children language acquisition (paper 1)

Behaviourist theory

Children acquire language through imitation and reinforcement.

What did Skinner suggest?

Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers. Successful attempts are rewarded (positive reinforcement) as the caregiver will praise the child for using the correct word. Undesirable behaviour is simply not rewarded (negative reinforcement).

Limitations of Behaviourism - Virtuous Errors.

Mistakes made by children show that they are actively working out and applying rules of language. For example, a child who says 'drinked' instead of 'drank' is over-applying a rule. The 'mistakes' occur due to irregular verbs.

Limitations of Behaviourism - Developmental Milestones.

The vast majority of children go through the same stages of language acquisition apart from extreme cases like Genie. The sequence of steps for language acquisition seems to be largely unaffected by the treatment the child receives.

Limitations of Behaviourism - Critical Period.

Children who have not acquired language by the age of about seven will never entirely catch up. For example, Genie. Lenneberg coined the term 'critical period' in reference to the period of early childhood when children must be exposed to social interaction and language in order to master it for themselves.

What does the Innate Theory suggest about language acquisition?

Chomsky argued that children must have an inborn faculty for language acquisition. The process is biologically determined.

What is the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)? (nativist theory)

A child is able to interpret what it hears through the natural faculty LAD. Chomsky stated that all human languages share common principles. It is the child's task to establish how the specific language they hear expresses these underlying principles. For example, the LAD contains the concept of verb tense and the children work this out through hearing words.

Universal Grammar - Chomsky

The notion that all human language possess similar grammatical properties which the brain is 'hard wired' to be able to decode and use.

Limitations of the Nativist Theory - Chomsky.

-Chomsky's work on language was theoretical (didn't study real children) reduces the scientific validity.

-doesn’t take into account interactions with caregivers and children

-Jim Case study (still acquired language despite being passed his LAD)

-criticised for being an armchair linguist, lack of evidence to support theory.

What does the Cognitive Theory say about language acquisition?

Piaget argued that a child has to understand a concept before they can acquire the particular language form which expresses that concept. Language can't develop until cognitive development occurs. For example, a child can't use comparative adjectives like 'small', 'smaller' and 'smallest' until they understand the concept of size.

Interactionist Theory

This theory stresses the importance of language input from care-givers. Language can only be learnt in the context of interaction. Bruner suggests that the language behaviour of adults when talking to children (child-directed speech or CDS) is specially adapted to support the acquisition process. This is known as scaffolding.

Snow- motherese

motherese describes the language used by mothers to talk to their children. She argues that language acquisition happens as a result of the interaction which takes place between the mother and her child. Interactions with fathers use ‘fatherese’ and anybody else uses ‘otherese’

Features of Child Directed Speech (interactionism)

1. Change in pitch

2. Slower and clearer speech

3. Repetition

4. Grammatically simpler sentences

5. Tag Questions

6. Use of nouns in place of pronouns

Child Directed Speech - Expansion

When a caregiver develop or add detail to a child's utterance

Child Directed Speech - Recasting

When a caregiver repeats the child's utterance but provides a corrected version

What is the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)? (interactionism )

1. Gaining attention - Drawing the baby's attention to a picture.

2. Query - Asking the baby what the object is.

3. Label - Telling the baby what the object is.

4. Feedback - Responding to a baby's utterance.

Limitations of the Interactionist Theory.

We have seen that there are cultures in which adults don't adopt special ways of talking to children, so CDS may be useful but seems not to be essential.

Pre-verbal Stage (0-12 months).

Crying to communicate a physical need to their caregiver like hunger. Cooing is used as an attempt of a response by the infant.
From 6 months onwards babies are able to point to things as an answer to a question.

Features of the Holophrastic Stage (12-18 months).

This is when the child starts to produce one-word utterances. These one word-utterances can mean a whole sentence. For example they could say 'juice', implying they want some more juice. Neologisms are common if the infant can't pronounce the word they require. Intonation is used to signify different meanings.

Features of the Two-Word Stage (18-24 months).

Two-word utterances usually contain two nouns or a noun and a verb. For example, 'dog bark' meaning 'the dog is barking'. Pronunciation is inconsistent with words being shortened and syllables being under stressed. They start to experiment with inflections. They also begin to ask questions with intonation.

Features of the Telegraphic Stage (24-30 months).

The child starts to produce longer and more complex grammatical utterances. Syntax appears to be in the correct order. the child's vocabulary extends massively. Pronunciation of words isn't always accurate. Suffixes are sometimes overused, for example 's' to mark plural nouns like 'information' into 'informations'. Present participles are more likely to be used.

Halliday's Functional Language Model (phase one)

Phase One: 9-12 months
Instrumental - Language as a means to obtaining material needs, e.g. generalised requests for objects.
Regulatory - Language to control the behaviour of others, e.g. request for an action to be performed.
Interactional - Language to communicate with others, e.g. Vocalisation upon appearance of person.
Personal - Language for direct expression of feelings, attitudes, and for the personal element of interaction, e.g. comment on objects, expression of pleasure.

