The First Idea

How Symbols Language and

Intelligence Evolved from Our
Primate Ancestors to Modern
Humans
By Stanley Greenspan, MD
Stuart Shanker, D.Phil
 Core theory of The First Idea
 A subtle type of emotional signaling between
parent and infant is at the center of a series of
emotional transformations needed for humans to
develop symbolic thinking
 over millions of years, our primate and early
human ancestors passed on cultural practices
that guided early emotional interactions between
infants and caregivers
• These highly specific emotional signaling
patterns are necessary for the formation of
symbols, language, and intelligence
 Core Theory, Cont’d
• We have identified six stages of emotional
transformation that lead to symbol formation and
ten further stages that account for higher levels
of creative and reflective thinking
• When these vital emotional transformations do
not occur developmental problems arise,
including autism and severe language disorders
• Conversely, the more developed these early
emotional transformations, the higher the level
of symbolic thinking, language and social skills
 Core Theory, cont’d
• We refer to these stages of emotional
transformation as functional/emotional
stages of development (F/E)
• Emotional transformations are “functional”
in the sense that they enable the child to
interact with and comprehend her world,
and in the sense that they orchestrate the
child’s other developmental capacities
 THEORY OF EVOLUTION
• Studies of primates and the fossil record
suggests that our early hominid ancestors
went through the same stages of F/E
development as we see in young children
• This suggests that they developed and
passed on from one generation to the
next, over millions of years, the caregiving
practices that are critical for a child’s
development
Shared Attention and
Regulation
 Lower primates master attention and
regulation
(our first level in the ascent of thinking)

They do this through shared

gaze and back-and-forth
vocalizations during feeding
and play.
The common ancestor mastered
engaging and relating

They accomplished this through lots of

subtle back-and-forth emotional
interactions between caregivers and
infants.
Two-Way Emotional Signaling
& Problem-Solving
Emergence of Symbols, Logical
Thinking, & Reflective Thinking
 Archaic humans acquire
symbolic and linguistic abilities

• They accomplished this

through long complex affective
interchanges containing a
number of elements of
presymbolic communication
(600,000 – 100,000 years ago)
 Anatomically modern humans
began to think logically

• Through subtle emotional signaling

and the exchange of emerging
symbols, caregivers and their
children acquire the ability to build
bridges between their ideas and to
engage in complex group activities
(130,000 years ago – present)
 Theory of Evolution, cont’d
• This theory supports Gottlieb’s probabilistic
epigenesis model, according to which behavioral
changes can bring about genetic changes
• The basic point we make is that the structure
and wiring of the brain were changing as a result
of the emotional transformations brought about
by the evolving caregiving practices passed
down from one generation to the next
 A New Way of Thinking about
Child Development
• TFI presents a new way of thinking about
development
• Hinges on the concept of emotional
transformation: Emotions are transformed
through interactive experiences
• We have known for some time that deprivation
produces developmental, language and social
disorders, but didn’t know what constitute the
“appropriate experiences.” Now we know what
the experiences are that promote emotional
transformations
 Early Stages of F/E Development

