Language Development 1 & 2; Friends & Family; Death and Grieving
Language Development 1: How We Learn to Speak
What is language?
It's a human system for sharing thoughts and feelings.
It connects sounds or gestures to meaning, allowing us to communicate (by speaking, writing, or signing).
Main parts of language
Language uses symbols (like words).
All human languages have basic rules and infinite generativity (meaning we can create an endless number of new sentences using a limited set of words and rules).
Nature vs. Nurture in Language
How much of language comes from our genes (biology) and how much from our experiences (environment)? Historical cases like the Wild Boy of Aveyron raise questions about this.
Ready for language even before birth
Babies are prepared for language before they're born because their brains are developing, and they hear sounds in the womb.
They are often fascinated by the sound of a human voice.
Infants at birth: what they prefer and can tell apart
Babies can tell their mother’s voice from a stranger's, recognize rhythms, and prefer their own language.
They are like "citizens of the world" because they can hear the tiny differences between speech sounds (like "b" and "d") in any language, even ones they haven't heard before.
Recognizing language sounds (baby milestones)
Around months: Babies listen longer when they hear their own name.
At 6 months: When they hear "mommy" or "daddy," they look at the right person.
What babies need to start speaking
They need to listen to others speak; speech perception starts even before birth (e.g., hearing familiar stories like The Cat in the Hat).
They start making sounds like cooing and babbling, and using gestures like pointing.
Symbolic representation: Around their first birthday, babies start understanding that mental images or categories can stand for real objects or events.
Understanding vs. Speaking
Comprehension (receptive language): What a child understands.
Production (expressive language): What a child can actually say.
Children usually understand more than they can say (like recognizing a word before being able to recall it).
Language’s fundamental rules
Phonology: The sound system of language. A phoneme is the smallest sound unit (e.g., the distinct sounds of "p," "b," "d," "t" in words like pad, pat, bad, bat).
Morphology: How words are formed and their meanings. Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning (e.g., "in," "come," and "-ing" join to form "incoming").
Syntax: How words are put together to form proper phrases and sentences.
Semantics: The actual meanings of words and sentences.
Pragmatics: The appropriate use of language in social situations, which can be tricky.
Language development happens in a common order
Children everywhere learn language in largely the same sequence.
Timeline: first words and early vocabulary
Around their 1st birthday: First words appear. This is the holophrase stage, where a single word expresses a complete idea (e.g., "More!" for "I want more!").
9–12 months: First words, sometimes mixed sounds like “bada.”
12–18 months: Learn about 2 words per week; have about 50 words by 18 months, often naming body parts, animals, or imitating sounds.
18–24 months: A "naming explosion" occurs; they talk about what's happening now and enjoy repetitive stories; follow simple instructions.
Differences in word learning across languages
Babies learning Asian languages often learn more verbs earlier than those learning English.
How words turn into sentences
The "1 word stage" ends, and children start combining words into two-word phrases.
Telegraphic speech stage: They leave out small "function" words (like "the," "a," "is") and word endings (like plural "-s"). For example, instead of "Mummy's shoe," they say "Mummy shoe"; instead of "two cats," they say "Two cat."
Vocabulary growth milestones
Around 18 months: Vocabulary grows quickly.
Understand words by about months.
Speak words by about months.
Have words by about years.
Vocabulary spurt: A rapid increase in words during early childhood, which continues throughout life.
Morphology and grammar development
By the two-word stage, children understand some grammar rules (like making words plural or showing possession).
They gradually add more complex grammar, like passives, compound sentences, negatives, and questions.
The “Wugs” test and rule application
Children are shown made-up words (like "wug") and asked to apply grammar rules (e.g., "wugs" for plural, "blicked" for past tense).
This shows they can use grammar rules even for words they've never heard, proving they've learned the rules and not just memorized words.
Overextensions and underextensions
Overextension: Using a word too broadly (e.g., calling every animal a "dog").
