Module 2: Language Development Theories and Subdomains

Nature vs. Nurture

  • Nature

    • Plato, Chomsky — Sometimes referred to as nativists or rationalists

    • Fundamental language skills are innate and language capacity is present from birth; born to be communicators; genetics

  • Nurture

    • B.F. Skinner — Empiricists

    • Played a role in development of Piagetian theory

    • Language is a function of an individual’s environment; role of environment; culture

  • both play a role!

Theories of Language Development

  • How do we think children learn?

  • Used to guide our intervention planning

    • Behaviorist

    • Constructionist

    • Social Interactionist

    • Emergentist

Behaviorist Theory (B.F. Skinner)

  • Learning occurs when an environmental stimulus triggers a response or behavior

  • Increasing the frequency of desirable behaviors and decreasing or altering undesirable/maladaptive behaviors

  • Clinical implications:

    • Drill and practice activities (repetition); has influenced Naturalistic Development Behavioral Interventions (NDBI)

    • Focus on observable and measurable behaviors (can see numerical change but might not explain everything)

  • Limitations:

    • Not comprehensive theory

    • Only skill development/discrete skills

    • What does behaviorist theory NOT explain? It does not consider the dynamic nature of language.

Constructivist Theory (Jean Piaget)

  • Interaction with environment — learning through obstacle + trying to find a way to overcome it; motivated by interaction with environment

    • This emphasizes the importance of exploration and social interaction, leading to the development of language skills as children actively engage with their surroundings and others.

  • Sequence of progressively more sophisticated cognitive skills, from primitive thinking to advanced cognitive ability.

  • Proposes specific cognitive achievements are fundamental to linguistic development.

  • Linkages exist between children’s motor ability, play behavior, and language development.

  • We set up the context to give the child an opportunity to utilize a mode of communication

Observing Play Behavior to Determine Representational Thought

  • child’s engagement with the world — link between the way child is thinking and the way child is playing

  • the child’s level of representational thought can influence their ability to use symbols and language during play, which is essential for fostering language development.

Social Interactionist Theory (Vygotsky, Brunner)

  • Based on principle that communication interaction plays a central role in children’s acquisition of language; social connection = meaningful

  • The child and a more capable partner solve problems together, eventually the child internalizes the process and can solve problem independently

  • Important concepts:

    • Child-directed talk (motherese, infant-directed talk)

    • Coordinating attention (pointing)

    • Scaffolding/Mediation

    • Parent-child communication routines (scripts)

  • Set up scenario where there is a need for social interaction/facilitate an exchange of ideas/thoughts through language

  • Cognitive development is socially mediated

    • A child’s interactions with others influence his or her cognitive understandings.

  • Zone of proximal development (ZPD) - Vygotsky

    • Next developmental stage that we expect the child to reasonably reach with our support; model what is reasonable for a child to understand and produce (important in goal-setting)

      • Can still go above ZPD in modeling, but can’t expect them to do it

    • Initially a child and a more capable partner solve problems together, but eventually the child internalizes the process and is able to carry out the function independently.

    Language plays a critical role in shaping learning and thought.

    • Private speech plays a role in cognitive development

    • Private speech occurs when children speak aloud as they are engaged in play.

Emergentist Theory

  • Language is an inter-connected system, highly complex biological system

    • Child’s biology adapts to his/her environment

    • Middle ground between nature and nurture

  • Uses computer simulation and analysis of children’s language samples to understand language development

  • Influences clinical work in that practitioners….

    • Note inconsistencies in child’s language use

    • Note emerging patterns

    • Target linguistic features to promote system-wide change

  • less boundaries, no one direction that is acceptable

  • What are the patterns of the child’s communication?

    • within the context of the child’s culture

    • not considering milestones!

The Five Communication Subdomains

Subdomain 1: Early Pragmatic Skills

  • Prelinguistic communication

  • Joint visual attention (JVA) - between 10 and 12 months; child knows that you are paying attention to the same thing that they area — eye gaze to establish communication and intent

    • One of the first interactive communication acts

  • Early Development

    • 8 and 15 months - Request objects or activities, refusal, comments (ability to label things)

    • 16 and 23 months - Requesting information, answering questions, acknowledging a response.

  • Early Discourse Skills – begin in preschool and continue beyond; dialogue to exchange ideas

    • Initiating a conversation

    • Taking turns during a conversational exchange

    • Maintaining ongoing topic

    • Conversational topic switching

    • Making conversational repairs

    • Code switching (how to shift between ways to talk based on context; i.e., at home vs. at school)

Clinical Implications for Communication Subdomain 1

  • Underlie all later communication

  • First aspect of communication that is considered during observational process

    • requires us to be observant of child’s POV — why communicate or why not?

