Re: Culture and Devel/123 lines
vera p john-steiner (vygotsky who-is-at unm.edu)
Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:26:38 -0600 (MDT)
Mike,
I looked at page 216 and I think that it may take a genuine
interdisciplinary effort (including neuro-sciences as we no longer have
people of Luria's breadth around, I believe) to make more progress on the
interaction of "modularity," plasticity of the brain, and developmental
processes. It feels like the argument shifts daily with new reports. I
just picked up today's NY Times, and was struck by the report from England
on a boy who had a complete left hemisphere lobotomy, but who is now
speaking normally. (I dont have the article in front of me, it stayed in
the coffee shop.) That finding re-introduces issues of brain plasticity,
uptil the age of 13 years, which reinforces my resistance to a strong
modularity position.
It would be interesting to find out how people celebrating Luria's
centennial stand on his positions presented in The Working Brain. Will O.
Sachs be attending? I see the lobotomy result to be a strong supporter of
his position on brain plasticity as are Chugani's findings on the
Roumanian infants.
Perhaps there is no contradiction between the modularity and the
plasticity stances, but my preference is with the latter.
On the other hand, these are opinions, truly preferences, rather than
solid stance, thus, my belief that CHAT needs some neuroscientists,
Vera
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Vera P. John-Steiner
Department of Linguistics
Humanities Bldg. 526
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
(505) 277-6353 or 277-4324
Internet: vygotsky who-is-at triton.unm.edu
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