Language Development

Language Development

1. Components

   • Phenology - The rules governing the structure and sequence of speech sounds. Semantics - The way underlying concepts are expressed in words and word combinations. Grammar - consists of two main parts: Syntax and morphology. Syntax - Rules by which words are arranged into sentences. Morphology - Grammatical markers indicating number, tense, case, person, gender and active or passive voices. Pragmatics - Rules for engaging in appropriate and effective communication such as taking in turns, staying on the same topic, and stating their meaning clearly.
     • Phonological Development - The easiest sound sequences start with consonants, end with vowels and include repeated syllables such as mama, dada. Toddlers know how words are supposed to sound even when they mispronounce them. Phonological development is largely complete by age 5. however a few are not mastered until adolescence e.g. changes in syllabic stress
       • Phonological Strategies - By the middle of the 2nd year children progress from trying to pronounce whole syllables to pronouncing each individual sound within a word. This makes common words easy to pronounce and unique words difficult. 'v' is a late appearing sound amongst english speaking children.
     • Semantics - Word comprehension begins in the middle of the 1st year. Children's comprehension develops ahead of production. Young toddlers learn 1 to 3 new words a week. Between 18-24 months they learn 1-2 words a day. At 4 years children learn 9 new words a day. Fast-mapping - Children can connect a new word with an underlying concept after only a brief encounter. Referential Style - Most toddlers vocabularies consist of words that refer to objects. Expressive Style - These children's vocabularies have more social terms and pronouns.
       • Types of words - Object, action and state words are most common in children's vocabularies. Vocabularies contain more nouns than adjectives because nouns are easier to perceive e.g. cat versus move. Between 2 and 2 1/2 years state words include labels for attributes of objects (big), words referring to the function of the object appear soon after.
       • Underextension - Children apply words too narrowly. Overextension - A more common error between 1 - 2 1/2 years where they apply a word to a wider collection of objects than is appropriate.
       • In adolescence a variety of abstract words such as philosophy are added. Teenagers also master sarcasm and irony and understand the difference between the two. An overall improved grasp of figurative language.
       • Semantic development - It is facilitated by adult feedback, but children's cognitive development also plays a role. Phonological store - A special part of the short term memory that allows us to retain speech based information. Phonological memory is linked to advanced vocabulary development.
       • Strategies for word learning - Children figure out the meanings of words by contrasting them with words they already know. Mutual exclusivity bias - Children assume that words refer to entirely separate categories. Once toddlers have learnt 75 words a 'shape bias' is evident. Previous learning of nouns based on shape heightens attention to shape properties of other objects. Onc the name for a whole object is familiar, 2 and 3 year olds set aside the mutual exclusivity assumption on hearing the new name of the object. Syntactic bootstrapping - Preschoolers discover many word meanings by observing how words are used in syntax (sentence structures).
     • Pragmatics - Turnabout - The speaker not only comments on what has been said but also adds a request to get the partner to respond again. Between ages 5 and 9 children use shading (speaker changes the topic gradually by modifying the focus of the discussion. Effective conversation also depends on understanding Illocutionary content - What a speaker means to say even if it's not said consistently. The presence of a sibling also enhances conversational skills.
       • Referential communication skills - Produce clear verbal messages and recognise when messages we receive are unclear. This begins to occur around age 3.
       • Narratives - Conversations with adults about past experiences cause dramatic gains in ability to produce well organised, detailed expressive narratives. 4 year olds typically produce leap frog narratives, jumping from one event to another. Between 4.5 and 5 children start producing chronological narratives. At age 6 they turn into classic narratives which add a resolution. Evaluative comments arise increase towards adolescence.
       • Speech registers - Language adaptations to social expectations.
     • Metalinguistic awareness - The ability to think about language as a system. This begins around age 4. Bilingual children are advances in metalinguistic awareness.
   • Grammar - Telegraphic Speech - Between the ages of 1.5 to 2.5 years children make two word utterances combining high content words and omitting smaller ones such as can, and. In the third year 3 word sentences appear, in which they follow a subject-verb-object order. Grammatical morphemes - Small markers that change the meaning of sentences adding ing or s. Overregularization - Applying a regular morphological rule to words that are exceptions.
     • Complex Grammatical forms - Negatives appear in the following order. - 1) nonexistence, the child remarks on the absence of something. 2) rejection, the child expresses objection to something. 3) Denial, the child denies the truthfulness of something.
     • Questions - Utterances are first converted into yes/no questions. Correct questioning must invert the subject and auxiliary verb.
     • Connections - Between 3.5 and 6 years children join whole sentences and verb phrases with 'and', followed by then, when, because, so, or, if, but.
     • Passive voice and understanding of infinitive phrases occur later on with improved capacity to analyse.
     • Children possibly master grammar through direct observations of the structure of language and/or through semantic bootstrapping. Adults correct children's incorrect grammar more often indirectly than directly, through recasts (restructuring incorrect sentences into correct forms) and expansions (elaborating on children's speech and increasing its complexity).

