Infant Language Development The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect on verbal language development of purposefully encouraging hearing infants to use simple gestures as symbols for objects, requests, and conditions. To this end 103, 11-month-old infants were divided into three groups, all of whom were seen in the laboratory for a variety of assessments, including standardized language tests at 15, 19, 24, 30, and 36 months. Parents of those in the Sign Training group modelled symbolic gestures and encouraged their infants to use them. Parents of infants in the Non-intervention Control group knew nothing about symbolic gestures or our special interest in language development. As a control for "training effects" (i.e., effects attributable to families being engaged in a language intervention program), parents of a second control group of infants (the Verbal Training group) were asked to make special efforts to model verbal labels. After comparisons of the two control groups minimized concerns about training effects, comparisons between the Sign Training and the Non-intervention Control group indicated an advantage for the Sign Training group on the vast majority of language acquisition measures. These results provide strong evidence that symbolic gesturing does not hamper verbal development and may even facilitate it. A variety of possible explanations for such an effect are discussed. Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development A view of the child as a preformed adult endowed with special linguistic input and output devices is giving way to a view of the child as a creature equipped with ears and eyes and with various moving parts that can be harnessed to form the so... ... middle of paper ... ...ork: Academic Press. Bates, E., Bretherton, I., & Snyder, L. (1988). From first words to grammar: Individual differences and dissociable mechanisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boyatzis, C. J., & Watson, M. W. (1993). Preschool children’s symbolic representation of objects through gestures. Child Development, 64, 729-735. Diamond, M. & Hopson, J. (1998). Magic trees of the mind. New York: Dutton. Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Thal, D., Bates, E., Hartung, J. P., Pethick, S. T., & Reilly, J. S. (1993). The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). San Diego, CA: Singular Publishing Group, Inc. Gardner, M. F. (1985). Receptive and Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test. Novato, CA: Academic Therapy Publications. Tomasello, M., & Farrar, J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development, 57, 1454-1463.
Baby signing is used to teach children who are not yet speaking to communicate through symbolic hand gestures. Many researchers believe this form of communication is beneficial to families in that it may relieve frustration for the baby (Gongora & Chammarrita, 2009). For example, a child who is taught sign language can make the sign for juice to communicate that he or she is thirsty (Gongora & Chamarrita, 2009). Also, baby signing is believed to promote a bond between the child and parent, as well as improve language development (Gongora & Chammarrita, 2009). Over the yeears, baby signing programs have gained much attention in the media. As a result, many parents have purchased these programs with aticipations of accelerating their children’s development ( Gongora & Chamarrita, 2009). Years have been dedicated to this research; however, evidence to support the beneficial claims of baby signing remains unclear.
From birth, our everyday experiences and interactions with the people around us help to grow and shape the brain. The child-caregiver relationship is a key element in healthy cognitive development, and has a lasting impact on the child’s life. Through this positive relationship the child learns and cultivates their understanding of people and the world around them. These experiences will help determine the level of motor skills, visual skills, and learning abilities that a child will possess in their future. A responsive caregiver provides the serve-and-return interactions a child needs to develop healthy brain circuitry. A healthy example of serve-and-return is when an infant babbles and gestures to an object, the caregiver responds accordingly by smiling and naming the object. This interaction lays the foundation for creating a link between the object and the word. As children age they learn about cause and effect, spatial relationships, problem solving, number sense, and classification. They learn these skills through the use of symbolic play and imitation.
A child goes through various stages in language development before they have a complete social understanding. When a child is born, they already have perceptual abilities, and can understand the speech sounds of any language, but, by 12 months the child loses that ability, and their understand of the sounds in their own language increases. Werker and Tees (1984) conducted an experiment and found that infants of 6-8 months could distinguish changes in speech sound, but by the time they were a year old, the could no longer hear the differences. Around 11-12 months, a child will begin to speak their first words, and will begin to apply labels and begin to name things, which stems from their pretend play. By 2 to 3 years old, a child will begin to understand everything that is said to them, and by 3 and a half years, their speech becomes more adult like. By 4 and a half years on, children have a much better understanding of language, and an understanding of metacommunication, such as tone, body language
Language acquisition during early childhood could be determined by a biological explanation. This may show how the brain is wired so children can acquire language ev...
In the second stage, preoperational, the child begins to exemplify the world with words and images that show increased representative thinking. They improve at symbolic thought, though they can’t yet reason.
