Before taking up the possibility of a child exhibiting symptoms of
defective speech with the first utterance, let us familiarize
ourselves with the fundamentals underlying the production of the
first spoken words.

The mother, who for months, perhaps, has been listening with eager
interest and fond anticipation for her child's first word to be
spoken, has little comprehension of the vast amount of education
and training which the infant has absorbed in order to perfect
this first small utterance. Months have been spent in listening to
others, in taking in sounds and recalling them, in impressing them
upon the memory by constant repetition, until finally after a year
and a half, or more, perhaps, the circuit is completed and the
first word is put down as history.

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS: It must be remembered that perfect co-
ordination of speech is the result of many mental images, not of
one. In saying the word "salt," for instance, you have a graphic
mental picture of what salt looks like; a second picture of what
the word sounds like; a "motor-memory" picture of the successive
muscle movements necessary to the formation of the word; another
picture that recalls the taste of salt, and still another that
recalls the movements of the hand necessary to write the word.

These pictures all hinging upon the word "salt" were gradually
acquired from the time you began to observe. You tasted salt. You
saw it at the same time you tasted it. There you see was an
association of two ideas. Thereafter, when you saw salt, you not
only recognized it by sight, but your brain recalled the taste of