What comes first - thought or speech? What is the difference between a two-year-old child and a monkey in solving problems? Why are five-year-olds overtaking their parents in the use of new technologies? Let me invite you to the next post of the Insight series!

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Do we "think before we speak"?

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In the 1920s, the brilliant Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky presented his quite revolutionary (and surprising even today) theory. Vygotsky disagreed with another well-known psychologist Jean Piaget on one important thing. Piaget believed that a child first have to acquire knowledge about the structure of the language in order to start using it, in other words, appropriate cognitive development of grammar structures is necessary for the child to start talking. However, Vygotsky showed that the opposite is true. It turns out that we start using speech much earlier than any verbal thought appears in our minds.

External speech

Before a child starts thinking through words, it begins to use them in interaction with parents, adults or other children. The process of learning how to speak is quite complex, but very briefly it goes like this: the child learns words by trying to imitate the words that are heard around him/her and by trying to use it's own mouth and vocal cords. When a child says word the right, adults around show enthusiasm and joy that the child has correctly said a word (e.g. "mum" or every new correct word spoken), so it sees that it's good to say correct words. Moreover, a child notices that when it points the finger at a doll, an adult may say "do you want this doll?" and then may give it to the child. After a couple of such episodes, the child can simply say "a doll!" and what will have the same effect, even if it won't point its finger at the the doll! In this way the child starts to learn vocabulary and power of language. Thus, speech first appears in a social and interactive context - the child notices that sounds can carry information and messages and that they have a real impact on the reality around them, in other words - it discovers the symbolic function of language.

Private speech

Approximately at the age of two the child starts speaking aloud even without any interaction with other person. It is then that the speech, previously addressed to an adult, is directed at the child's own activity. During this period, the child seems to comment on his or her various actions, especially when playing or trying to solve a problem. This phenomenon is called egocentric speech or private language. Thanks to this speech, the child starts to self-regulate it's own behaviour in a similar way as it was previously regulated in interaction with adults.

It has been noted that speech and action during this period are somehow intertwined and (as Vygotski would say) become a one psychological function aimed at solving the task. The more complex the situation is, the more important role speech is playing in the whole process of problem solving. The child solves the task not only with it's eyes and hands, but also with it's speech. At this point the child begins to surpass intellectually the monkey, because unlike monkeys, it does not unwittingly follow the stimuli that appear before it anymore. Thanks to the language the child can formulate and maintain the attention to the goal and it can resist some reactions and impulses (just as an adult stops it in social interaction).
Egocentric speech, or "thinking aloud", appears also to the majority of adults during intense intellectual effort or just as a help in structuring one's behaviour (for example, I personally use it often during orientating myself in the mountains or any other foreign terrain).

Inner speech

Only after these two stages the language becomes "internalized". Mind creates it's representation, but also incorporates functionality. The child starts using language to structure it's own thoughts. It begins to use the language without using a speaking aloud. Language is also a carrier of verbal memory, which is responsible for assimilating knowledge, but also for remembering the events of our lives - this is why most of our earliest memories reach about 3 years of age.

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Eyes, hands, LANGUAGE

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"Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological)." Lev Vygotsky

Of course, external speech does not disappear after the appearance of further phases. It can be said in cypto-language that at some point in human development there is a "hardfork" of speech, resulting in a second chain of "egocentric speech", which turns into an inner one, giving man completely new possibilities. The newly created unity of perception, speech and action leads even to a rebuilding of the visual field - suddenly the child does not see a strange, rectangular shape, but it can see a wardrobe. She no longer sees undefined big, bulky animals, but sees a woof-dog and a muu-dog. Then, thanks to language, it turns out that the second dog is not a dog at all, but a cow!!!

Acquisition of language is therefore a complete intellectual revolution for the child. It provides a completely new tool, the possibilities of which seem to be unlimited, and previous experiences begin to be reinterpreted and used in a completely new way. For example, disputes conducted while playing with other children become a prototype for "pros and cons" thinking, which is one of the basis of rational thinking. The development of thoughts and all intellectual functions is very much determined by the child's verbal skills, so one of the most important tasks of education should be to support the development of rich and effective spoken language.

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There's more!

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„Everything internal in higher forms was external in the past.” Lev Vygotsky

Vygotski insisted that language is not the only thing that is "internalized" by the mind. This can happen with virtually any carrier of meaning, which Vygotski simply called "signs". Mathematics is the simplest example - when we learn addition and subtraction, we use various auxiliary tools such as an abacus or even our own fingers. At the beginning it is practically impossible to count using only working memory. Only with the elapse of time these "abacus" or "fingers" become unnecessary, because our mind "absorbs" these tools and creates their representations.

That is why kids are usually better in new technologies than middle-aged people. Nowadays, children have been in touch with the Internet, smartphones and tablets since birth. Add to that various things controlled by voice, or the majority of other electronic toys. That is why in the early days they are "internalizing" certain gestures, meanings and rules governing the world of new technologies. This can be seen when a small child who experienced tablets and suddenly confronts a regular computer and is surprised that it cannot manipulate the screen with its finger! For a child who grows up in such an environment many things become obvious and natural because exactly during the moment of acquisition of speech it acquires also the knowledge of interfaces, wi-fi or computer games. Older people had no chance of interacting with modern technology at that time, so it is harder for them to discover certain patterns and the "language" that this world uses.

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I'll end with words of Vygotski and Aleksander Luria who was his student and also one of the greatest neuropsychologist ever lived:

[T]o a large degree we owe this enormous superiority of intellect
over instinct to the mechanism of inner speech. . . . Turning from
outside inward, speech formed the most important psychological
function, representing the external world within us, stimulating
thought, and, as several authors believe, also laying the foundation
for the development of consciousness.
(Vygotsky and Luria, 1993, p. 196)

_{Bibliography:}

<sub>- Luria, A. R. (1973). An introduction to neuro-psychology. In The working brain. Penguin Books Harmondsworth.
- Vygotsky, L.S., and Luria, A.R. 1930. Etiudy po istorii povedeniia (obez’iana, primitiv, rebenok). Moscow-Leningrad: GIZ.
- Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The collected works of LS Vygotsky: Problems of the theory and history of psychology (Vol. 3). Springer Science & Business Media.</sub>

Previous entries in the Insight series:

• Insight #1: Brand new psychology series on Steemit! What is insight?
• Insight #2: What emotions are and what are they really for?
• Insight #3: Personality Trait Theory - psychological theory that lead Donald Trump and Brexit to WIN
• Insight #4: Attributions - how and why we judge ourselves differently from others

See also:

• Wandering Memories #4: Charming Croatia - a night in a magical forest & hypnotizing turquoise lakes
• To forget the self, to understand Duhkha - my steps of the path of Zen Buddhism

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