Katherine,

I understood that crawling was an important part of development and that
babies who do not crawl, skip an important development that later
effects their reading ability. Anyone else heard this?
These cultures that you talk about, is reading a part of their culture?

Assunta Osterholt, IBCLC


This was a theory a while back, have not seen anything to substantiate it
(the reading and crawling bit).  In many cultures where babies are held all
the time and many do not crawl, their language is only oral.  For example,
where I work in Mali, the main local language, Bambara, has only been an
*official* written language for less than 10 years.  So not too many people
can read or write in Bambara.  However, many of these folks who didn't crawl
as infants but who live in urban areas go to school beginning at age 8, and
school is in French.  They learn to read and write in French, and do just
fine.  Many children who live in remoter areas go to Koranic school and
learn to read and write in Arabic.  It does not seem to be a problem.

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University