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Language Development In Children Essay

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Psychology , Learning , Family , Rhetoric , Development , Environment , Children , Sociology

Published: 11/25/2019

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Language development in children

Children acquire language through cognitive processes, which are complex and involve a plethora of steps that include sensory awareness, followed by crying, babbling, gurgling and cooing. They then displays signs of comprehensive words ascribed to signals from adults, imitate others speech and differentiating the various sounds, as affirmed by Rathus (2011). Moreover, after a period of several months, they begin to enounce words in a meaningful way. Many theories have been developed concerning the development of language in children, in tandem with this, variable facets have been brought forth attesting the factors that enhance and discourage early language development in children. Rathus ( 2011) further ratifies that the problems and concerns in language development have been largely affected by the nature (heredity) and nurture (environmental) effect. Rathus (2011) attests that language in children is enhanced when parents and other adults participate fully in the nurturing of the child’s language skills and abilities. The likely situations that can foster early development of language in children may comprise versatile aspects that include; Adult-child interaction and dynamics that involve surrounding babies with adequate learning experience, and avoiding baby safe activities and exposure of the child to abstract symbolic systems. These facets can be achieved through response to child’s expressive language efforts, in a friendly and attuned manner. The use of simplified form of speech, also known as infant directed speech, is characterized by brief and straightforward sentences in syntax and largely focused on nouns, verbs and few modifiers. The speech is also spoken slowly, accompanied with high pitch and distinct pauses (Rathus, 2011). Similarly, the key words are placed at the end of the sentences, articulated in higher voice and emphasized through repetition. Other factors that enhance language development comprise of; reading to the child, use of questions to engage the child in a conversion, gesturing to assist the child to understand whatever he or she is saying and describing the aspects of environment engrossing the infant’s current centre of attention (Rathus, 2011). Consequently, social environment provides the desired input necessary for the cognitive development of the child for better language development. Similarly, a well-established environment and exposure of the child to certain language patterns, context and rules, with frequent reinforcement and encouragement, may foster the child’s language acquisition. Gupta (2009) asserts that better health and a prolific socioeconomic environment may provide the child with the necessary materials viable for language and speech enhancement. Language environment, to which the child is exposed, can also help the child in learning auditory skills necessary for language development (Rathus, 2011). However, some situations may discourage adequate, early language development. Lack of parental conversation and presence can contribute to insufficient opportunities for progressive language acquisition, grammar and vocabulary attainment. In the same light, poor cognitive and intellectual development of the child may hinder the development of quality speech due to the strong relationship between intelligence and speech formation (Gupta, 2009). Poor health especially in the initial years of development may adversely affect the speech development. This highly attributed to hearing problems with limited pronunciation and vocabulary content. Poor social and socio economic environments, can also lead to a delayed or relatively retarded speech, characterized by lack of relevant toys and books that can aid in a faster language development (Gupta, 2009). Concisely, the development of language in children is a vital thing, since it enables them communicate and socialize with people in the society. Moreover, it helps them present their needs to parents and other adults. Heredity factors and environmental facets are the fundamental issues that affect cognitive development of speech in children. Thence, it is particularly crucial to keep and maintain a social, friendly environment that can aid and enhance language development in children. It is also worth noting that frequent exposure children to a better environment, facilitates cognitive development that enables a quicker learning of languages.

Gupta, S. (2009). Early Childhood Care and Education. New Delhi: Asoke K. Ghosh, PHI Learning Private Limited. Rathus, A. S. (2011). Childhood: Voyages in Development (4th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

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Language Acquisition and Development Essay

Introduction, biological aspect, environment, reference list.

Learning language is a crucial factor of development. Children begin to learn language from a very early stage in life and they interact, grow and develop. There are several theories that have been postulated to explain different mean of language acquisition.

Some indicate that people actively learn and construct the meaning of that language while others imply that people are passive in participation. Environment and biological aspects impact on language acquisition critically.

The biological aspects of language are quite complex to understand (Ellis, 2001, p. 65). The first biological aspect of language acquisition is natural brain development. According to Piaget, cognitive development is a process of brain development and it is active during childhood.