2. Theories

   • The Nativist Perspective - Noam Chomsky regarded language as a uniquely human accomplishment etched into the structure of the brain. Language Acquisition Device (LAD) - An innate system that permits them to combine words into grammatically consistent utterances and to understand the meanings of sentences they hear. Within the LAD is a universal grammar, a built in storehouse of rules common to all languages.
     • No evidence exists that even the brightest animals can comprehend and produce sentences that are both complex and novel.
     • Deaf children who's parents refused to sign create a gestural 'home-sign' system that is used to comment on objects and events, ask questions, influence others actions, tell stories and talk to themselves.
     • Language areas in the brain - Language is housed in the left hemisphere. Broca's area - Located in the left frontal lobe, supports grammatical processing and language production. Wernicke's Area - Located in the left temporal lobe, plays a role in comprehending word meaning. Language areas in the cerebral cortex develop as children acquire language, therefore if the left hemisphere is damaged in the first few years other regions take over language functions and most children obtain normal language competence. However grammatical competence depends more on the left hemisphere even early in childhood.
     • Sensitive periods - Acquiring a second language later in life is harder than at a younger age. This decline occurs around age 5 to 6. This can be related to the narrowing of speech perception during the first year.
   • The Interactionist Perspective - Interactions between inner capacities and environmental influences.
     • Information Processing Theories - The human brain is skilled at detecting patterns. Using statistical learning capacity infants identify basic language patterns by applying the same strategies as with non linguistic experiences.
     • Social Interactionist Theories - Native capacity, a strong desire to understand others and be understood by them, and a rich language environment, combine to help children discover language.

3. Williams Syndrome - Occurring in 1 in 7500 births, it results from deletion of genetic material from the 17th chromosome. Children have facial, heart and kidney abnormalities with IQ's ranging from 50 to 70. Their language development, though delayed, is impressive. Affected children are good with memorising but poor with rule learning. Therefore they speak without comprehending what they are saying.

4. Prelinguistic Development

   • Receptivity to Language - Newborns are sensitive to the pitch range of the human voice and prefer speech to other sounds. Categorical speech perception - Perceiving a range of sounds that belong to the same phonic class as identical. Between 6 and 8 months infants start to organise speech into the phonemic categories of their own language. During the second half of the first year infants have begun o detect the internal structure or sentences and words. Infant Directed Speech (IDS) - Communication made up of short sentences with high pitched, exaggerated expressions, clear pronunciation, distinct pauses between speech segments and clear gestures. Infants prefer IDS and are more emotionally responsive to it by 5 months.
   • First Speech Sounds - Cooing - Around 2 months babies make vowel like noises such as 'oo'. Babbling - Around 6 months infants repeat consonant-vowel combinations such as 'babababa'. For babbling to further develop they must hear human speech. By 8-10 months babbling reflects sounds of children's language some of which is transferred to their first words 'mama, dada'. Toddlers continue babbling for 5 months after their first word.
   • Joint attention - Around 10 to 11 months babies gaze in the same direction as adults are looking. This contributes to early language development. Between 4 and 6 months interactions include give-and-take and by 12 months babies participate actively, practising turn taking which is required for adult conversation. Around 1 year babies extend joint attention to their social interaction skills: pointing at objects while looking back at the parent. Protodeclarative - Baby points to, touches or holds up an object while looking at others to ensure they notice it. Protoimperative - Baby gets another person to do something by pointing and making sounds at the same time.
     • Toddlers use of preverbal gestures predicts faster vocabulary growth in the 2nd and 3rd years.

5. Bilingualism - When school aged children learn a second language, they take 5-7 years to attain skills on par with native speaking children. Code switching - Substituting a guest word from another language into a sentence. Bilingual children are cognitively advanced.