Halliday's Functional Language Model (phase two)

Phase Two: 16-35 months
Heuristic - Language to investigate reality and learn about things, ask questions, explore.
Imaginative - Language to create one's environment, e.g. pretend play language.
Informative - Language to communicate new information about something, e.g. tell someone something.

Types of overextension (0-3 years)

Categorical - Name for one member of a category is extended to all members of the category.
Analogical - A word for one object is extended to one in a different category.
Mismatch Statements - Seemingly abstract sentences. Child makes a statement about one object in relation to another.

What is the difference between hypernym and hyponym?

Hypernym - A word that labels a category, e.g. 'fish'.
Hyponym - A word that belongs to a category, e.g. 'clownfish'.

Berko and Brown (1960) 'Fis' Study

Berko and Brown demonstrated that children can hear the correct pronunciation of words even if they are unable to articulate the phonemes accurately themselves. A child was shown rejecting the adult's articulation of the word 'fish' as 'fis' in favour of the adult articulating it correctly. Even though the child was unable to articulate the sound in the word for themselves - they could still hear it has been said correctly to them.

Barclays Stages of Learning to Write.

1. Scribbling - Random marks on the page, which aren't related to letters or words. They're learning the skill of holding a pencil or crayon.

2. Mock Handwriting - Children practise drawing shapes on paper. Pseudo-letters begin to appear in or with drawings as the first sign of emergent writing.

3. Mock Letters - Children produce random letters, but there is still no awareness of spacing or of matching sounds with symbols.

4. Conventional Letters - Children start matching sounds with symbols Words are unlikely to be spaced out.

5. Invented Spelling - Most spelling is phonetic.

6. Appropriate Spelling - Sentences become more complex as the child becomes more aware of standard spelling patterns.

7. Correct Spelling - Most words are spelt correctly.

Kroll's Stages of Development in writing.

Phase One - Preparation (until age 5-6): Children learn the basic skills of handwriting and spelling in the following order; drawing and sign writing, making letter-like forms, writing capital letters, writing the child's first name and letter strings, forming words, forming sentences and writing short texts.
Phase Two - Consolidation (ages 6-8): Writing catches up with speech. Their writing will be longer than the first phase. Declarative sentences.
Phase Three - Differentiation (9-10 years): Children learn to distinguish between speech and writing.
Phase Four - Integration (11 years): Children begin to develop their own personal styles, a personal 'voice' develops in writing, adapting to different requirements confidently.

Features of writing between the ages of 3-7. (Chronological order)

Large typography due to lack of motor skills to hold a pencil, mock letters, lack of digraphs, capitalisation due to ease of movement, phonetic spelling due to learning phonetics at school, conjunctions, compound sentences, text/image cohesion, story-like, ascenders/descenders, complex sentences, demarcation.

Stages of Spelling Development - Gentry

1. Pre-Communitive or non-alphabetic - Up to the age of 7 years. Scribbles. Some letters may emerge.

2. Semi-phonetic or partial alphabetic - Can range from 4-9 years. Symbols begin to become recognisable as alphabetic. Children will try to distil writing to key consonant sounds within a word.

3. Phonetic Spelling - Words are spelt how they sound. More letters appearing than previously and with vowels emerging.

4. Transitional - More straightforward patterns like doubling of consonants are now understood and spelling is increasingly accurate.

5. Conventional or Correct - From age 10 onwards. Children can usually spell most words accurately with an understanding of unusual patterns.

Chall's stages of reading development

1. Pre-reading and pseudo-reading (up to age 6) - 'Pretend' reading by turning pages and repeating memorised stories that may have been read to them. Some letter and word knowledge. Predicting single words or the next stage of the story.

2. Initial reading and decoding (ages 6-7) - Children start to link letters with their corresponding sounds. They can read simple texts containing frequently used words.

3. Confirmation and fluency (ages 7-8) - Children become more fluent in recognising and decoding words, gaining fluency, accuracy, speed and confidence. Chall believes this stage is marked by children consolidating their understanding by using their knowledge of stories that they may have come across before.

Genie case study (supports innate theory)

A 13-year -old girl was trapped in a room since she was a toddler and could barely speak. As she passed the critical period (after 7), she could not properly acquire language. This supports Chomsky as he would argue that the LAD has expired and cannot be activated. It also supports the idea that children cannot learn language by interaction with caregivers alone.

Jim case study (supports interactionism theory)

Jim’s parent’s were both deaf. He only was exposed to various uses of language like TV and radio, but he passed the critical stage (after this time a child struggles to acquire language). But interactions with a speech therapist helped him to acquire language. This proves there is a need for interaction.