Stern’s Theory of Speech Development

Abstract

Stern’s purely intellectualistic perspective on the child’s speech and its development has changed less over the years than any other aspect of his theoretical system. In fact, it has been reinforced, consolidated, and further developed in the course of his work. Nowhere does the restricted nature, the internal inconsistency, and the scientific inadequacy of Stern’s philosophical and psychological personalism or his idealism emerge more self-evidently than in his perspective on the child’s speech.