Bob,
I have had a fair amount of experience working with kids with various degrees and kinds of communicative and language disorders. I am fully aware of the rich cognitive life people with impaired language have. I hope I am not seeming flippant or ignorant in my posts.
I still don't think it is obvious that thought precedes language. I think that they are made of the same stuff. In fact, just the sort of cases you mention contribute to making me think that. I think that when the apparatus functions "properly" there is little noticeable difference between the mental operations of "thinking" vs. "language." That seamlessness between thought and language is very noticeable when it breaks down.
Essentially where I'm coming from is a notion that "language" and "thought" are results of the same processes played through different post-production equipment. I resist the assertion that either one precedes or necessitates the other. I probably do not have reasons for that resistance that would be acceptable as evidence for an argument. Plus, much of the argument hinges on some sort of broad meaning of "language" that comprises all manner of meaning-making procedures, and is therefore hopelessly nebulous and idiosyncratic.
Anyway, I do know about communicative and language disorders, and I do not mean any of these basically philosophical arguments of mine to be interpreted as dismissive of the minds and experiences of people living with such disorders.
David R.
P.S. -- I went back and edited out the extra "have" in the sentence you quoted. Thanks for drawing my attention to it.
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