有許多人認為小孩子在學習語言之前，就已經知道一些東西了，小孩子只是不知道名稱而已。Fodor (1975)認為這樣子的觀點把所有語言學習都當成是二語學習了。在還沒接觸詞語(例如：華語)之前，小孩子已經可以和詞語對應的概念，它是將簡單的概念以有系統的方式組織起來，是謂「思考的語言假說」(Language of thought hypothesis)或者心理語(mentalese)。
然而，「(『所有』的)思想都能自外於語言而存在」這樣子的說法在認知科學的領域中並不是主流的觀點。
語言學家和人類學家認為語言影響了思考；而發展心理學家則因為12月大和24月大的小孩在詞語和心智是同時增長的情況下，而為此困擾。通常他們會這麼解釋：詞彙是思考、想法的結晶，因此認知越發展，就會詞語就會越多；而演化的觀點則認為非人類的動物因為沒有詞彙，所以心智受限。人類之所以特別，就是因為人類能夠透過語言去思考。(Dennett, 1996; p.17)曾說：
Perhaps the kind of mind you get when you add language to it is so different from the kind of mind you can have without language that calling them both minds is a mistake.
把有語言的心智和沒有語言的心智視為是兩種不同的心智，這大概是一個錯誤的命題。
References
Bloom, P. (2000). Words and Concepts. In (), How children learn the meanings of words. The MIT Press.
Bowerman, M. & others (1996). Learning how to structure space for language: A crosslinguistic perspective. In Peterson, L. Nadel & M. Garrett (Ed.), Language and space (pp. 385-436). MIT Press.
Carruthers, P. (1998). Language, thought and consciousness: An essay in philosophical psychology. Cambridge University Press.
Davidson, N. S. & Gelman, S. A. (1990). Inductions from novel categories: The role of language and conceptual structure. Cognitive Development, 5(2), 151-176.
De Villiers, J. & De Villiers, P. (1997). Linguistic determinism and theory of mind. , , .
Dehaene, S. (2011). The number sense: How the mind creates mathematics. OUP USA.
Dennett, D. C. (1996). Kinds of minds: toward an understanding of consciousness. Basic Books.
Fodor, J. A. (1975). The language of thought (Vol. 5). Harvard University Press.
Gelman, S. A. & Coley, J. D. (1990). The importance of knowing a dodo is a bird: Categories and inferences in 2-year-old children.. Developmental psychology, 26(5), 796.
Gelman, S. A. & Markman, E. M. (1986). Categories and induction in young children. Cognition, 23(3), 183-209.
Gelman, S. A. & Markman, E. M. (1987). Young children’s inductions from natural kinds: The role of categories and appearances. Child development, , 1532-1541.
Gentner, D. & Boroditsky, L. (2001). Individuation, relativity, and early word learning. In (), Language, culture and cognition. Cambridge University Press.
Goldstone, R. L. (1994). Influences of categorization on perceptual discrimination.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123(2), 178.
Goodglass, H., Denes, G. & Calderon, M. (1974). The absence of covert verbal mediation in aphasia. Cortex, 10(3), 264-269.
Gopnik, A. & Meltzoff, A. (1987). The development of categorization in the second year and its relation to other cognitive and linguistic developments. Child development, , 1523-1531.
Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. N. & Bryant, P. (1997). Words, thoughts, and theories (Vol. 1). Mit Press Cambridge, MA.
Leslie, A. M. (1994). ToMM, ToBy, and Agency: Core architecture and domain specificity. In (), Mapping the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture. Cambridge University Press.
Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslinguistic evidence. In (), Language and space (Vol. 109). MIT Press.
Lucy, J. A. & Gaskins, S. (2001). Grammatical categories and the development of classification preferences: A comparative approach. In (), Language acquisition and conceptual development. Cambridge University Press.
Markman, E. M. & Hutchinson, J. E. (1984). Children’s sensitivity to constraints on word meaning: Taxonomic versus thematic relations. Cognitive Psychology, 16(1), 1-27. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(84)90002-1
Murphy, G. L. & Lassaline, M. E. (1997). Hierarchical structure in concepts and the basic level of categorization. In (), Knowledge, concepts, and categories. MIT Press.
Perner, J., Leekam, S. R. & Wimmer, H. (1987). Three-year-olds’ difficulty with false belief: The case for a conceptual deficit. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 5(2), 125-137.
Solomon, G. E. (1997). Conceptual change and wine expertise. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(1), 41-60.
Tajfel, H. & Wilkes, A. L. (1963). Classification and quantitative judgement. British journal of psychology, 54(2), 101-114.
Waxman, S. & Thompson, W. (1998). Words are invitations to learn about categories. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21(1), 88-88.
Waxman, S. R. & Markow, D. B. (1995). Words as invitations to form categories: Evidence from 12-to 13-month-old infants. Cognitive psychology, 29(3), 257-302.
Wimmer, H. & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. Cognition, 13(1), 103-128.