sofa?" were answered correctly by movements of hand and eyes. In the
tenth month this child for the first time himself used a word as a means
of effecting an understanding, viz., _mama_ (soon afterward, indeed, he
called both parents _papa_). The child's inability to repeat distinctly
syllables spoken for him is not to be attributed, shortly before the
time at which he succeeds in doing it, to a purely psychical adynamy
(impotence), not, as many suppose, to "being stupid," or to a weakness
of will without organic imperfections determined by the cerebral
development, for the efforts, the attention, and the ability to repeat
incorrectly, show that the will is not wanting. Since also the
peripheral impressive acoustic and expressive phonetic paths are intact
and developed, as is proved by the acuteness of the hearing and the
spontaneous formation of the very syllables desired, the cause of the
inability to repeat correctly must be solely organic-centro-motor. The
connecting paths between the sound-center and the syllable-center, and
of both these with the speech motorium, are not yet or not easily
passable; but the imitation of a single sound, be it only _a_, can not
take place without the mediation of the cerebral cortex. Thus in the
very first attempt to repeat something heard there exists an
unquestionable advance in brain development; and the first successful
attempt of this kind proves not merely the augmented functional ability
of the articulatory apparatus and of the sound-center, and the
practicability of the impressive paths that lead from the ear to the
sound-center--it proves, above all, the establishment of intercentral
routes that lead from the sound-center and the syllable-center to the
motorium.

In fact, the correct _repeating_ of a sound heard, of a syllable, and,
finally, of a word pronounced by another person, is the surest proof of
the establishment and practicability of the entire impressive, central,
and expressive path. It, however, proves nothing as to the
_understanding_ of the sound or word heard and faultlessly repeated.

As the term "understanding" or "understand" is ambiguous, in so far
as it may relate to the ideal content (the meaning), and at the same
time to the mere perception of the word spoken (or written or
touched)--e. g., when any one speaks indistinctly so that we do not
"understand" him--it is advisable to restrict the use of this
expression. _Understand_ shall in future apply on