Language Development

Witnessing a child’s development of language is a fascinating experience. Language acquisition is one of the most remarkable, universal human achievements and develops at an astonishing rate during early childhood. This velocity has led researchers to question how children are capable of acquiring so much knowledge in such a short period of time. Naturally, this curiosity has led to theories on how language skills develop in childhood.

COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

To master a particular language, an individual must combine four components of speech into an adaptable system of communication. These include elements of sound, meaning, overall structure, and everyday use. As children obtain knowledge in each area of language, they gain insight into others.

PHONOLOGY

SEMANTICS

GRAMMAR

PRAGMATICS

Theories of Language Development

We have learned that some researchers strongly believe in behaviorism, or the theory that behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning. In regards to language, the behaviorist perspective assumes that language is also learned through operant conditioning and imitation. Children learn the rules of language when correct uses of words and phrases are positively reinforced by others. This perspective is one of the earliest explanations of language development.

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE (LAD)

INTERACTIONISTS

Pre-Language Development by Newborns

We have previously learned that infants discover the organization of sound in their native language by listening to people talk. They learn to recognize familiar voices and develop the ability to disregard sounds not used in their own language. This receptivity to language is a key aspect of prelinguistic development. Infants pay attention to and respond to speech. As people speak, they concentrate on meaningful sound variations, which eventually leads to the ability to organize speech into the phonemic categories of their own language. Older infants begin to detect the internal structure of sentences and words, including recognizing phonemic sequences and syllable stress patterns. This ability to detect patterns in language likely underlies the development of basic syntax.

We can see that infants obtain a great deal of knowledge about language before they even begin to talk! Let’s review some methods for supporting early language learning:

INFANT-DIRECTED SPEECH (IDS)

JOINT ATTENTION

Phonological Development

Let us discuss phonological development in more detail. If you recall, phonological development is a complex process that depends on the child’s ability to attend to sound sequences, produce sounds, and combine them into understandable words and phrases. During the first four years of life, young children make rapid progress in this area as they attempt to reproduce the sounds they hear from others.

While babies can understand sounds, it is more difficult for them to correctly pronounce them. That is why their first words are typically influenced by sound sequences that are easiest to articulate, such as those that begin with consonants, end with vowels and include repeated syllables (e.g., Mama, Dada). At first, they may also use the same sound to represent more than one word. The more words they learn, the more speech sounds they can recreate. Again, adults often use IDS to simplify difficult words, such as choo-choo for train. This builds a foundation for pronunciation and encourages children to attempt new speech sounds. Although toddlers are sensitive to listening for the correct pronunciation of familiar words, they often make pronunciation errors when learning new words. This is likely because they are focusing on the thing that a word or phrase stands for, thus causing them to miss subtle details in the sounds of the word.

Children around the age of two begin to focus on and attempt to pronounce each individual sound within a word. As they do this, they make errors. Words that are more common in their environments help them apply those same phoneme patterns to other words. Words with unique patterns make pronunciation more difficult. Throughout the preschool years, pronunciation expands, as the vocal tract matures and the child begins to actively apply phonological strategies (see table). Therefore, the majority of phonological development is complete by the age of five, with only a few syllable stress patterns signaling subtle differences in meaning to be acquired later in adolescence.

Semantic Development

Remember, semantics is the branch of language that deals with meaning. Young children can recognize the meaning of words, but cannot always recall or retrieve the word in order to communicate. In other words, children understand words before they begin to use words. As their comprehension of words increases, they free space in their working memories for new words and the challenging task of using them to communicate. Semantic development is extraordinarily rapid as preschoolers demonstrate a steady, continuous increase in rate of word learning.

REFERENTIAL STYLE

EXPRESSIVE STYLE

COMMON WORDS

VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

ADULT FEEDBACK

MUTUAL EXCLUSIVITY BIAS

SHAPE BIAS

SYNTACTIC BOOTSTRAPING

EMERGENTIST COALITION MODEL

Grammar Development

Children cannot use grammar until they begin to utilize more than one word in a statement. As children begin to join two words together, they omit unimportant words, such as can, the, and to. This telegraphic speech helps them use simple word combinations to articulate a range of meanings. However, most toddlers do not yet have a reliable, adaptable grammar. When prompted to use new verbs in ways they have not already heard them being used, they have difficulty grasping the subject-verb and verb-object relationships. This tells us that toddlers most likely begin to use simple grammar based on word pairings that they commonly hear in their environment.

GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES

By the age of three, children who speak English begin to speak in sentences consisting of three words, which follow a subject-verb-object order. Once this occurs, children begin to add grammatical morphemes, or smaller units of language that alter the meaning of sentences (e.g., Tom’s hat). Gradually, preschoolers refine and generalize grammatical forms, eventually mastering auxiliary verbs (verbs used in forming the tenses, moods, and voices of other verbs), negatives (words that mark the absence, rejection, or denial of something), questions, and other complex constructions (such as connecting words, embedded sentences, tag questions, and passive sentences). Typically be the age of six, children’s grammar usage follows the majority of rules from their native language; however, development continues into middle childhood as children master the aforementioned complex constructions and extend their knowledge to include infinitive phrases.