    • less focus on form, more on use in context

  • If the practitioner identifies a weakness in the individual’s ability in early pragmatic functions; Communication Subdomain 1 becomes the focus of intervention.

Subdomain 2: Vocabulary Development

  • Vocabulary development

    • Begins towards the end of the first year of life and continues to develop throughout one’s life (has no end!).

  • First words typically produced between 10 and 16 months.

  • By two years, children typically produce 200-500 words and understand many more words than they produce — can combine one with another

  • What is the child trying to communicate meaningfully?

  • Semantic deficits are characteristic of many language disorders including:

    • Intellectual disability

    • Autism

    • Hearing Loss

    • Developmental Language Disorder

Clinical Implications for Communication Subdomain 2

  • At early stages in vocabulary development, practitioners consider whether children’s word usage reflects a variety of semantic categories.

    • aim to diversify their semantic categories — linguistically vs. academically appropriate; consider overlap of academic and home context

  • The interventionist may coach caregivers to facilitate a variety of semantic forms.

  • Successful vocabulary interventions should:

    • integrate new word meaning with familiar words,

    • provide repeated, meaningful, and contextual opportunities to learn new words,

    • provide explicit and implicit learning opportunities,

    • aim for fluent and automatic understanding and use of new words, and

    • teach students to be more independent word learners (e.g., semantic mapping and word study)

Subdomain 3: Multiple Word Combinations

  • Once an individual produces approximately 50 individual words, word combinations begin to emerge.

  • At this early word combination level, children are not governed by adult syntax rules and do not use morphological forms.

    • child may be exposed to more than one form — what are they exposed to, and how are they represented/how does the child use them?

  • Children create combinations of words by:

    • naming objects or people of interest

    • stating the actions objects or people perform

    • describing the object’s or person’s characteristics

    • describing who owns or possesses the object.

Clinical Implications for Communication Subdomain 3

  • Once a child is able to demonstrate early pragmatic skills and has more than 50 single words practitioners engage children in early play activities to facilitate multiple word combinations.

  • A child’s parents and/or caretakers are coached to facilitate semantic combinations.

  • For older individuals with significant communication impairments, practitioners may incorporate an alternative communication approach (AAC).

Subdomain 4: Morphosyntax Development

  • Children’s utterances begin to demonstrate characteristics of syntax and morphological development (i.e., language form).

  • Occurs between 24 and 36 months for children developing typically.

  • Examples:

    • present progressive -ing verb

    • plural -s

  • By age 5, children’s sentences evidence complex syntax including the use of embedded phrases and clauses.

Clinical Implications for Communication Subdomain 4

  • Once an individual demonstrates the ability to use foundational pragmatic functions and produces multiword combinations using a variety of semantic categories practitioners typically evaluate a speaker’s use of morphosyntax using the framework developed by Brown (1973).

  • Used in language sample analysis

  • Demonstrated in students’ ability to read difficult texts and write at the level required for school success.

  • Not all dialects may express bound morphemes the same way; standardized tests biased, based on bound morphemes

Subdomain 5: Advanced Pragmatic & Discourse Development

  • Between the ages of 3 and 7 children’s developing pragmatic/discourse skills include the ability to use language to:

    • reason and to reflect on past experiences

    • predict events, express empathy

    • maintain status and interactions with peers

    • use and understand sarcasm and politeness forms

  • Students learn to modify discourse styles for different situations (code switch). Some forms of discourse are called narratives.

    • Engage in discourse across a lot of different contexts

  • abstract notions/beliefs (internal) get to be expressed

  • metalinguistics

  • Narrative forms — child is expected to be a storyteller

    • ability to tell a fictional story—symbolic play

Clinical Implications for Communication Subdomain 5

  • Skilled practitioners track children’s abilities to use vocabulary, produce sentences, and use advanced language within sophisticated discourse genres.

    • different genres of discourse and “reading the room”

  • Observe student:

    • in the classroom

    • with peers

    • producing narratives

  • Discourse analysis

    • quality of exchanges — successful exchange of ideas, narrative complexity, symbolic

  • Focus on intervention for students in peer-groups, etc.

The Cyclic Nature of Language “Building”

Higher-levels of language stimulate and place demands upon earlier developing language levels; interventionists recognize this cycle of development and adapt language goals to meet the needs of the communicator as the language system matures.