Underextension: Using a word too narrowly (e.g., only calling their specific red ball "ball").
Overregularization and its decrease
Applying regular grammar rules to words that are exceptions (e.g., "I eated it" instead of "I ate it"; "put-ted" instead of "put"; "sheepes" instead of "sheep").
These errors are common early on and decrease as children learn the exceptions.
Expansion and recasting
Expansion: Adults add to or make a child’s sentence more complete (e.g., Child: “I eated my dinner.”; Adult: “Yes, you ate your dinner all by yourself.”).
Recasting: Adults correct a child's grammar while keeping the original meaning (e.g., Child: "Me go playground." Adult: "Are you going to the playground?").
Language milestone quiz example
Alex, a one-year-old, uses the word "hat" for all head coverings. This is an example of overextension.
Language milestones chart (infancy)
Birth: Crying.
2–4 months: Cooing starts.
6 months: Babbling starts.
7–11 months: Listen more closely to their native language sounds.
8–12 months: Start using gestures.
13 months: Understand their first word.
18 months: Say their first word.
18–24 months: Vocabulary spurt, two-word sentences, rapid vocabulary growth.
Early childhood language (18 months to 6 years)
Learn about one new word every waking hour; a 6-year-old knows about words.
Preschoolers learn and use grammar rules and understand more word meanings.
Pragmatics and social language use
Pragmatics: The rules for using language correctly in social situations.
Private speech vs. social speech: Private speech (talking to oneself) helps with problem-solving and peaks around ages 4–7. Social speech is used for talking to others.
Children learn conversation skills like taking turns, shading (changing topics slightly), and understanding what others mean from around ages 2–3.
Referential vs. expressive styles: Some children mainly use language to name things (referential), while others use it more to express feelings or needs (expressive).
Improvements in pragmatics during early childhood
By around 6 years: Children become better at conversations, can have longer discussions, learn cultural rules, politeness, and how to adjust their speech for different situations (e.g., more polite with adults).
Metalinguistic development
Metalinguistic awareness (understanding language itself) grows significantly during elementary school.
Language in middle to late childhood
Alphabetic principle: Understand that letters represent sounds.
There are different ways to teach reading: whole language (focus on meaningful reading) vs. basic-skills/phonics (focus on decoding sounds).
Vocabulary grows from about words at age to words by age ; reasoning and analytical skills improve.
Reading comprehension is strongly linked to knowing many words; adolescents understand proper language use.
Reading and writing development
Whole language approach: Focuses on reading for meaning, often using context clues.
Phonics approach: Teaches children to decode words by understanding the sounds of letters and letter combinations.
Writing develops from scribbling to printing letters.
By age 4: Can print their names.
By age 5: Can copy letters and words; reversed letters are common.
Good writing takes years of practice and is related to cognitive and language skills; many students struggle with writing in later grades.
Bilingualism and learning a second language
There are sensitive periods for learning new languages. A native-like accent is best learned before age . Adults can learn faster for some tasks but rarely achieve a child's level of fluency.
The U.S. lags in second language education; being bilingual helps brain development and thinking skills.
Language in adolescence and adulthood
Adolescence: Use richer vocabulary, think abstractly, understand metaphors and satire better; organize ideas and write better; use dialect and slang to fit in with peer groups.
Adulthood and aging: Vocabulary often continues to grow, but word retrieval (like "tip-of-the-tongue" moments) becomes more common. Other factors like hearing, processing speed, and memory also affect language skills in older age.
Final Recap: Language development is a lifelong process influenced by biology, environment, and culture.
Language Development 2: Theories and Biology
Language and human development: major ideas
Piaget: Saw language as a way to represent symbols.
Vygotsky: Believed private speech (talking to oneself) helps solve problems during difficult tasks.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Whorfian): Suggests that the language we speak shapes how we think and interpret the world.
Nature vs. Nurture revisited
How much of language is built into our genes, and how much do we learn from our surroundings?