Piaget also demonstrated that children leant new language because of the level of development of their brain hence children are limited by the development stage (Piaget, 2001, p. 123).

The constructivist theory demonstrates that individuals develop mental images of the things they experience and try to construct phrases in new language ( Daniels, 2001, p. 103). Assimilation occurs when an individual is able to incorporate new language into his/her mind.

The second biological aspect of language acquisition is age. It has been established that children are better in learning language than adults as implied earlier in the paper. This is a fact. Research has show that the ages of 3 to 12 are critical for learning language.

This is also the reason why adults have a problem in second language acquisition (Foley & Thompson, 2003, p. 72). The process of learning language comes naturally to children and when they hear a language, their mind is triggered as they try to interpret the meaning or understand.

Piaget described intellectual development in four stages and sensori-motor and preoperational stages are important for this paper. Sensori motor stages is the first stage and infants have very limited experience of environment and rely on sensory perception and motor function when stimulated (Piaget, 2001, p. 121).

This means that children learn despite their social background and they have to go through the Piaget stages. The stages are a way of defining child’s cognition capacity. The preoperational stage is a crucial stage but the child still cannot conserve information and do not perceive logically complex facts (Piaget, 2001, p. 121).

However language is hallmark for this stage which is from ages 2 to 6 years. Even though children cannot comprehend logic things, cannot understand viewpoint of others and cannot mentally manage information, they are able to use symbols.

Language acquisition basically depends on the environment in which a person is brought up. The first concept of language acquisition is conditioning. This means that children learn new language by connecting sound with physical things like occasions and objects (Ellis, 2001, p. 65).

This is part of the Social development Theory which was developed by Lev Vygotsky. It finds its basis on the rationale that social interaction builds cognitive development where attainment of cognition is a result of socialization and social characteristics ( Daniels, 2001, p. 103).

The second issue about environment influence on language acquisition is construction – this is an exploratory way of learning (Foley & Thompson, 2003, p. 72). Individuals have the ability to reason and comprehend language. This way, the new language stimulates ideas, processes and concepts and the individual independently integrates them to draw logic conclusion.

According to Piaget’s theory language acquisition comes after cognition.

As far as Piaget’s thoughts and observations are concerned, the human brain goes through most critical changes over years of growth especially between two and twelve language acquisitions is at its best (Piaget, 2001, p. 123). Age is an important factor in learning language because it’s been found that children learn language more easily than adults do.

A child’s brain is likened to a sponge and this is because of the fact that they have innate ability to grasp concepts faster and amusingly, language is one of these concepts (Piaget, 2001, p. 123). Adults on the other hand are regarded to be totally soaked with issues that they cannot easily have space for new knowledge.

Language is one of the most crucial components of culture since much of cultural aspects and norms are communicated orally. This means that language is an integral part of culture and that therefore the interaction between the two aspects is a complex matter (Ellis, 2001, p. 65).

Culture influences language learning because there are some subtle nuances and implied ways of communication that one cannot comprehend when he/she does not understand the language.

However, the influence of culture is not a serious one as often implied though w more advanced culture could positively influence learning of language but this benefit is negligible (Foley & Thompson, 2003, p. 72).

Leaning a new language among children has been assessed and found to follow relatively similar pattern across different cultural backgrounds.

Daniels, H . (2001). “ Vygotsky and Pedagogy ,” Routledge/Falmer, New York, NY

Ellis, R. (2001). The Study of Second Language Acquisition , Oxford University Press, Oxford

Foley, J. & Thompson, L. (2003). Language Learning . Arnold, London

Piaget, J. (2001). The Language and Thought of the Child , Routlegde Taylor & Francis, London

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The Importance of Language-Learning Environments to Child Language Outcomes

POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The author has indicated she has no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: The author has indicated she has no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

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Heidi M. Feldman; The Importance of Language-Learning Environments to Child Language Outcomes. Pediatrics October 2019; 144 (4): e20192157. 10.1542/peds.2019-2157

