Introduction to Late-Talking Children

Late-Talking Children

By Thomas Sowell

Introduction

Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman and the distinguished mathematician Julia Robinson were all late-talking children. To parents, it is a painful experience. To the general public of scientists, it is a hard phenomenon to explain. What hinders these individuals to speak? How much choice do they have being mute? What factors contribute to that phenomenon?

Sowell, an economist who has written books and articles on many subjects, takes the justified initiative to investigate that problem. It is justified because he himself is part of the community of parents with late-talking children.This baffling mystery as to why some clearly intelligent children do not begin talking until long after the "normal" time is the focus of this book, Late-Talking Children. The author looks at more than 50 sets of parents of similar children. This human experience is remarkable and moving because of the anguish and frustration of parents as they try to communicate with their mute children and institutions that can not provide an adequate explanation to those parents.

The book provides some interesting stories of late-talking children. Sowell pairs those stories with others on the families where those children come from. He also attempts to explore the recent scientific research that sheds light on the unusual development patterns of such children. There are some (and could possibly be great) expectations in the future of those children that parents can look forward to see in their children. Sowell attempts to calm down parents and trigger scientist to look closer to those children.