Language is biologically unique
Language likely evolved long ago, and specific brain areas are naturally set up for processing language.
Key brain areas and language problems (Aphasia)
Wernicke’s area (left side of the brain): Important for understanding language. Damage can lead to fluent but meaningless speech or trouble understanding others.
Broca’s area (left front part of the brain): Important for producing speech. Damage causes difficult, non-fluent speech and grammar mistakes.
Aphasia: Any language disorder resulting from brain damage. Different damaged areas cause different specific problems.
Chomsky and the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
Chomsky proposed that humans have an innate biological ability (a theoretical LAD, not a physical brain part) to recognize language features and rules.
This LAD contains Universal Grammar (UG), which are common principles shared by all human languages.
Children learn language just by being exposed to it; they don't need formal teaching.
Evidence supporting Chomsky’s view
Babies globally reach language milestones at similar times.
Early babbling includes sounds from all languages.
Children apply grammar rules to new words (like in the Wug test) and create new sentences, showing they don't just copy what they hear.
Poverty of the stimulus: Children hear a limited amount of language but can create an infinite number of sentences, and they often don't get direct corrections for grammar.
Specific brain areas for language support the idea of an innate LAD; brain damage leads to consistent aphasia types.
Challenges to Chomsky’s theory
The LAD is a concept, not a proven physical thing.
There might not be one single "universal grammar" for all languages.
Learning grammar isn't always easy or hard in the same way; learning and discovery both play a role.
Debates about a rigid "critical period" (a specific window when language must be learned) - cases of isolated children suggest social interaction is very important.
Notable case: Bard & Sachs (Jim, 1977)
Jim, raised by deaf parents with little spoken language, only started speaking after social interaction and speech therapy. This highlights the importance of social interaction.
Nurture-based views
Language is built through social interactions and what we hear in our environment; the quality and amount of language input matter a lot.
The brain is plastic, meaning other areas can take over language functions if needed; at birth, the left and right brain hemispheres are equally capable of language.
Learning approaches to language
General learning theory (Skinner): Language is learned like any other skill through operant conditioning (rewards and punishments) and modeling (imitation).
Problems with strict behaviorism: Not every language attempt is rewarded; children create new sentences beyond what they've heard.
Statistical learning: Children can pick up patterns in sounds, meanings, and grammar using general learning abilities.
How we learn word meanings
Directly taught by parents.
Improved memory for sounds helps combine sounds into words and concepts.
Syntactic bootstrapping (Gleitman, 1990): Using sentence structure to guess the meaning of new words (e.g., if someone says “This is a beige one,” you learn “beige” is a color).
Sensitive periods and learning limits
Brain lateralization (when brain functions become specialized to one side, usually language to the left): Language learning is best before this process is complete (Lenneberg, 1967).
The “Less is more” hypothesis (Newport, 1988): Children's limited thinking capacity might actually help them learn language by forcing them to focus on smaller parts of speech, making it easier to analyze sounds, meanings, and grammar.
Critical period in learning a second language
Johnson & Newport (1989) studied two ideas:
Exercise hypothesis: Early exposure keeps your language learning ability strong throughout life.
Maturational state hypothesis: Your ability to learn languages naturally decreases as you get older.
Functionalist and interactionist views
Functionalist: Children want to learn language to understand and talk to others; what parents say helps this process.
Interactionist: Social interactions and culture are key. LASS (Language Acquisition Support System - Bruner) and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) highlight how caregivers guide and support a child's language learning.
Case study: Maternal depression and early language
A mother's depression can slow down a child's language development because there's less "baby talk," which is important for learning.
The importance of early language exposure at home
Hart & Risley (1995): The amount of language a child hears at home predicts their vocabulary size by years old. Children from professional families hear many more words than those from welfare families, which affects later reading and language skills.
Parental strategies to boost language
Recasting: Rephrasing what a child says, often as a question or in a different grammatical form.
Expanding: Making a child's statement more complete or sophisticated.
