First, a definition

What do I mean by "articulate child"? I mean a child whose cognitive development takes full advantage of their natural endowments. The capacity to devise and articulate complex thoughts is outward evidence of this process.

We learn through our experience in ways compatible with our natural tendencies and abilities. It has been said that the training of animals is mostly a matter of encouraging behaviors that an animal is already disposed to exhibit. The amazing thing is the great richness of these potential behaviors.

All animals (humans included) are endowed at birth with certain capacities, which experience permits us to exploit. Birds are born with wings. Wings do not ensure flight (as the several species of flightless birds attest). However, lacking wings does make unassisted flight rather difficult. By analogy, our minds, like our bodies, hold a trove of capacities that experience with the world permits us to engage.

An infant is not a blank slate. But neither is an infant endowed with fully-functional "hard-wiring". It is the combination of our biological foundations and our interactions with the world that leads to our cognitive development.