Child language development:

Child language development:

1. Theories:

   • Behaviourism - B.F Skinner, Children imitate the language of their parents/ carers. When a word is spoken by the child that they recognise they give praise. Children begin to associate certain language rules with praise, developing their language skills through positive reinforcement.
     • Critiques:
       • Other techniques may be used such as using trial and error with applications of rules.
       • Children may struggle to repeat what is said.
       • Politeness and truthfulness may be of a higher importance and reinforce these more often than they reinforce language rules.
       • All children pass through the same stages of language development regardless of the amount of reinforcement. If language development was dependent on parental reinforcement there would be more variety between children.
       • Children are not limited to sentences that they have previously heard, they are capable of producing original sentences. Pivot schemas.
   • Cognitive - Jean Piaget, Children are required to understand language concepts before being able to express it. They need to understand object permanence - objects have independent existence. In their eyes if an object is not in sight it doesn't exist.
     • Critiques:
       • After 18 months children know of existence and permanence of objects and they learn anmes of these objects.
       • Some aspects of linguistic development appear to be separate from cognitive development, e.g grammar and sentence structure is independent of its general cognitive development.
         • Studies have been done with children who have mental development issues, who were able to speak fluently.
   • Innateness - Noam Chomsky, Children have an inborn faculty for language acquisition that is biologically determined. When they are exposed to speech the general structure principles begin. (LAD).
     • Support:
       • Slobin stated that human anatomy is adapted for speech due to having a vocal tract.
       • Explains how children learn to speak at a fast rate.
       • Grammatical features are common to all languages and children from all cultures pass through similair stages.
     • Critiques:
       • Chomsky didn't study real children therefore cannot apply his theory to real life of children's interactions and conversations.
       • It underestimates the role of interaction with others - children require interaction with others (Jim case study// feral children).
   • Interaction - Bruner, Snow and Evans, Children require interaction with their care givers in order to learn language. (Linguistic scaffolding). Parents speak slowly to childen and use simplified sentences and vocabulary, making it easier for the child to imitate.
     • Critiques :
       • It is hard to measure the relationship between the parents input and the childs development. It is also hard to be certain of causation when a child advances to another stage of linguistic development.
       • The way parents speak to their childre is not essential, in some cultures they do not change how they speak to ther children, yet their children still acquire language.
     • Support:
       • Snow and Evans - interaction between young children and their care givers adopts a special register.
       • Real life application - Feral children, no interaction = no speech or language development.
       • Snow and Evans study - studied a 4 year old who was asked to explain a simple game to their mother, and then to the 2 year old brother. They found that when speaking to the mother more complex language was used as well as longer and more complex sentences. Where as when explaining to the brother simpler vocabulary and sentences were used.

2. Language development stages:

   • 1 Crying - Expression of emotions such as distress, hunger etc.
     • Basic biological noises (0-8 weeks).
   • 2 Cooing - a universal development at around 6-8 weeks. The child is developing control over it's vocal chords.
   • 3 Babbling - 6-9 months. The child begins to make sounds that resemble adult language. Consonant-vowel combinations are produced and often repeated (reduplicated monosyllables).
   • 4 Phonemic expansion - Increase in phonemes used.
     • Phonemic contraction - At 9-10 months phonemes used decrease, shrinking the range of sounds made. The bay retains native sounds, and disards sounds that are unneeded.
   • 5 Intonation and gesture - patterns of inotation begin to resemble speech, there are changes in tone and pitch, such as when a child was trying to ask a question. Emphasis and rhythm may also suggest a greeting or calling. Gestures are also used in order to communicate.
   • The first word is spoken at around 12 months old.
   • Children may be able to understand the meanings behind words despite not being able to speak. Signs of word recognition are usually evident by the first year. Words that are likely to be recogised are names of fmaily, basic responses 'yes/no' and situational an experiential related speech 'bye-bye''.

3. Phonological development: 1st year

   • Vowels are learnt before consonants. Consonants are fully learn by the age of 6/7. They are first used correctly at the beginnings of words , children find them more difficult when they are at the end of words.
   • Common sounds are acquired before sounds that are less frequently ocuring.
   • Deletion :
     • Final consonant deletion. 'cat' - 'ca'.
     • Cluster reduction. 'snake' - 'nake'.
     • Initial consonant deletion 'bunny' - 'unny'.
     • Weak syllable deletion. 'banana' - 'nana'
   • Substitution:
     • Backing. /t/ /d/ - /k/ /g/, 'dog' - 'gog'.
     • Fronting. /k/ /g/ - /t/ /d/.
     • Gliding. /r/ - /w/, /l/ - /w/ or /y/.
     • Stopping. /f/ /s/ - /p/ /d/.
     • Vowelization. /l/ /er/ - vowel. 'appo' - 'apple'.
     • Affrication. non affricative - /ch/ /j/. 'joor' - 'door'.
     • Depalatalization. /ch/ /d/ - /sh/ /d/. 'ships' - 'chips'.
     • Epenthesis. Sound added between two consonants. 'blue' - 'bu-lue'.
   • Assimilation:
     • Assimilation. Consonant sounds like other sound.'bus' - 'bub'.
     • Denasalization. /m/ /n/ - /b/ /d/.
     • Final consonant devoicing. /b/ /d/ - /p/ /t/.
     • Prevocalic voicing. /k//f/ - /g/ /v/.
     • Coalescence.Similair phonemes replace each other. 'foon' - 'spoon'.
   • Reduplication. Syllable repetition.

4. First words:

   • Entities - names for people, foods, humans, clothes, vehicles.
   • Properties - hot, allgone, more, dirty, cold.
   • Actions - up, sit, see, eat, go.
   • Personal - social - hello, byebye, no, yes, please, thank you.
   • Concrete nouns are dominant. Followed by verbs, then adjectives.
   • Grammatical function words are missing - of, the, to.

5. Lexical and semantic development: errors.

   • Underextension - words are given narrower meanings. Using 'cat' for the family pet, but not for other cats.
   • Overextension - words are given wider more general meanings. Using 'dog' to refer to all four legged animals. MORE FREQUENT.
   • Categorical - over/underextension based on similair characteristics being observed.
   • Analogical - over/underextension based on relating an object or person to something similar.