The role of speech in the regulation of normal and abnormal behavior

by Alexander R. Luria

The book describes successive stages in the acquisition of speech by normal children, showing how language at first achieves an "impelling" function, in that it can initiate activity, but not inhibit it; later acquires a more"directive" funciton for the child, being able to inhibit as well as initiate action. In mentally subnormal children this development is retarded and in severe cases it never matures. Thee are also qualitative differences between normal and abnormal children which are ingeniously explored and illustrated in the book.

100 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1961

About the author

Alexander Romanovich Luria (Russian: Алекса́ндр Рома́нович Лу́рия ) was a famous Soviet neuropsychologist and developmental psychologist. He was one of the founders of cultural-historical psychology and the leaders of the Vygotsky Circle. Apart from his work with Vygotsky, he is widely known for his later work with two extraordinary psychological case studies, his study of a man with a highly advanced memory published as The Mind of a Mnemonist, and the study of a man with traumatic brain injury published in The Man with a Shattered World.