Re: [xmca] LSV on the preschool stage

[Peter Feigenbaum <pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu>]

Hi, Martin.

Yes, I'm actually referring to a study of inner speech that Lou Manfra
conducted that may not be published yet. He reported this to me in a
personal (face-to-face) communication. He also related to me an anecdote
about one young boy in that study who was very dismayed to discover (when
asked by his mother if he could talk to himself inside his head) that he
was unable to do so. He experienced this dismay repeatedly for two weeks
when he talked to his mother about it each night. Then one day he ran to
his mother bursting with excitement and blurted out ecstatically that he
could now talk to himself inside his head! He then peered at her seriously,
pursed his lips, scrunched up his face, and tensed up his whole head for
several seconds. "See?" he told her. "I'm doing it right now!"

What strikes me most about this study is the closeness in age at which the
subjects reported awareness of inner speech activity. It strongly suggests
biological maturation is at work. Because the physical internalization of
speech (in contrast to its psychological internalization) depends on the
ability of the nervous system to inhibit the respiratory components of
speech activity, and because the nervous system is still undergoing
development in childhood, it should not be too surprising that inner speech
arises at roughly the same age in all children. But it's particularly
gratifying to have hard evidence that backs that up. What does serve as a
caution, however, is Ivanova's discovery that the regular age-related
pattern of inhibition that she observed in the children she studied in the
1990s was not so regular when this same study was conducted in the 1950s.
Historical conditions could be playing an influential role here in the
onset and timing of nervous system development.

Incidentally, there is some good, solid psychophysiological evidence
related to inner speech in the Vocate book I mentioned. If your students
want facts based on hard evidence (and why wouldn't they?), you might find
some useful ones there. (Mike has a chapter in that book, too. Man, no rest
for the weary!)

Peter

-----xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu wrote: -----


To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
Date: 10/16/2010 11:07AM
Subject: Re: [xmca] LSV on the preschool stage

Hi Peter,

Thanks for pointing out this line of work; very interesting. On my quick
reading, though, Manfra was asking the children about self-directed speech
("private speech," out loud) rather than about their "inner speech." Here's
a clipping:

"Thus, of the children who admitted they were talking and actually did use
private speech (N = 30), 16 (53%) said they were talking to themselves.
Five-year-olds had the highest percentage of stating the self as the
interlocutor (75%) compared to the 4-year-olds (73%) and 3-year-olds
(31%)."

This is from "Preschool children's awareness of private speech," Louis
Manfra and Adam Winsler International Journal of Behavioral Development
2006; 30; 537

But perhaps you are referring to a different study? I would find it
surprising, though, if 4 year olds were both using inner speech and also
aware of this use.

Martin


On Oct 15, 2010, at 12:49 PM, Peter Feigenbaum wrote:

> Martin--
>
> I empathize with your struggle to both understand LSV's theory and to
> teach it to others. Humbling is the right word.
>
> Of the several worthy questions you raise, I can add some useful
> information to only one of them: the issue about speech going inner
twice.
>
> A recent study by Lou Manfra (now at Florida International University,
but
> formerly a student in Adam Winsler's private speech lab at George Mason
> University) revealed some surprising information about the development of
> inner speech--it occurs much earlier than we thought. He worked with 30
> preschoolers and their mothers to find out exactly when the children
> became aware that they could talk inside their heads, and lo, and behold,
> the age was almost uniformly 4 years and two months!  The timing of this
> phenomenon reminded me of the study conducted by Ivanova in 2000 that
> examined the development of children's control of voluntary movements
> (Ivanova, E.F. The development of voluntary behavior in preschoolers:
> Repetition of Z.V. Manuiolenko's experiments. Journal of Russian & East
> European Psychology, Vol 38(2), Mar-Apr 2000, pp. 6-21). She asked 80
> children (aged 3-7 years) to stand still for as long as they could, and
> recorded how long they could hold a frozen pose. Results showed that time
> in poses increased with age. Voluntary control over movements was
> undeveloped in 3-4 year-olds, first began to show up in 4-5 year-olds,
and
> became stable and automatic in 6-7 year-olds. Although Ivanova was
> particularly interested in showing that the children's ability to hold a
> pose for a longer time was negatively influenced by distraction and
> positively influenced by the verbal suggestion that they "pretend to be a
> statue", I think the important lesson for the current discussion is that,
> neurologically, inhibitory control washes over children in temporal
waves.
> The fact that children become aware of inner speech (almost universally)
> at 4 years and two months of age fits right in with the fact that the
> first signs of voluntary control over behavior appear in 4-5 year-olds.
> Thus, I tentatively conclude from these data that the **physical**
> development of inner speech is tied to neurological development.
>
> Furthermore, there is a neurological pathway that connects the vocal
> chords to the inner ear, and this pathway is present early in life
> (although I can't remember where I learned this, unfortunately). What
that
> means is that, when we speak aloud, we not only can hear our own voice
> coming back to us through our ears, but also through an **internal**
> (intracranial) channel that shunts the signal right to the inner ear.
> Thus, the picture that emerges is the following: The physical development
> of inner speech is the product of nervous system inhibition in which the
> social speech activity of producing plosions of air that are passed over
> the vocal chords is repressed, leaving the internal connection between
> vocal chords and inner ear untouched. Consequently, we can *think* words
> and *hear* them without any of the process being audible.
>
> As for the issue of the **functional** internalization (or
> interiorization, involution, intravolution) of personal speech, LSV
claims
> that this occurs between ages 7-8, and is part of a developmental
> transition from private speech to inner speech. This transition depends
> entirely on the completion of the psychological process of abbreviation
of
> private speech. While the timing of this functional internalization has
> not been confirmed and is by no means certain, from the scant evidence we
> have, it seems to occur a very long time after inner speech has come into
> existence--which makes me wonder just what children are saying to
> themselves in inner speech during this period!
>
> For more precise information on the physical basis of inner speech, you
> might want to check out the following book: Intrapersonal Communication:
> Different Voices, Different Minds, by Donna Vocate (1994, Lawrence
> Erlbaum).
>
> I hope this response is helpful.
>
> Best wishes,
> Peter
>
> Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
> Associate Director of Institutional Research
> Fordham University
> Thebaud Hall-202
> Bronx, NY 10458
>
> Phone: (718) 817-2243
> Fax: (718) 817-3203
> e-mail: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
>
>
>
> Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> 10/14/2010 04:42 PM
> Please respond to
> "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>
>
> To
> "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> cc
>
> Subject
> Re: [xmca] LSV on the preschool stage
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On the issue of speech becoming 'inner physiologically,' here are the
> results of an hour's Googling.
>
> The principal brain region involved in speech production is Broca’s area.
> The principal brain region involved in word recognition is Wernicke’s
> area. Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are connected by a bundle of nerve
> fibres: the arcuate fasciculus. Lesion studies confirm that it is
involved
> with language. It is much larger in adult humans than in chimps or
> monkeys. MRI studies of children from 4 to 17 have found increase the
> white matter of this link with age, and only in the left hemisphere.
>
> Rilling, J. K., Glasser, M. F., Preuss, T. M., Ma, X., Zhao, T., Hu, X.,
> et al. (2008). The evolution of the arcuate fasciculus revealed with
> comparative DTI. Nature Neuroscience, 11(4), 426-8.
>
> Paus, T., Zijdenbos, A., Worsley, K., Collins, D. L., Blumenthal, J.,
> Giedd, J. N., et al. (1999). Structural maturation of neural pathways in
> children and adolescents: in vivo study. Science, 283(5409),
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