Researchers are intrigued by grammar development, so there is much debate on how children master this complex component of language. Is grammar a product of general cognitive development? Or do children utilize specific techniques, such as semantic bootstrapping (using word meanings to decipher sentence structure) to build their grammar knowledge? Or, is grammar simply a product of intense observation, as children learn to effectively use language in social contexts?

PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT‹ 1/5 ›

• Although phonology, vocabulary, and grammar are fundamental components of language acquisition, it is also important that children learn to use language pragmatically, or appropriately, in various social settings. Pragmatic development includes following established rules for interaction, such as taking turns, staying on topic, and clearly stating points. All of this occurs over time, as children practice language in a variety of social contexts. Even toddlers can participate in a conversation, although the interaction may not be prolonged at this point.

Metalinguistic Awareness

You may recall learning about metacognition, when a child begins to think about his or her own thinking. Metalinguistic awareness is when a child begins to think and talk about language, recognize it as a system, and understand that this system can be manipulated. Phonological and morphological awareness are part of metalinguistic development. While preschoolers may begin this process, we see this awareness ripen throughout middle childhood as cognitive abilities grow more complex.

Knowledge Check

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Question 1

Which component of language development is concerned with the meaning behind words?SemanticsPhonologyPragmaticsGrammarI don’t knowOne attemptSubmit answerYou answered 0 out of 0 correctly. Asking up to 1.

Case Study

Language development concepts can be explored in further detail by analyzing research. The first case study examines the effects of an early language and literacy intervention on low-income preschoolers in order to consider the impact of environmental factors on early language development. The second case study further examines the developmental importance of gestures for early language development.

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• STUDY 1
  An Early Language and Literacy Intervention for Low-Income Preschoolers
  Research consistently shows that children from low-SES homes are more likely than their higher-SES age-mates to experience delays in both language and early literacy skills. However, when provided with high-quality early intervention (for example, Head Start), many low-SES children demonstrate gains in spoken language and emergent literacy. In one study, McIntosh and colleagues (2007) recruited 97 preschool-age children from low-SES backgrounds. Half of the children were assigned to the intervention group, while half received only their regular preschool curriculum. To monitor gains in language skills and phonological awareness, children were assessed at four separate intervals over the course of a school year. Baseline data were also collected at the onset of the study. The intervention consisted of small-group and whole-class language and reading activities. Teachers were given books with specific themes that were incorporated into the curriculum for 10 weeks. For example, one theme might be various types of animals, such as amphibians, birds, farm animals, fish, and reptiles.Results
  Language activities focused on reading stories to the children and then retelling the stories with children using props to reenact the story. They also practiced categorization skills (sorting pictures that were associated with the story), recall of main events in the story, and following directions (“What did the bird do next?”). Phonological awareness activities included syllable segmentation, rhyming, and sound identification during storybook reading. At each of the four intervals, the researchers administered a test of language skills and a test of phonological awareness. Findings revealed that children in the intervention group scored significantly higher on measures of language development and phonological awareness than children in the control group. Moreover, when compared to the normative samples used with each assessment instrument, children in the intervention group scored similarly to their higher-SES peers. It is important to note that at the onset of the study, both groups of children, on average, scored significantly lower than expected for their chronological age. Therefore, the gains made by children in the intervention group were especially meaningful.

Overview

Information-processing research seeks to understand how children develop the attention, memory, and self-management skills to succeed with complex tasks. Those who study this approach compare the human mind to a computer, or an intricate, symbol-manipulating system through which information flows. Attention to task is essential to thinking because it helps an individual determine which information needs to be considered. Development of attentional strategies occurs in phases and, over time, children gain an increased capacity for planning. As the ability to sustain attention grows, memory also improves, and the implementation of memory strategies increases a child’s likelihood of transferring information from the working memory to the long-term memory. Children also develop metacognition, which is another form of knowledge that influences how well children remember and solve problems. Fundamental discoveries about information processing have been applied to children’s mastery of academic skills, particularly in the areas of reading and mathematics. Identifying differences in cognitive skills between weak and strong learners can lead to strategies and interventions to increase performance. In addition, intelligence tests are helpful in identifying highly gifted children and diagnosing learning problems. The use of various types of intelligence testing has led to specific educational programs for diverse groups of students.

Language acquisition is one the most remarkable, universal human achievements and develops at an astonishing rate during early childhood. To master a particular language, an individual must combine four components of speech into an adaptable system of communication. These include elements of sound (phonology), meaning (semantics), overall structure (grammar), and everyday use (pragmatics). As children obtain knowledge in each area of language, they gain insight into others. The behaviorist perspective assumes that language is learned through operant conditioning and imitation. Children learn the rules of language when correct uses of words and phrases are positively reinforced by others. Noam Chomsky rationalized that the rules for sentence organization are too intricate to be learned merely through imitation or discovery. Instead, his nativist perspective proposed that all children have an innate language acquisition device (LAD), or system that instinctively allows them to combine words into grammatically consistent, novel statements and to comprehend the meaning of sentences said to them. Interactionists propose that language development is a result of both biological and social factors. Metalinguistic awareness occurs when a child begins to think and talk about language, recognize it as a system, and understand that this system can be manipulated.