Children without Language: From Dysphasia to Autism

by Laurent Danon-Boileau, James Grieve (Translator)

Communication and language disorders are often considered from one particular point of view - either psychological or neurological. Danon-Boileau argues that this is a serious mistake. He emphasizes that a child's trouble can stem from a variety of neurological problems similar to those of aphasia, cognitive impairments, and psychological disorders, and, thus, the interaction of these elements needs to be taken into account. In precise case studies, Danon-Boileau describes the situations he has confronted and traces the causes of changes in the child when they happen. Combining linguistic, cognitive, and psycholanalytic approaches, Children without Language provides a unique perspective on speech and communication disorders in children and will be an essential volume for speech therapists, developmental psychologists, linguistics scholars and anyone wishing to reflect seriously on why we speak and how communication occurs.

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 8, 2005

Reviews

[javor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Danon-Boileau presents an overall fairly convincing account of the psychic processes undergoing childhood language pathology. Informed by psychoanalysis, cognitive science, linguistics, and his own clinical practice, he presents what he tentatively calls “psychoanalytical semiotherapy” as an integrative mode of interaction that seeks to understand “children who do not speak” on their own level rather than according to a formalized set of diagnostic criteria, which I think is a major step up from the standard SLP practices even today. Nevertheless, for a psychoanalyst and linguist—especially a French one!—dealing with disorders of language and their relation to the psyche and the body, I was very surprised to see such a lack of engagement with Jacques Lacan, though he does touch on Didier Anzieu and his ‘bodily turn’; the psychoanalytic theories used by Danon-Boileau seemed to be a largely watered-down version of British object relations theory especially in their scientized ‘integration’ with areas of cognitive science and developmental psychology. I was also a bit disappointed to see a lack of consideration for the social and political processes implicated by language/communication disability, especially given how much scholarship there has been on the social constitution of language/communication in French circles, and on that of disability in the Anglosphere. Overall, this was not a bad book by itself by any means, and seems very helpful for pediatricians, SLPs, and child psychoanalysts in terms of informing helpful clinical practice. Nonetheless, the book felt a bit limited in scope, though the author readily acknowledges this.