The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-11-03
By BRUCE CATION


 NEA Service Stan Correspondent Copyright, 1887, NEA Service. 1nc.)
 Toronto, Ont, Nov 3-"The Dionne quintuplets learned to talk slowly, but they came on with a grand rush when they did get started.
 Right now they are ac- quiring new words faster than ordinary children of their age acquire them. And having learned to talk, they are using their newly devel- oped powers a much as the traffic will bear.
 "They have a total joint vo- cabulary of 1855 words and the nursery at Callander echoes to their soft-voiced converse tion from sunup to sundown.
 Incidentally, they have very low contralto voices"
 All of this is revealed in a paper no the quintuplets' language devel- opment, written by w. E. Blatz. M. I. Fletcher and M. Mason of St. Georges School for Child Study of the University of Toronto. The study was one of several made of the quintuplets by Dr. Blatz and his CO., workers.
 Why Bother Talking
 Psychologists have shown that single children learn to talk before twins do. The child who grows up in company with an other child of his own age can communicate with his playmate through grunts and gestures. The child who grows up without such 8 companion, however has to learn to talk to make his wants known.
 If this is true of twins, how much more would 1t be true of quintup- lets! Each of these girls has four playmates, instead of just one at the same stage. Farom the time they first crawled around the, nursery together, the quints had a code of gestures, squeals and jabberings by which they could understand each other. They should worry about 
 No Wonder They Were Slow
 There is another, similar factor. Dr. Blatz has found at the nursery school that children whose parents do everything for them are slower in learning to talk than children who are not so pampered.
 There again you have the case of 8 child who doesn't need to learn to talk, because his wants are anti cipated before he needs to call at tention to them. And there you have another parallel the quintuplets, who have always had trained nurses in constant attendance, looking out for them and hurrying to meet their needs as no mother, however de- voted, could hope to do.
 Having started, however, they are up for lost time. At present they are acquiring new words faster than the normal child acquires them. The psychologists who have been studying them during the last two years will testify that the girls will talk your arm of, if you give them 3 chance.
 One of the biggest difficulties the nursery authorities have had In maintaining meal-time disci- pline has been due to the fact that the quints like to carry on earnest and interminable conversations over the dinner table. ....
 They were born pantomimists apparently - which made 1t easier for them to get along without words in the early days. This lends spice to their conversation now, for the gestures and the are still used as much as ever.
 It's Done With Gestures .. ...
 If a quint wants to say "No," she doesn't merely say Mo- (Of course, with the quints, it's "Non," anyway, since they talk French). She shakes her head vigorously, letting her curls fly, and says Mon! Non!" with great impressiveness. And when the answer Is yes, her "Ouil" is bit off short, accompanied by an em- phatic nodding of the head and an extra wide opening of the eyes.
 The uiiir1tS know kheir naYnas