Labeling: Repeatedly naming objects to help build vocabulary.
Social interaction and LASS
Bruner’s LASS: Language development is helped by social interaction with caregivers, following Vygotsky’s idea of social scaffolding.
Importance of routines and shared attention
Predictable daily routines (meals, baths, songs) and repeated language help children learn.
Joint attention (both child and caregiver focusing on the same object/event) during activities strongly predicts vocabulary growth by around months.
Feral children and the need for social contact to learn language
Language develops only with exposure to people using language. Without social interaction, language skills are severely harmed.
Interactionist view of language development
Language has strong biological roots but is greatly shaped by experiences. Rich environments help development; while milestones are similar globally, how fast and how well language is learned depends on individual experiences.
Language Development in Late Childhood and Adolescence
Middle to late childhood (ages 6-11) milestones and reading/writing
Increased demand for reading and writing; growing vocabulary and grammar help understanding.
Different reading approaches: Whole language (reading for meaning) vs. basic skills/phonics (decoding sounds).
Writing development through adolescence
Good writing takes continuous practice; many older students still struggle with writing.
Bilingualism and learning a second language later in life
Learning a second language later still has benefits, but usually doesn't lead to native-like fluency or accent compared to early learning.
Old age: language changes
Vocabulary often stays strong or even grows. However, declines in mental processing speed and working memory can affect how quickly and easily older adults use language.
Recap: Language Development 2 shows how biology, thinking skills, and social context all work together to explain how we learn language throughout our lives.
Friends and Family: Social Development
Friends and their social roles
Peers (people your own age) offer new information and comparison points beyond your family; their influence can be good or bad.
Parents influence who children become friends with through family structure, neighborhood, and school choices; parent-child relationships also shape how children interact with others.
Peer situations and social thinking
Different types of peers (acquaintances, crowds, cliques, friends, romantic partners) and settings (school, community) shape behavior.
Social information-processing (Crick & Dodge, 1994): A model explaining how children understand social situations: they notice social clues, guess intentions, set goals, follow social "scripts," make decisions, and then act.
Emotions affect social outcomes: negative moods often lead to rejection, while positive moods lead to popularity.
Peer statuses (popularity)
Popular: Well-liked, many positive comments.
Average: Most common, typical number of likes and dislikes.
Neglected: Few comments, but not actively disliked.
Rejected: Often disliked.
Controversial: Both liked and disliked.
Popular children typically have good social skills: they encourage others, listen well, communicate openly, control their emotions, and are enthusiastic and confident. Sometimes, they might act overly mature.
Cyber aggression (online bullying) and peer relationships
Online bullying predicts lower social competence, loneliness, and lower self-esteem, even after accounting for face-to-face aggression.
Play and development
Play is vital for thinking, social skills, and emotional growth. Piaget and Vygotsky had different but complementary ideas on how play helps children learn.
Types of play (Parten, 1932):
Non-social/sensorimotor play (under 2 years): Playing alone, exploring with senses and movement.
Parallel play (about 3–4 years): Playing next to others but not with them.
Associative play (about 4 years): Playing with others, sharing toys, but without a common goal.
Cooperative play (about 4 years onwards): Playing together with shared goals, like building a tower or playing a game.
How play develops and its advantages
Different types of play appear in a predictable order. More complex play usually replaces simple, solitary play.
Play helps children develop thinking and social skills.
Forms of play and their changes
Sensorimotor play: Exploring with senses and body movement.
Practice play: Repeating new skills to master them.
Pretend/symbolic play: Using objects as symbols for other things (e.g., a block is a phone); becomes more imaginative with age.
Social play: Involves turn-taking and conversations; increases during preschool.
Constructive play: Combining motor skills with imaginative thinking to create something (e.g., building with blocks).
Games with rules: Structured play with clear rules and competition.
Pretend play becomes more imaginative and less dependent on real objects during early childhood.
