Mentally controlled bionic arms: great for amputees; how about for those with birth defects?

9/14/2006 article:
This man had used his arms for years before he lost them in an accident and got prosthetic arms - one "regular"; one thought-controlled.
Man's bionic arm provides hope for GIs

9/17/2006 article:
This woman lost an arm in a motorcycle accident and is learning to use her new thought-controlled bionic arm.
Bionic arm puts life in reach

Read about it!

The Mistress' question:
Will this technology work for people, such as thalidomide babies, who never had arms or legs to begin with? One would assume it would, if those people have the shoulder nerves (or, alternately, hip nerves) mentioned in the article.

But can we learn *their* language?

Kosik the Korean elephant has learned to mimic some of his trainer's words. He seems to be trying to communicate; next step is to test whether he really does understand "sit", "lie down", "no", "yes", and a few other words in Korean. If he does, will he teach us those words in his language?
S.Korean park features talking pachyderm