The First Idea How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans

In the childhood of every human being and at the dawn of human history there is an amazing and, until now, unexplained leap from simple, genetically programmed behavior to the complexities of language, symbolic thinking, and culture. The First Idea explores this missing link and offers brilliant new insights into two longstanding questions: How did human beings first create symbols, and how did these abilities evolve and get transmitted across generations over millions of years? Book jacket.

Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., author of the widely used and praised books The Challenging Child and (with Serena Wieder, Ph.D.) Engaging Autism, is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School and lives in Bethesda, Maryland. Stuart G. Shanker, D.Phil., is Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Psychology at York University, in Toronto. At the forefront of research into ape and child language, his acclaimed books include Apes, Language and the Human Mind (with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Talbot Taylor) and Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Foundations of AI. Dr. Shanker's critiques of genetic determinist theories of human development have been the subject of television specials, including "The Today Show," "Discovery," and "The Pamela Wallin Show."