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Child Language Development - Coggle Diagram
Child Language Development
Key Strands
Nativism - Chomsky
Chomsky argued that children will never acquire the tools needed for processing an infinite number of sentences if the language acquisition mechanism was dependent on language input alone ( criticism of behaviourism).
He proposed the concept of UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR - which is the idea that there are biological categories such as nouns and verbs that facilitate the entire language development in children. Chomsky argued that evidence for universal grammar is manifest in how children know how to combine a noun and verb in to a meaningful correct phrase. ( word order )
Virtuous Error refers to non-standard forms which have their own internal logic that actually displays a greater intelligence than the ability to repeat words like a parrot ( e.g saying "holded" instead of "held"
Social Interactionism - Bruner
The idea that the child's environment is important, he argued that children have an innate ability to learn and acquire language, but also require interaction with other users to excel in their learning. Social interaction plays a fundamental role in acquisition in general. Emphasised the importance of scaffolding, which is the steps taken to reduce the freedom in a task, ensuring that the child can concentrate on the task at hand. Bruner Developed the LASS ( language acquisition support system) in response to Chomsky's theory
Cognitive Theory - Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of mental development. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence. Piaget's stages are:
Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years
Preoperational stage: ages 2 to 7
Concrete operational stage: ages 7 to 11
Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up.
Egocentric Speech - a child will give a running commentary on events when no listener is directly addressed
Behaviourism - B.F Skinner
Skinner asserted that language is acquired through imitating the speech of others. Children, he said, repeat actions they get a pleasurable response from. So, if a child copies a word and receives something (e.g. apple means they get that fruit), they repeat it and learn what it means. Even just seeing their parents smile when they copy certain words is enough for them to remember to use them in the future (reinforcement). Obviously, imitation plays a big part in the phonological development of language (e.g. accents). The theory is also criticised for, the following reasons: · regardless of reinforcement received, all children seem to follow the same stages of language development, suggesting that something else must be at work (if not, there would be much more variation between children) · children learn and try out grammatical rules (E.G trying thinked as a past tense by using the ‘add ed’ rule) and this cannot just be imitated · by understanding these rules, children can understand and use an infinite number of sentences, not just be limited to things they’ve heard and copied*
Social Constructivism - Michael Tomasello
Tomasello Proposes a usage-based theory of language acquisition. that children come to the process of language acquisition at around one year of age, equipped with two sets of cognitive skills, both evolved for other, more general functions before linguistic communication emerged in the human species
Intention Reading
Pattern-Finding
intention reading is what children must do to discern the goals or intentions of mature speakers to achieve social-ends, Pattern-finding is what children must do to go beyond individual utterances and find links between how language is used. This explains why virtuous errors happen, as children categorise exceptions wrongly
Development Charts
Vocabulary by Age -
12 months - 50 words
24 months - 200 words
36 months - 2000
Grunwell's Phoneme Acquisition -
24 months - p b m d n w t
30 months - k h g ŋ 'ng'
36 months - f s j l
42 months - v z r ʤ
Katherine Nelson's Categories of First Words
Naming
Action
Social
Modifying
Pre-verbal Stage - 0-12
Holophrastic Stage - 12-18
Telegraphic Stage - 18-24
Post- Telegraphic Stage - 24-36
Jean Berko Gleason / + Roger Brown
the
wug
test - children were asked to make up sentences about a fictional creature known as a 'wug' . the children were able to create inflections based on knowledge about plurality that they already know, it shows that children can apply general rules to other contexts
'fis' 'fish' phenom - children were unable to hear the difference between fis and fish, despite being able to perceive the difference, this shows that comprehension precedes capability
Inflectional Morphology
Altering a word to make a new grammatical form e.g guess to guessed
Expansion
where a child develops an utterance into a more detailed utterance
Mismatch Statement
one word sentecnes that appear abstract in context e.g cow in an empty field
Consonant Cluster Reduction
reducing consonant clusters to smaller units e.g spider to pider
Content Word
words that communicate meaning independently
Deletion
ommitting a final consonant e.g do(g) cu(t)
Holophrase
A word that contains a full setence of meaning e.g hungry for
" i want some food "
Egocentric Speech - required for the moving into the zone of proximal development
Case Studies
Pavlov's Dogs
A scientist who demonstrated the concept of classical conditioning, that dogs reacted to a neutral stimulus in the form of a bell in association with feeding time, this lead to the dogs salivating when the bell was rang
Genie
a mentally abused girl who never developed past the telegraphic stage of language development as a result of missing the critical period window
Kaluli Tribe - Schieffelin and Ochs
A tribe in Papua New Guinea who do not use child directed speech, their children do not suffer from impaired language, it proves that CDS and scaffolding may not have that big of an impact that Bruner and Vygotsky believed
Broca's Patient Tan
a man who had lost the ability to speak as a result of a traumatic brain injury, the man learned to communicate using only "tan" E.G tan = yes, tan tan = no. After tan's death, physicians found lesions in his frontal lobe, while the rest of his brain was healthy. this proves that language is both localised to the left frontal lobe, and that some level of innate ability was lost during the brain injury
Study of Vincent - Vincent was born to deaf parents who communicated with him through signing. He quickly became fully competent in sign language. His parents encouraged him to watch a lot of TV to enable him to pick up the spoken word. By the time he was 3-years old, he was still unable to speak. Researchers began working with him at this stage: developmentally, he was seriously behind other children of his age, and reports still feeling the effects on his speech.
Nim Chimpsky
a chimp adopted by linguists, they studied his mannerisms and found that the chimp had cognitive ability to communicate, yet lacked the physical ability to make communicative sounds in the same manner as a human, shows that cognitivism doesnt always precede ability - use to criticise cognitive theories and vygotsky.
1960 Critical Period Hypothesis
- the idea that language learning is accelerated in a child's first years, if a child misses this window, their language can become impaired such as the case of Genie
Vygotsky
Zone of Proximal Development - a concept in educational psychology. the space between what a learner is capable of doing unsupported and what the learner cannot do even with support,
Emphasised the importance of socio-dramatic play, he asserts that cognitive development and ability can be guided and mediated by interactions, his theory states that learning is a social process as opposed to an individual journey
More Knowledgeable Other - anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, in regards to CLD
Formations
Negation Formation ( Bellugi )
stage 1 - The child uses 'no' or 'not' at the beginning or end of a sentence. 'No wear shoes'.
Stage 2 - Moves 'no/not' inside the sentence. 'I no want it'.
Stage 3 - Attaches the negative to auxiliary verbs and the Copula be securely. 'No I don't want to go to nursery. I am not'.
Stage 4 ( Crystal ) - the pragmatic method of saying no that parents use e.g "maybe " to mean "no"
Dan Clayton
looked at his twin sons utterances over an 18 month period