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A strong foundation in language skills is associated with positive, long-term academic, occupational, and social outcomes. Individual differences in the rate of language development appear early. Approximately 16% of children experience delays in initial phases of language learning; approximately half of those show persistent difficulties that may lead to clinical disorders. 1   Because of the high prevalence of language disorders and lifelong implications of early delays, prevention is of utmost importance. Primary prevention takes place before any problems are detected, preventing the condition from occurring. Secondary prevention takes place after early detection of a disorder, resulting in a mild rather than severe variant. Children learn language from their interactions with caregivers in their environment. An obvious direction for both primary and secondary prevention is improving language-learning environments.

In the study entitled “Parenting Behavior and Child Language: A Meta-analysis” by Madigan et al 2   in this issue of Pediatrics , the authors summarize evidence about “2 primary types of parenting” in relation to child language outcomes. Sensitive responsiveness refers to a parent’s ability to perceive, interpret, and respond quickly and appropriately to the children’s signals. The authors assume that sensitive responsiveness implies contingent responding to foster coordinated communicative exchanges. Warmth refers to caregiver physical affection or positive affect with the child. In the meta-analysis, it was found that sensitive responsiveness and warmth both contributed to child language outcomes. The effect size was greater for sensitivity than warmth and greater in studies of children from low or diverse socioeconomic status (SES) than from high SES.

The authors have performed an excellent service by conducting this meta-analysis and presenting it to a pediatric audience. So important are the features of the learning environment to language development that they have been referred to as “language nutrition.” 3   Pediatric clinicians routinely counsel families about food nutrition. We should address language nutrition with similar urgency. Of course, demonstrating the association between parenting qualities and child outcomes, as in the meta-analysis, does not yet imply which, if any, interventions would successfully change the learning environment or improve child outcomes. Data are accumulating that home-based interventions can raise the level of sensitivity and warmth, 4   although the effectiveness of less-intense interventions must be evaluated.

It is worth noting that sensitivity and warmth do not necessarily represent 2 distinct parenting types but rather 2 features of parenting. Definitions of parental sensitivity in other studies include warmth as a feature. 4   Sensitive responsivity can be disentangled from qualities specifically related to caregiver-child connections in verbal exchange. 5   Precision in the description of language-learning environments is difficult because a meta-analysis depends on the researchers’ characterization.

Sensitivity and warmth do not represent all the critical ingredients of healthy language nutrition. Three other features have been associated with language outcomes. First is the quantity of child-directed speech. Hart and Risley 6   made seminal observations that children of highly educated parents heard many more words than children of less-educated parents and then had better language skills at school entry. Findings that quantity of input is important, irrespective of SES, have been made by using all-day-long audio recordings of the child’s language environment in English- and Spanish-speaking children 7   and in children born term and preterm. 8   These studies corroborate the importance of quantity of child-directed speech and collectively form the foundation of public policy efforts to reduce the “30 million word gap” before a child’s entering school. 9   Second is the quality of the language input. 10   Quality includes diversity of the vocabulary and complexity of grammar. Third is the nature of the caregiver-child interactions, beyond responsivity and warmth. 5   Important qualitative features include degree of caregiver-child engagement with symbols, such as words or signs; frequency of routines and rituals, such as naming or book-reading; and the connectedness of exchange, reflected in topic maintenance and turn-taking.

The proportion of the various ingredients that comprise language nutrition likely varies as a function of the child’s stage of development. 4   Early on, especially in infancy, parental sensitivity and warmth (the focus of the meta-analysis) likely has substantial impact. Once children have begun speaking, cognitive and language features of the input, reflected in quantity and quality of linguistic input and qualitative features of verbal interactions, likely become increasingly impactful. 4   Although features of the environment may be modifiable, promoting stable change and sustainable results may be challenging. 11  

Meta-analyses on the topic of language development are extremely helpful. However, now we also need well-designed treatment studies to inform us about the nature and intensity of interventions to improve language-learning environments and child outcomes. On the basis of the results of the meta-analysis, primary care clinicians should educate caregivers about the importance of their parenting to their children’s language development. If families demonstrate limited warmth, responsiveness, or other components of language nutrition, it is imperative to counsel them and refer to community-based programs to educate and support them in improving their children’s language-learning environment.

