CHILDISH MIRRORS?
Mirror neurons allow us also to imitate the movements of someone’s lips and tongues. Watch a baby speak their first words by imitating an adult. They not only copy sounds, like a parrot, but rely even more on the ‘gestures’ of speech.
Just before the child says its first words, it must pass an important milestone: pointing with its fingers.
Until the age of 10 months, a baby who is stuck in its high chair and wants an object that it sees but cannot reach will express this desire by gesturing with its arm and fingers, displaying great agitation, making intense vocalizations, and looking back and forth between the object and its parent.
Around 13 months, the baby changes its attitude radically as it manages to point with its index finger to identify an object.
This simple gesture is immensely powerful, because it actually plants an idea in the parent’s mental world.
When a baby starts pointing with its finger, this means that it has understood the principle of speech. All it has to do now is learn how to make certain “auditory gestures” with mouth and tongue instead of pointing with its fingers.
