Language Development

Language Development Why can’t babies talk? 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).

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.

Language Development 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.

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?

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)

Language Development 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. Over extension 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.

Language Development 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 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 “Mummy throw” means Mummy throws the ball. If a thing is being acted upon it will come last so “throw ball” means “throw the ball”.

Language Development By about 2 and a half, children are using multi- word 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 over regularisation, 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.”

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.

Language Development 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 pre- wired 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.

Language Development 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 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 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 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