Opinions expressed in these commentaries are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the American Academy of Pediatrics or its Committees.

FUNDING: Support for this work was provided by a grant from the NIH RO1- HD069150. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

COMPANION PAPER: A companion to this article can be found online at www.pediatrics.org/cgi/doi/10.1542/peds.2018-3556 .

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Observation

The littlest linguists: new research on language development.

• Bilingualism
• Developmental Psychology
• Language Development

How do children learn language, and how is language related to other cognitive and social skills? For decades, the specialized field of developmental psycholinguistics has studied how children acquire language—or multiple languages—taking into account biological, neurological, and social factors that influence linguistic developments and, in turn, can play a role in how children learn and socialize. Here’s a look at recent research (2020–2021) on language development published in Psychological Science . 

Preverbal Infants Discover Statistical Word Patterns at Similar Rates as Adults: Evidence From Neural Entrainment

Dawoon Choi, Laura J. Batterink, Alexis K. Black, Ken A. Paller, and Janet F. Werker (2020)

One of the first challenges faced by infants during language acquisition is identifying word boundaries in continuous speech. This neurological research suggests that even preverbal infants can learn statistical patterns in language, indicating that they may have the ability to segment words within continuous speech.

Using electroencephalogram measures to track infants’ ability to segment words, Choi and colleagues found that 6-month-olds’ neural processing increasingly synchronized with the newly learned words embedded in speech over the learning period in one session in the laboratory. Specifically, patterns of electrical activity in their brains increasingly aligned with sensory regularities associated with word boundaries. This synchronization was comparable to that seen among adults and predicted future ability to discriminate words.

These findings indicate that infants and adults may follow similar learning trajectories when tracking probabilities in speech, with both groups showing a logarithmic (rather than linear) increase in the synchronization of neural processing with frequent words. Moreover, speech segmentation appears to use neural mechanisms that emerge early in life and are maintained throughout adulthood.

Parents Fine-Tune Their Speech to Children’s Vocabulary Knowledge

Ashley Leung, Alexandra Tunkel, and Daniel Yurovsky (2021)

Children can acquire language rapidly, possibly because their caregivers use language in ways that support such development. Specifically, caregivers’ language is often fine-tuned to children’s current linguistic knowledge and vocabulary, providing an optimal level of complexity to support language learning. In their new research, Leung and colleagues add to the body of knowledge involving how caregivers foster children’s language acquisition.

The researchers asked individual parents to play a game with their child (age 2–2.5 years) in which they guided their child to select a target animal from a set. Without prompting, the parents provided more informative references for animals they thought their children did not know. For example, if a parent thought their child did not know the word “leopard,” they might use adjectives (“the spotted, yellow leopard”) or comparisons (“the one like a cat”). This indicates that parents adjust their references to account for their children’s language knowledge and vocabulary—not in a simplifying way but in a way that could increase the children’s vocabulary. Parents also appeared to learn about their children’s knowledge throughout the game and to adjust their references accordingly.

Infant and Adult Brains Are Coupled to the Dynamics of Natural Communication

Elise A. Piazza, Liat Hasenfratz, Uri Hasson, and Casey Lew-Williams (2020)

This research tracked real-time brain activation during infant–adult interactions, providing an innovative measure of social interaction at an early age. When communicating with infants, adults appear to be sensitive to subtle cues that can modify their brain responses and behaviors to improve alignment with, and maximize information transfer to, the infants.

Piazza and colleagues used functional near-infrared spectroscopy—a noninvasive measure of blood oxygenation resulting from neural activity that is minimally affected by movements and thus allows participants to freely interact and move—to measure the brain activation of infants (9–15 months old) and adults while they communicated and played with each other. An adult experimenter either engaged directly with an infant by playing with toys, singing nursery rhymes, and reading a story or performed those same tasks while turned away from the child and toward another adult in the room.

