Eldin Raigmore, On 11/05/2006 00:43:
> I have a vaguish question about a possible compromise between the position
> John Quijada put forth in his handouts to the 1st LCC, and the "language
> instinct" idea. It's not _very_ compromising -- its closer to the
> cognitive view than the innatist view. It's based in part on the data
> concerning the difficulties autistic persons have learning language.
[...]
> It is just such hardware/software -- the human version of it -- which is
> disabled in high-functioning autistics. Some such people have a long delay
> in learning their native language, and considerable difficulty learning it,
> although many become quite proficient in it eventually.
I forgot to add in my previous reply:
I'd thought that autistics have relatively unimpaired language, but highly
impaired pragmatics (i.e. impaired Theory of Mind faculty). And in contrast,
Williams Syndrome has highly impaired language but very proficient pragmatics
(unimpaired Theory of Mind faculty). Or something like that. Maybe I'd got it
wrong.
--And.