Memories Pre-Speech

The inseparable connection of sound and thought from de Saussure continues to make my brain fuzzy. I continue to dwell on the concept of pre-speech thought, that of an infant, and how our current memories are shaped entirely by our language and speech. While I am no scientist or psychologist, I know that a human's retainable memory generally is consistent with the childhood development of speech. That is to say that most clear memories aren't held in the long term memories prior to the child speaking. Perhaps this may not always be the case, but our memories of pre-speech have been affected and changed due to our appliance of correct language and thought in hindsight. While a person may have memories of a childhood pet that died prior to the development of their speech as a child, they can remember this pet with the language of "dog," "pet," "warm," "soft," etc. The pre-speech memories of the past surrounding this family pet have been manipulated and influenced by the language of the present. Any thoughts or pre-speech language that the infant may have had or felt towards this family pet have been lost in favor of speech-enhanced memories.
It would be very interesting and intriguing to have some sort of sense of memories prior to speech without assigning speech to them in order to understand the images and feelings. The complexities of this train of thought are difficult, and I find myself struggling to separate sound and thought myself. It is possible that only feelings can be separated from thought in regards to childhood memories, as images would not be immune to the influence of thought and assigned language. In the instance I shared in class, about my little brother remembering clear events from 9/11 at only 5 months old, continues the sense of feeling and image separated from speech and thought. However, my brother only drew the 9/11 towers on pieces of paper, and when asked to articulate what he had thought during the event at 5 months old, he could not explain what happened or what he remembered. In some ways words, speech, and thought connected to sound can hinder us, as there is only one way of defining a given entity with sounds, but the imagery and emotional connection to the words and thought are what separates each persons perception of speech and ultimately connects memories to thoughts pre-speech.