ABSTRACT

In a few weeks, the first week of January 1992, I am walking together with my five-year-old daughter up the stairs of a heavy building at Blochin Street, not far from the Gorki metro station in St. Petersburg. Her father is not with us. Just me and her. Her tendency to wander seems to be finally behind us, so I feel I can travel with her without worrying that she is going to run away when I don’t notice. My attempts to keep her beside me for a period of two years have at least one positive outcome. I don’t know what she is thinking or feeling – her vocabulary is still limited to about 30 single word-like vocalizations. But she looks peaceful and content. It’s only 25 years later I learn about her experiences of that trip to St. Petersburg – that she remembers a church, a building, and how fascinated she was seeing a tram in the street that had a huge number “57” on, and that she had been so impressed by that large number since the only trams she had ever seen so far had only single digit numbers on them. Who would have thought what she was noticing and thinking since there was no language, and no wish to share her thoughts and feelings? I ring the bell. We are asked to wait for Dr. Traugott in her office, which looks like a library. I don’t know much about the doctor we are to meet. I don’t know her exact specialty other than she has a long-term experience with children who don’t learn to speak. While we are waiting I notice the books on the shelves with titles in several languages. Brain. Neurophysiology. Neuropsychology. Freud. Consciousness. She enters the room. Her name is Natalya Nikolayevna Traugott.