Walkup. (2008). Learning and Cognitive Development. In B. a. Kay, Advanced Early Years (pp. 132 - 149). Harlow: Heinemann.
Communication between an infant and its caregiver plays a very important role in a child’s language development. Language development begins at an early age, but it has to be learned. A baby’s language may not be something that we understand, but as adults we eventually learn how to distinguished what they want. As a mother of three I have learned that the more I
Wellman, H. M., & Este s, D. (1986). Early understanding of mental entities: are examinations of childhood realism. Child Development. 910–923.
Soderstrom, M. (2007). Beyond baby talk: Re-evaluating the nature and content of speech input to preverbal infants. Developmental Review, 27(4), 501-532.
1. Provide two examples for each of the following gestures and indicate their meaning or function as a part of language development.
In the discussion of nature verse nurture, one controversial issue is language. Arguing on the side of nature, children across the world seem to exhibit universal stages of linguistic development. Infants as young as seven months old are able to recognize simple linguistic rules from a string of sounds. When a child is first learning to speak, they typically combine words in ways that an adult would not. They can also speak and communicate clearly without adult correction. These observations suggest that we are born with the capacity to communicate verbally and through the use of kinesics, or gestures. However, nurture also plays a large role in the use of language. Linguistics differ amongst children from region to region based on the way the people around them speak. Thousands of languages such as: Spanish, English, Italian, and Creole are spoken around the world. Vernacular and accents also vary within each language and is acquired through a learning process, not genetics(Brown, 10/1/13). Another major environmental factor is correction from parents and adults. A child may be born with the ability to speak, but grammatical correctness and annunciation requi...
Jean Piaget’s influence on this developmental area allows us to better understand preoperational thought, egocentrism, and conservation. According to Piaget, preoperational thought is when a child is now able to understand symbolic play and have the ability to imagine something even if it is not physically there. Having these thoughts and abilities can encourage a child to use language to describe their play (Piaget, 1951). Another great example is using art to convey this growth. When a child draws, they are using their memories, mental representations of people, and things around them to put it down on paper! Being able to describe their surroundings is largely made possible by hearing people talk around them. Vygotsky believed children are able to build on cognitive structures by hearing social speech around them. Equally as important as social speech, is a child’s private speech. In early childhood, a child’s private speech will not only help them practice using the newly acquired language, but also learn to internalize dialog for mental activity (Vygotsky, 1962). A great way to improve upon these skills is to ask a child open ended questions to encourage them to use their words. Language will flourish and children will now have the ability to have conversations and tell stories about the things they imagine. While children are learning how to use their words during symbolic
The study of language development, one of the most fascinating human achievements, has a long and rich history, extending over thousands of years (Chomsky, 2000). As the nature-versus-nurture argument is inevitable to arise whenever human behaviors are discussed, it is not surprising that language experts have debated the relative influences of genetics and the environment on language development (Hulit & Howard, 2002). Among the various proposals concerning the mechanisms involved in acquiring a language, two opposing theoretical positions, the behaviorist and the nativist, are the most prominent and influential ones (Ayoun, 2003; Garton & Pratt, 1998; Owens, 2001). Due to the indefinite explanation of the exact process, the continuous interest of the inquiring people, and the sheer significance of the precise result, the controversy remains ongoing and popular. In view of the more obvious limitations of the behaviorist interpretation and the prevailing contributions of the nativist interpretation, the latter one is more rational to accept.
The aim of this essay is to explore language acquisition and compare and contrast different theories of language acquisition and language development. Language in its most basic form is used to communicate our needs and wants. It encompasses a range of modes of delivery including signing, spoken and written words, posture, eye contact, facial expressions and gestures. So how do we learn ‘language’? Are we born with the skills for communication, or is it something that we have to learn or have taught to us? Four theories are looked at in this essay to determine how children acquire and then develop language. These theories include behaviourist, nativist, cognitivist and sociocultural. This essay will highlight some similarities and differences in each theory and what impact these have on a child’s acquisition and development of language. Lastly we will look at the implications of these theories when working with children. Can a classroom teacher deliver a quality literacy program based on just one of these theories or does it need to incorporate components of all four? Sims, (2012) pp. 21 states ‘’High-quality learning experiences in the early years of life enhance children’s cognitive and language skills’’. This places a great responsibility on educators and teachers alike to provide an environment which is rich in learning opportunities that will encourage both the acquisition and development of language.
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.