Laurent Danon-Boileau is one of France's most respected child psychoanalysts. In The Silent Child, he takes us into his office to watch him treat six children who cannot or will not speak. Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, this intriguing book introduces us to patients of surpassing strangeness, children who suffer from severe psychological difficulties that block their ability to speak or read. For instance, we watch as Danon-Boileau has sessions with Kim, who could name objects correctly, but when trying to express herself, would lapse into a private, unintelligible language. She could use words to name animals, but to express her wishes or her memories, she seemed to prefer using her hands. We meet Benjamin, who could not clearly distinguish between his imaginary world and the real world, a child whose mind is so taken up with the imaginary that he has neither the time nor the mental space for learning. And Rachid, who, at the age of 4, did not use language to communicate, but could read numbers consisting of several digits and count objects up to twelve. Perhaps most interesting is watching Danon-Boileau's trying to help these children, how he improvises, tries different approaches-playing games, drawing, reading, listening patiently, and using everyday objects in creative ways. Offering a fascinating portrait of an eminent psychoanalyst at work as well as a gold mine of insight into the roots and nature of language, The Silent Child takes us inside the lives of six young children struggling against great obstacles to learn to speak and read.

About the Author

Laurent Danon-Boileau combines the role of Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Paris with professional language therapy. He is a psychoanalyst and associate member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He works with children between four and seven years old who for a variety of reasons cannot or will not speak He aims to induce the birth of language in these children, at the same time using his observations to explore the nature of child language and communication. His background and education make him particularly attentive to two different dimensions of language that are often considered to be mutually exclusive: language as a psychic and poetic creation, and language as a word processing activity. He is also the developer of a new computer game, Play On, which is designed to assist dyslexic children.

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