Moving ahead in language: Observations on a report of precocious language development in 3–4 year old children with spinal muscular atrophy type II

Benony and Benony in a recent issue of this Journal have presented new data on the precocity of language acquisition in children with type II spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), at age 36–47 months. They refer to our interim report of advanced early language development in these motor-impaired children, which covers the age period 18–35 months. Here, we provide more details of our findings and discuss them in relation to their report and our theory of the role of the procedural system in language learning.