1. Shared Attention and Regulation

2. Engaging and Relating
3. Back-and-forth Intentional affective
signaling
4. Co-Regulated Emotional (shared social)
Problem-Solving
Stages of F/E Development, cont’d
1. Creating Emotionally Meaningful
Symbols and Words
2. Building Logical Bridges between
meaningful ideas
3. Advanced stages of creative logical and
reflective thinking; e.g., level 9, creating
a stable sense of self that reflects on an
ever-changing and growing reality
 Emotional Development
• The study of autism makes it clear how
critical a healthy nervous system is for
emotional development; yet, from
observations of children under extreme
clinical challenges, we see how co-
regulated emotional interactions are
equally important for the child’s
development
Emotional Development, cont’d
• The key theme in this theory is that, far
from being separate from the rational
components of behavior (e.g. ‘appraisals’),
emotion and cognition are really one
system, operating as a whole, that
undergoes a series of emotional
transformations
 Brain Development
• The traditional view assumes a bifurcation
between neural systems subserving reason and
emotion, epitomized by MacLean’s ‘triune brain’
• The idea that reason can be assigned to the
neocortex and emotions to more primitive sub-
cortical systems is no longer tenable
• there is simply far too much anatomic and
functional overlap to suppose that one can
distinguish categorically between systems
subserving appraisal versus emotion
 Brain Development, cont’d
• A great deal of evidence shows that
emotions influence cognition (e.g.,
shaping attention)
• Equally, a great deal of research shows
how cognition influence emotions
• cognitive and emotion systems mutually
influence each other through bi-directional
causal processes
 Brain Development, cont’d
• Very early in life, a sensory-affect-motor
connection is formed that enables an infant to
perceive mother’s voice and then organize a
motor response such as looking
• It is the pleasure in mother’s voice, i.e., the
affect, that enables the infant to coordinate
sensations and motor patterns
• If, for example, the maternal voice is aversive
the infant will not look towards the voice
 Brain Development, cont’d
• When this process is interrupted because
of a primary biological deficit in the
sensory-affect-motor connection (or a
caregiver disorder), the ability of the infant
to learn from his environment and the
capacity of his brain to develop the
interconnectivity necessary for healthy
growth and development is compromised
and the expected pruning does not occur
 Brain Development, cont’d
• To test this hypothesis, we are doing EEG
studies of pre- and post- ABA and DIR
intervention subjects with autism
• We are also comparing DIR and ABA outcomes
to see if both demonstrate the same degree of
integration
• Our hypothesis is that the DIR affect-based
approach, which works on re-mobilizing the
missing affect transformations, results in a very
different pattern of neural organization than in
pure ABA
 Brain Development, cont’d
• What we are seeing is that in successful ABA
outcomes is significantly less synchrony up and
down the neuroaxis
• A pilot study is in progress that is looking at
developmental characteristics (not the brain),
which is supporting this hypothesis
• Children in more behaviorally-based approaches
rely on memorized scripts and less on creative
problem-solving and thinking
 Language Development
 Strongly anti-Cartesian, anti-nativist approach
 Certain core capacities are vital for a child’s
mastery of language: e.g., pattern-recognition,
joint attention, imitation, and mindreading
 These are all ‘downstream’ abilities that typically
occur in the first and in the second year of life
 For example, as her ability to engage in longer
emotional interactions develops (3rd stage of F/E
development), the child learns to predict patterns
of adult behavior and act accordingly
Language Development, cont’d
• Recognizing patterns helps a toddler predict
another’s behavior; e.g., when to expect loving
responses, anger, bossiness, etc.
• These patterns are learned in the second year of
life, before language comes in significantly
• A child may not gain this needed experience for
a variety of reasons. E.g., has a motor problem
and can’t gesture well; or a parent who is too
intrusive and anxious or too self-absorbed or
depressed to respond appropriately
Language Development, cont’d
• As a baby goes from islands of intentional
behavior, such as a few vocalizations or smiles,
to dozens of exchanges that she uses to solve
problems, she learns that she and others can
operate in larger communicative patterns
• The child uses this ability to distinguish among
many emotional patterns; she knows the
difference between gestures that mean safety
and comfort and those that mean danger; she
can tell approval from disapproval, acceptance
from rejection, etc.
Language Development, cont’d
• The intuitive ability to decipher human
exchanges and pick up emotional cues before
any words have been exchanged becomes a
sort of ‘supersense’ that often operates faster
than our conscious awareness
• This ability is a function of experience
• Far from being a sudden jump, the transition
from pre-symbolic forms of communication to
language is enabled by the advances taking
place in the child’s emotional gesturing
Language Development, cont’d
• With this growing complexity emerge the core
capacities noted above that are the critical
components of language development
• These core capacities all continue to develop as
a function of ongoing nonverbal processes, as
well as the child’s burgeoning language skills
• This series of affective transformations leads to
the emergence of language and continues to
operate in and be influenced by the child’s
mastery of more and more abstract linguistic
constructions
Language Development, cont’d
• For true language to emerge, a child has
to go through these steps; otherwise the
child’s language is very mechanical
• Symbol formation is not a static
phenomenon; for words to have ongoing
meanings they need to be invested with
more and more emotional meaning
(compare the 3 year-old saying ‘I love you’
versus the adult)
 Creation of the Milton and Ethel
Harris Research Institute
• Established to further develop the theory
of emotional transformations presented in
The First Idea
• Three schools within the Institute:
– Child development
– Primate studies
– Clinical studies
• Each with EEG and neuroimaging studies