language is the key to the child’s intelligence. Intelligent thought depends upon language. We think in words and symbolic representations. Language allows us to have something in our minds, to manipulate it, and to create something new with it. We are able to hold a thought, enabling even the young child, through her developing language, to follow a simple command: “Bring me the red ball” or “Go get three spoons.” One of the reasons we care so much about giving language to the young child is that this is a tool that the child is going to use to think and to build a mind. In a sense, then, our
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