Comment by Rebecca on Late-talking kids and "Einstein syndrome" · 2022-01-05T11:05:53.567Z · LW · GW

Thank you, great piece.

I have a later-talking son, now 8, who began speaking in sentences – from a 6-word vocab – at around 2.5 years. Suffice to say, we were relieved. Our daughter, now 21 months, has about the same range as son for same age. We're hoping for a similar outcome, i.e., she starts talking at some point! While no Einstein (!), our boy has great visual-spatial abilities and memory as well as incredible dexterity – think elaborate origami and detailed, three-dimensional drawing. Our girl has very good balance and bodily spatial awareness. Our son was a wonderful pre-verbal communicator as an infant and toddler – all gesture, sound effects, eye contact, expression, and emotion! – and his receptive language was just fine. Our daughter is the same. I don't think our son could talk until he did talk. Our girl doesn't imitate or repeat words we say to her, although today I think she tried to say 'bubble', which came out like 'booba', which is her word for breastmilk, the most spoken of her very few words! Ha!

I am very interested in your comment about right-hemisphere dominance for language in late talkers! What is that about?? I've read that left-handers are often right-lateralised for language (like their handedness), while a tiny minority of right-handers are naturally right-lateralised for language (unlike their handedness). So what are the brains of these kids doing while other kids are broadcasting from their first birthday or sometimes well before?? Psychiatrist/author Iain McGilchrist writes brilliantly on the importance of the right hemisphere for picking up and signalling deeper layers of communication – metaphor, implicit meaning, prosody, humour, etc. – rather than literal meaning, which is normally the purview of the left hemisphere. Seems like these kids are doing it all on the right!

I wonder if this imparts advantages or disadvantages in different ways?? Any ideas?