Language Development

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
FETAC Level 5
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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Why can’t babies talk?
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What triggers language development?
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Babies cannot talk as they do not have the
physical ability to make speech when they are
born.
 Vocal chords, oral cavity and muscle control
needed to make speech are not sufficiently
developed until the baby is 6 months old.
 The language areas of the brain take two years to
develop fully (Goldman-Rakic, 1987).
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
A key component of learning to speak is the
ability to hear oneself speak.
 All babies babble and coo to themselves at
around 2 months old. However, hearing
impaired children will stop doing it by around 4
months old. Hearing impaired children can
learn to speak, but will require specialist training
to do so.
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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Another key component in language development
is cognitive development.
For example, a child has to have object
permanence to understand the word “gone”.
Other concepts such as “more than one” need to
be understood so that the child can use plural
words.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
As we have seen before each of our areas of
development is linked with the other areas. Just
as a child needs the necessary physical and
intellectual development to take place to develop
language, so also does s/he need social
development.
 Language is a form of communication – we need
other people to make it meaningful for us.
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
A case was recorded of a normal hearing child
with deaf parents, the child was at home all of
the time, with the only spoken language being on
TV.
 The child was fluent in sign language but by the
age of 3 could not speak or understand English.
(Moskowitz, 1978).
 What do you think was the reason for this?
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Early vocalisations – crying, cooing, babbling.
(Birth to 1 year old)
 First words – words used on their own.
(1 year to 18 months)
 Telegraphic Speech – two word sentences.
(18 months to 2 years old)
 Multiple word sentences – longer sentences.
(2 to 2 and a half years old)
 Adult-like speech – complete sentences.
(4 years old)
(Wood, 1981)
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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When babies babble they are practising using
different intonations and pitches of voice that
they will use later to convey meaning.
By 3 months of age babies will take turns in
“conversation” with their caregiver.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
With first words babies begin to label the things
around them.
 Overextension occurs when babies attach a label
to something and then use it to all things they
think belong to that category – for example,
calling all four legged animals “dog”.
 After a few months of one word sentences babies
start to add words together and use telegraphic
speech.
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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Telegraphic speech – a bit of an outdated concept
now that we don’t use telegrams. In a telegram,
people were charged by the word and so tried to
give a message in as few words as possible. In
telegraphic speech children use the key words
they need to get their message across. “Daddy
work” means Daddy is gone to work, it is short,
but it gets the meaning across.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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The amazing thing about telegraphic speech is
that it follows the syntax – which is the
grammatical rules which make sentences.
If a person is performing the action they will
come first – so “Mammy throw” means Mammy
throws the ball.
 If a thing is being acted upon it will come last so
“throw ball” means “throw the ball”.
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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By about 2 and a half, children are using multiword sentences. They begin to learn the rules of
their language. For instance, they say “I goed to
the park” – they have not heard this, they are
applying the rule “ed” to make the past tense.
This is called overregularisation, as children
learn the rules for irregular verbs they stop
making these mistakes, usually by age 5 or 6.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
From 4 years onwards children are fluent
speakers.
 They acquire new words at an astounding speed.
 By the age of 6 they have an average vocabulary
of 14,000 words (Carey, 1978).
 They learn 22 new words a day. Miller (1981)
says that “No one teaches them 22 words a day.
Their minds are like little vacuum pumps
designed by nature to suck up words.”
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
There are 3 basic schools of thought on how
children acquire language: the behaviourist
approach, the nativist approach, and the
cognitive approach.
 The behaviourist approach was put forward by
B.F. Skinner in his 1957 book Verbal Behavior.
He believed that reinforcement and punishment
were responsible for all learning, including
learning language. He said the parents
reinforced babbling by giving the baby attention
and then reinforced word sounds in the babbling.
He also said that children learned language by
observation. Almost immediately his ideas came
under criticism from other psychologists.
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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The nativist approach. Noam Chomsky wrote a
stinging review of Skinner’s book in 1959.
He asked how could children learn language by
observation and reinforcement when they often say
something that they have never heard before? Also,
he asked where is the punishment part of the
equation? Parents don’t punish their children for bad
usage of words.
In fact, Chomsky noted that parents mostly correct
children’s speech when the facts are wrong, not the
grammar.
This has been supported by subsequent research
which has shown that parents view conversation with
their children as interactions, not as teaching
opportunities (Miller, 1981).
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Chomsky argued that when children use
overregularisation they are obviously not using
what they have observed, but are putting in place
rules they are working out.
 Furthermore, he showed that attempts by adults
to get children to correct such errors are usually
futile.
 Chomsky proposed that language learning is prewired into the brain by a language acquisition
device or LAD. He showed that language
learning progresses through the same processes
in all languages and cultures.
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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Studies with hearing impaired children
supported Chomsky’s theory. A 9 year old boy
reared by deaf parents had perfect signing
grammar even though both his parents had
incorrect grammar in their sign language
(Kolata, 1992). This supports Chomsky’s belief
that children can learn rules of grammar that
they are never specifically shown.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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The cognitive approach. Some psychologists
believe that language development is totally
dependent on cognitive development. They also
believe that social interaction is key to this
cognitive and language development. Bruner
(1983) posits that language development is built
on the interaction between baby and adult.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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So which theory is right?
Current thinking is that Skinner and Chomsky
are opposite extremes, both go some way to
explaining language development, but neither
fully develops it. “Language development is
propelled by inborn biological forces combined
with reinforcement, punishment, and imitation
and nurtured by the constant communication
that occurs between parents and their
children”(Goldstein, 1994).
REFERENCES
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Bruner, J. (1983) Child’s talk: Learning to use language.
New York: Norton
Carey, S. (1978) The child as word learner. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press
Chomsky, N. (1959) Review of Verbal Behaviour by B.F.
Skinner, Language, 35, 26-58
Goldman-Rakic, P.S. (1987) Development of cortical circuitry
and cognitive function. Child Development, 58, 601-622
Goldstein, E.B. (1994) Psychology. California: Brooks Cole
Kolata, G. (1992, September 1) Linguists debate study
classifying language as innate human skills. New York Times,
pB6
Miller, G.A. (1981) Language and Speech. New York: W.H.
Freeman
Moskowitz, A.B. (1978) The acquisiton of language.
Scientific American, pp 92-98, 103-108
Skinner, B.F. (1957) Verbal Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall

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