fingers spread. Pain is announced by loud and prolonged screaming; joy by short, high-pitched, piercing crowing, in which the vowel i appears.
Of isolated vowels, a only was correctly repeated on command. Of syllables, besides those of the previous month, mö and ma; and here the child's excessive gayety over the success of the experiment is worthy of remark. He made the discovery that his parrot-like repetition was a fresh source of pleasure, yet he could not for several weeks repeat again the doubled syllables, but kept to the simple ones, or responded with all sorts of dissimilar ones, like attob, or said nothing. The syllable ma was very often given back as hömá and hömö; pa was never given back, but, as had been the case previously, only ta and taï were the responses, made with great effort and attention, and the visible purpose of repeating correctly. To the word "danke," pronounced for him with urgency innumerable times, the response is dakkn, given regularly and promptly, and this in the following months also. If all persuasion failed, and the child were then left to himself without any direction of his attention, then not infrequently new imitations of sounds would be given correctly—e. g., when I said "bo"—but these, again, would no longer succeed when called for. Indeed, such attempts often broke down utterly at once. Thus the child once heard a hen making a piteous outcry, without seeing the creature, and he tried in vain to imitate the sound, but once only, and not again. On the other hand, he often succeeds in repeating correctly movements of the tongue made for him to see, as the thrusting out of the tongue between the lips, by reason of the extraordinary mobility of his tongue and lips; he even tries to smack in imitation. The more frequent partial contractions of the tongue, without attempts at speaking, are especially surprising. On one side, toward the middle of the tongue, rises a longitudinal swelling; then the edges are brought together, so that the tongue almost forms a closed tube; again, it is turned completely back in front. Such flexibility as this hardly belongs to the tongue of any adult. Besides, the lips are often protruded a good deal, even when this is not required in framing vocables.
The gain in the understanding of words heard is recognizable in this, that when the child hears the appropriate word, he takes hold, with thumb and forefinger, in a most graceful manner, of nose, mouth, beard, forehead, chin, eye, ear, or touches them with the thumb. But in doing this he often confounds ear and eye, chin and forehead, even nose and ear. "O" serves in place of "Ohr" (ear); "Au" in place of "Auge" (eye). In both cases the child soon discovered that these organs are in pairs, and he would seize with the right hand the lobe of my left and of my right ear alternately after I had asked "Ear?" How easily in such cases a new sound-impression causes confusion is shown by the following fact: After I had at one time pointed out one ear, and had said, "Other ear," I succeeded, by means of repetition, in getting him to point out this other one also correctly every time. Now, then, the thing was to apply what had been learned to the eye. When one eye had been pointed out, I asked, "Where is the other eye?" The child grasped at an ear, with the sight of which the sound "other" was now associated. Not till long after (in the twentieth month) did he learn to apply this sound of himself to different parts of the body. On the other hand, he understands perfectly the significance of the commands, "Bring, fetch, give——"; he brings, fetches, gives desired objects, in which case, indeed, the gesture and look of the speaker are decisive; for, if these are only distinctly apprehended, it does not make much difference which word is said, or whether nothing is said.
In the seventeenth month, although no disturbance of the development took place, there was no perceptible advance in the utterance of thoughts by sounds, or in the imitation of syllables pronounced by others, or in articulation, but there was a considerable increase of the acoustic power of discrimination in words heard and of the memory of sounds.
Of syllables original with the child, these are new: Bibi, nä-nä-nä—the first has come from the frequent hearing of "bitte"; the last is an utterance of joy at meeting and an expression of the desire to be lifted up. Otherwise, longing, abhorrence, pleasure and pain, hunger and satiety, are indicated by pitch, accent, timbre, intensity of the vocal sounds, more decidedly than by syllables. A peculiar complaining sound signifies that he does not understand; another one, that he does not wish. In place of atta, at the change of location of an object perceived, comes often a t-tó and höt-tó, with the lips much protruded. But, when the child himself wishes to leave the room, then he takes a hat, and says atta, casting a longing look at his nurse, or repeatedly taking hold of the door.