Sleep, food and language are pillars of children’s healthy lives, are intertwined from birth and make up the dynamic structure of child development. These are the effects of interdependent conditions: organic, psychic and social, which involve the child and result, simultaneously, from organic and symbolic inheritances. The latter overdetermines and modulates the interaction of the child with the environment, especially with the other human who is there. This heritage will draw patterns of conduct and behavior that can often contribute to changes that compromise, to some extent, the overall development of the child. In the children’s clinic, the description of developmentdisorders, from the mildest to the most severe, includes, as a rule, food, sleep and language aspects, which suggests, then, a base triad, questioning clinicians as to the possibility of there being, more than a simple coincidence, a correlation between fundamental biological functions. If this is the case, it will be important for the clinician to appropriate this perspective, since the implication will probably determine particularities in the diagnostic and treatment procedures. In this direction, it is worth deepening and discussing the development of these functions (sleep, diet, language), seeking to clarify their constitutive correlation, the link between them.
Sleep, eat and talk: symbolic enstillment