Benefits of play
Cognitive (thinking): Boosts creativity, attention, problem-solving, language, understanding concepts, abstract thinking, and empathy.
Socioemotional (feelings and social skills): Helps with relaxation, self-expression, cooperation, reduces anxiety, and builds self-confidence.
Friendship changes throughout life
Six main purposes of friendship: having company, excitement, physical help, boosting self-esteem, social comparison (seeing how you measure up to others), and affection/closeness.
Intimacy (closeness) grows through sharing personal thoughts; friendships become more stable and trusting with age.
Adolescence: Being popular with peers matters a lot; friendships offer emotional support, reassurance, and social know-how.
Adulthood: Friendships provide a sense of belonging and identity. Gender differences exist: women often have closer, more intimate friendships, while men's friendships are often more activity-based. Cross-gender friendships are common.
Aging and the social world
Disengagement vs. Activity theories: Debates whether older adults naturally withdraw from society or stay active.
Socioemotional selectivity theory: Older adults prioritize relationships that are emotionally meaningful.
Social convoy models: Emphasize that people move through life surrounded by a network of support that gives and receives help.
Close friendships and longer life: Strong evidence links close social ties to longer life and less depression.
Summary: Friends and family are crucial for social development throughout life; play, peer relationships, and social support contribute to emotional and thinking growth.
Death and Grieving: End of Life, Loss, and Coping
Course overview
Understand end-of-life concepts and death.
Know how children of different ages understand death.
Learn about attitudes toward death and grieving.
Review models for the emotional needs of the dying and for coping with grief.
The end of life: fundamental truths
Death is a normal part of life that can happen at any age.
Biological view: Death is irreversible, stops all body functions, happens to everyone, and has a cause.
Different causes of death across the lifespan
Prenatal: Often due to miscarriage.
Infants: SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is a leading cause in some places.
Childhood: Accidents or illness.
Adolescence: Suicide or car accidents.
Middle and older adulthood: Chronic diseases (e.g., heart disease, cancer).
Thanatology: The study of death and dying
Cognitive-developmental perspective: How understanding of death changes with age and context.
Clinical perspective: Focuses on grief, emotional responses, and coping with loss.
Sociocultural context of death
Death can be a taboo subject or viewed differently across cultures (e.g., Japan). Dia de los Muertos in Latin America celebrates death as a part of life.
How children's understanding of death develops
Piaget (1929): Children start to firmly grasp death around ages 6–7; more mature understanding develops by 9–10 years.
Children's understanding of death's components improves between 4–6 years and keeps growing with age.
Developmental path of death concepts
Before about age 5: See death as temporary or a state of sleep; may think it's reversible; often egocentric (think it only happens to others).
Around age 5: Understand that death is final and irreversible, but may not grasp that it applies to everyone.
Around age 9: Understand that death is universal (everyone will die).
What influences children’s understanding of death
Family's religious beliefs and culture play a big role (e.g., Mexican American children might understand death differently from European American children).
Attitudes toward death and how they are measured
Death anxiety scales (e.g., Templer, 1970) measure fear or discomfort about dying.
Attitudes towards death change with age: adolescents might feel personally invulnerable, while older adults often report less anxiety about death.
Death attitudes throughout life
Adolescence: Abstract ideas about death; feel personally immune to risk; may avoid thinking about it.
Middle adulthood: Fear of death can be high due to increased health risks.
Late adulthood: Death feels more imminent; have more experience with death; often have less anxiety about dying.
What predicts death anxiety in older adults
More physical health problems, a history of psychological issues, weaker religious beliefs, and lower life satisfaction are linked to increased death anxiety.
Challenges in death attitude research
Difficulties with surveys, biased samples (e.g., only college students), and studies that look at different age groups at one time (cross-sectional designs). More longitudinal studies (following people over time) are needed.
Emotional needs of the dying: Kübler-Ross model
Proposed five stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
Pros: Raised awareness about the dying process and improved care.
