Charles West: a 19th century perspective on acquired childhood aphasia

Dr Charles West was the founder (1852) of the first paediatric hospital in the English-speaking world. In a career spanning four decades, he devoted a great part of his energies to describing the nervous diseases of infants and children. In 1871, West published a series of lectures which focused uniquely on the developmental and acquired language and mental disorders of children. West's clinical experience indicated that acquired aphasia was almost always a transitory condition in children. However, there was one exceptional case which West followed for over 3 years. It represents the youngest case of persistent aphasia described in the modern English medical literature. West's writings reflect a significant early attempt to document and categorise language loss and disturbance in children. In this paper, we detail West's innovations in the description, assessment and treatment of child language disorders

The validity of Barlow's 1877 case of acquired childhood aphasia: case notes versus published reports

In 1877, Barlow described a ten-year-old boy with right hemiplegia and aphasia, quick recovery of language function, and subsequent left hemiplegia and aphasia, who was shown to have symmetrical left and right Broca's area lesions at autopsy. The report of this case motivated many writers in the second half of the nineteenth century to develop theories on localization, laterality, equipotentiality and development of specialization, recovery of function, and the role of the right hemisphere (see Finger et al., 2003, for review). This paper presents an analysis of the original archived case notes that have recently come to light. Examination reveals discrepancies in significant details of the history of the case and raises questions about the degree of impairment and recovery throughout his illness as reported in the published article. Consideration of these differences between the presentation of the case in the British Medical Journal publication and the documentation in the original patient records raises issues about the validity of this case as evidence for the many arguments it was to support that have persisted to the present. Description from publisher website at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a78354547

Victorian medical awareness of childhood language disabilities

Book synopsis: Disability and the Victorians brings together in one collection a range of topics, perspectives and experiences from the Victorian era that present a unique overview of the development and impact of attitudes and interventions towards those with impairments during this time. The collection also considers how the legacies of these actions can be seen to have continued throughout the twentieth century right up to the present day. Subjects addressed include deafness, blindness, language delay, substance dependency, imperialism and the representation of disabled characters in popular fiction. These varied topics illustrate how common themes can be found in how Victorian philanthropists and administrators responded to those under their care. Often character, morality and the chance to be restored to productivity and usefulness overrode medical need and this both influenced and reflected wider societal views of impairment and inability

The 'idioglossia' cases of the 1890s and the clinical investigation and treatment of developmental language impairment

The early history of developmental language impairment in late 19th century Britain is considered through the critical examination of three papers appearing in 1891 by Hadden, Golding-Bird and Hale White, and Taylor. They represent innovative investigations of child language disorders whose themes and concerns are resonant today. The term ‘idioglossia’ was coined to identify this new impairment and reflected the belief by some that these children spoke an invented language. Rather than viewing these children as having some constitutional deficiency, these 19th century physicians were novel in insisting that children with language impairments merited extensive clinical investigation and treatment. Their case descriptions and the subsequent debates regarding classification and prognosis are reviewed. Further consideration is given to how these cases led to questioning the relation between language and speech and other aspects of child development and disorder. Reflection on the early sources of clinical categories provides a new perspective on our current formulations for variation in developmental language trajectories

History of linguistics: to speak like a child

The 21st century has seen an upsurge in interest in the speech of young children. Government reports, educational policies, newspaper articles and the ‘Talk to Your Baby’ campaign established in 2003 by the National Literacy Trust reflect growing concern that a significant minority of Britain’s children are starting school with poorly developed speaking and listening skills. Poor communication within families attributed to current lifestyles is usually held to blame. Much recent discussion concerns remedial strategies to be carried out at school to encourage young children to listen and talk. Interest in children’s developing language skills is not a recent phenomenon. Charles West, founder of Britain’s first paediatric hospital, Great Ormond Street in London, wrote extensively throughout a long, productive life on the treatment and prevention of disease in childhood, but he broke new ground in 1871. Almost 20 years after the opening of Great Ormond Street, West gave the Royal College of Physicians’ Lumleian Lecture. He used the opportunity to focus attention on a hitherto neglected area: the loss or impairment of language in the child, pointing out that: ‘Few things cause so much anxiety as when the time passes at which the infant usually begins to talk, and the mother waits on in mournful expectation for the sounds which are to prove her little one’s right to full citizenship.

Acquired childhood aphasia : historical and theoretical perspectives

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Darwin’s contribution to the study of child development and language acquisition

In 1877, Charles Darwin responded to an article by Taine in the journal Mind on early language acquisition by 'look[ing] over a diary' he had kept thirty-seven years before on his own son's development. The result, 'A Biographical Sketch of an Infant', was one of the first English infant psychology studies and a methodological innovation, being based on regular recordings of observations over a period of years. Darwin's article motivated others in England to carry out research on child development, an area that had previously received little attention in that country. The diary and related article reveal Darwin's reflections on child language acquisition as a key to understanding the mental development of the child, as well as the development of language in mankind, which was of vital importance to evolutionary theory. In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin had argued that language is not an 'impossible barrier' between animals and man. He thought that infants between the ages of ten and twelve months were at the same stage of language development as dogs with their well-attested ability to understand certain words. The difference, he insisted, lay in man's 'infinitely larger power' of associating sounds and concepts — the result of the coevolution of language and mind. Darwin's expressed hope that others would follow his lead in the study of child development was swiftly realized in numerous publications that followed in the journal Mind and in the subsequent development of the study of childhood as an area for scientific research in Britain

The Victorian question of the relation between language and thought

This essay considers the reception of Müller’s axiom, first stated in 1861, regarding the interdependence of language and thought. The response and engagement with this notion by individuals working within the nascent fields of psychology, neurology, paediatrics, education and the law are examined over a period of four decades. Müller was relatively unique in successfully transmitting linguistic ideas to the medical and scientific research communities. Evidence is presented that traces how Müller’s theoretical arguments were seen to resonate with new research questions early on, but later became challenged by empirical observations towards the end of the century