Language Development in Early Childhood

Conversational skills improve with age.
Early preschool conversations often take the form of collective monologues.
Children understand turn-taking but their statements may not connect to what others say.
Example: One child talks about blocks, another about dolls independently.
At three, children become more aware of reciprocal conversation conventions.
Communications become more interactive with shared content.
Novel information builds on previous comments.

Verbal pragmatics includes referential skills.
Referential skills involve accurately communicating information, thoughts, intentions, and feelings.
This communication considers the listener's characteristics and circumstances.
By age four, children understand the need to modify communication based on the listener's needs.
Example: Preschoolers simplify speech when talking to younger children (Baldwin, 1993).
Children readily restate or repeat information if the listener misunderstands (Ferrier, Dunham, & Dunham, 2000; Pruden, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, & Hennon, 2006).

Pragmatic listening skills are apparent in the preschool years.
Children use non-verbal cues like gazing and nodding to show they are listening.
They also use vocalizations such as 'uh huh'.
These cues reinforce and maintain conversations (Hamo & Blum-Kulka, 2007; Katz, 2004).
Preschoolers show they're unclear by adjusting facial expressions.
They are less likely than older children to ask for clarification until about age eight (Ackerman, 1993; John, Rowe, & Mervis, 2009).

Behaviorism posits that correct grammar is shaped through conditioning.
Parents reinforce correct grammatical forms and correct errors.
Example: Parents respond more positively to 'I have three feet' than 'I have two foots'.
Children then generalize the correct elements to similar utterances.
However, parents rarely correct grammatically incorrect sentences but factual ones (Brown & Hanlon, 1970; Cazden & Brown, 2014; Penner, 1987).
Limited evidence supports behaviorism as to how children acquire grammar after Skinner's theory.

Parents are more likely to use expansions, repeating the child’s utterance with corrections inserted.
Example: A child says, 'I have two foots,' and the parent responds, 'Of course, you have two feet! Look, let’s count them!'
Recasts are similar with slightly different structures.
Example: A child says, 'I have two foots,' and the parent responds, 'Daddy has two feet as well.'
Instead of direct reinforcement, parents provide more precise and expanded grammatical models (Bohannon & Stanowicz, 1988; Chouinard & Clark, 2003).
Exposure to these models is associated with increasingly correct grammatical forms (Farrar, 1992).

Social learning models emphasize the role of parents in providing supportive scaffolding (Bruner, 1996).
Parents point to objects as they name them and repeat new words (Waxman, Lynch, Casey, & Baer, 1997).
They use short sentences and concrete nouns (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1997).
Scaffolding Example:
- Parent 1: 'Take your shoes off. Then put your shoes in the cupboard. Then come and kiss mummy goodnight.'
- Parent 2: 'After you take off your shoes and put them in the cupboard, come and kiss me goodnight.'
The simplified grammar of Parent 1 is an example of child-directed speech.
Child-directed speech is a language scaffolding technique used intuitively by adults (Messer, 1994).
Recasting and expansion are forms of linguistic scaffolding.
This highlights different forms of expression making children aware of structure and organization.
Linguistic scaffolding, like the scaffolds used in building construction provides a temporary structure within which young children can build their own language structures.
The scaffolding must change in response to the child’s linguistic development.

Children are resilient in acquiring language even in adverse conditions, supporting the nativist approach.
Children infer grammatical relationships rather than merely copying.
In Berko’s (1958) ‘wug’ experiment, children were shown pictures of imaginary creatures.
Example: Children were shown a picture of one creature and told, 'Here is a wug.' Then, they were shown two and asked, 'Here are two ——'.
Children correctly completed the sentences with 'wugs'.
Berko reasoned children applied a general rule for forming plurals by adding 's'.
The children’s success did not depend on copying but inferring grammatical structures.
Berko theorized the grammatical rule operated unconsciously and may be innate.

Research provided empirical evidence for the LAD.
Evidence was found in subsequent research based on Berko’s experiments.
Deaf children spontaneously developed signing systems.
These systems had distinctive grammar even when parents couldn’t sign (Goldin-Meadow, 2003).
Early experiences with language are crucial for the LAD.
The case of Genie shows the importance of early language exposure.
Genie, isolated from age 20 months to 13 years, failed to develop effective spoken language (Rymer, 1994).
Chomsky’s theory emphasizes innate mechanisms.
Children build on imperfect grammatical structures.
Environmental factors, including imitation and parental modelling play a role in grammar development (Goldberg, 2004).

Some deaf individuals do not develop spoken language however, they develop expressive language in the form of gestures.
Young deaf children spontaneously build personal gestural systems (Goldin-Meadow, 2003).
Children who use these signs use grammatical structures different from spoken language.
'Home' signing systems are more likely when deaf children have hearing parents who aren't proficient in formal signing systems.
Formal signing systems are true languages.
The Deaf community defines 'Deaf' as a unique culture.
Adopting sign language involves adopting social attitudes and cultural values.