Cons: Only applies to those aware they are dying; stages don't always happen in order; not universal; ignores individual differences and context.
Other models of death acceptance
Two-component model (Klug & Sinha, 1987–1988): Involves a thinking part (recognizing death is unavoidable) and an emotional part (your feelings about it).
Three-component model of death acceptance (Wong, Reker, & Gesser, 1994):
Neutral acceptance: Just accepting death as part of life.
Approach acceptance: Accepting death based on beliefs about an afterlife.
Escape acceptance: Seeing death as a relief from suffering.
Bereavement and grief explained
Grief: The internal emotional response to losing someone.
Bereavement: The social recognition that someone has died.
Mourning rituals and cultural differences
Funerals are public ways to acknowledge death. How people show grief varies by culture (e.g., some cultures encourage open emotional display, others don't).
The grieving process and its variations
Classic stages include shock/denial, confrontation, and accommodation. However, these are not universal. How one grieves depends on personality, relationship to the deceased, and life situations.
Grief in children
Children grieve and express it differently from adults. They are vulnerable to long-term negative effects if they lack coping resources. They might show physical symptoms, inner emotional struggles, or behavioral changes.
Factors influencing children’s reactions to death
Child's age and language skills, their relationship to the person who died, family environment, coping styles, and socioeconomic status (SES).
Grief and adjustment over time
Good family communication helps reduce depression and anxiety. Most people experience uncomplicated grief. Some experience prolonged grief (grief that lasts too long and interferes with life) or disenfranchised grief (grief not openly acknowledged or supported).
Two-track and dual-process models of bereavement
Two-track model (Rubin, 1999): Suggests that grieving involves two parallel processes: how one functions in daily life (Track 1) and how one relates to the deceased person (Track 2). It's about both healing and maintaining a connection.
Dual-process model (Stroebe, Schut, & Boerner, 2010): Describes grieving as an oscillation between focusing on the loss (loss-oriented coping) and focusing on moving forward and rebuilding life (restoration-oriented coping). Healthy coping involves switching between these focuses.
Framework for factors affecting grief outcomes
Bereavement stressors (e.g., losing close others, being a caregiver, financial issues) interact with personal and social risk factors (e.g., personality, culture, existing mental health problems).
How someone copes and makes sense of the loss impacts the intensity of grief, psychological health, and social engagement.
Practical tips and coping resources
Coping strategies include accepting the loss, seeking social support, engaging in religious practices, and finding meaning in the experience.
Takeaway on death and development: Death and grief are universal, but how they are expressed, coped with, and the support needed all vary by age, culture, and life situation. Supportive and communicative environments help people adjust better.
Cross-cutting Connections and Practical Implications
How language, social development, and death concepts are linked
Language skills help us express emotions, ask for support, and cope with grief.
Good social skills (pragmatics) help us seek help, communicate needs, and interact with caregivers during illness, grief, and aging.
Real-world relevance of these topics
Understanding language milestones helps identify typical vs. atypical development and guides educational support.
Knowing about peer influence and friendship dynamics helps parents and schools create programs for healthy social development.
Knowledge of death attitudes and bereavement guides counseling, palliative care, and family support services at all ages.
Optional readings and further exploration
Nguyen, S., & Gelman, S. A. (2002). Four and 6-year-olds’ biological concept of death: The case of plants. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20, 495-513.
Rosengren, K. S., Miller, P. J., Gutiérrez, I. T., Chow, P. I., Schein, S. S., & Anderson, K. N. (2014). Children’s understanding of death: Toward a contextualized and integrated account. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 79(1).
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children.
Crick, R. & Dodge, K. (1994). A social information-processing model of children’s social adjustment.
Johnson, J. S., & Newport, E. L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 60-99.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying.
Bruner, J. (1975). The course of cognitive development (LASS and social interaction).
Synthesis: The notes above cover Language Development 1 & 2, Friends and Family, and Death and Grieving as presented in Lecture 4 and related materials.