Results indicated that when the adult interacted with the child (but not with the other adult), the activations of many prefrontal cortex (PFC) channels and some parietal channels were intercorrelated, indicating neural coupling of the adult’s and child’s brains. Both infant and adult PFC activation preceded moments of mutual gaze and increased before the infant smiled, with the infant’s PFC response preceding the adult’s. Infant PFC activity also preceded an increase in the pitch variability of the adult’s speech, although no changes occurred in the adult’s PFC, indicating that the adult’s speech influenced the infant but probably did not influence neural coupling between the child and the adult.

Theory-of-Mind Development in Young Deaf Children With Early Hearing Provisions

Chi-Lin Yu, Christopher M. Stanzione, Henry M. Wellman, and Amy R. Lederberg (2020)

Language and communication are important for social and cognitive development. Although deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children born to deaf parents can communicate with their caregivers using sign language, most DHH children are born to hearing parents who do not have experience with sign language. These children may have difficulty with early communication and experience developmental delays. For instance, the development of theory of mind—the understanding of others’ mental states—is usually delayed in DHH children born to hearing parents.

Yu and colleagues studied how providing DHH children with hearing devices early in life (before 2 years of age) might enrich their early communication experiences and benefit their language development, supporting the typical development of other capabilities—in particular, theory of mind. The researchers show that 3- to 6-year-old DHH children who began using cochlear implants or hearing aids earlier had more advanced language abilities, leading to better theory-of-mind growth, than children who started using hearing provisions later. These findings highlight the relationships among hearing, language, and theory of mind.

The Bilingual Advantage in Children’s Executive Functioning Is Not Related to Language Status: A Meta-Analytic Review

Cassandra J. Lowe, Isu Cho, Samantha F. Goldsmith, and J. Bruce Morton (2021)

Acommon idea is that bilingual children, who grow up speaking two languages fluently, perform better than monolingual children in diverse executive-functioning domains (e.g., attention, working memory, decision making). This meta-analysis calls that idea into question.

Lowe and colleagues synthesized data from studies that compared the performance of monolingual and bilingual participants between the ages of 3 and 17 years in executive-functioning domains (1,194 effect sizes). They found only a small effect of bilingualism on participants’ executive functioning, which was largely explained by factors such as publication bias. After accounting for these factors, bilingualism had no distinguishable effect. The results of this large meta-analysis thus suggest that bilingual and monolingual children tend to perform at the same level in executive-functioning tasks. Bilingualism does not appear to boost performance in executive functions that serve learning, thinking, reasoning, or problem solving.

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Communicating Psychological Science: The Lifelong Consequences of Early Language Skills

“When families are informed about the importance of conversational interaction and are provided training, they become active communicators and directly contribute to reducing the word gap (Leung et al., 2020).”

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Language and Literacy Development: Research-Based, Teacher-Tested Strategies

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“Why does it tick and why does it tock?”

“Why don’t we call it a granddaughter clock?”

“Why are there pointy things stuck to a rose?”

“Why are there hairs up inside of your nose?”

She started with Why? and then What? How? and When? By bedtime she came back to Why? once again. She drifted to sleep as her dazed parents smiled at the curious thoughts of their curious child, who wanted to know what the world was about. They kissed her and whispered, “You’ll figure it out.”

—Andrea Beaty, Ada Twist, Scientist

I have dozens of favorite children’s books, but while working on this cluster about language and literacy development, Ada Twist, Scientist kept coming to mind. Ada is an African American girl who depicts the very essence of what it means to be a scientist. The book is a celebration of children’s curiosity, wonder, and desire to learn.

The more I thought about language and literacy, the more Ada became my model. All children should have books as good as Ada Twist, Scientist read to them. All children should be able to read books like Ada Twist, Scientist by the end of third grade. All children should be encouraged to ask questions about their world and be supported in developing the literacy tools (along with broad knowledge, inquiring minds, and other tools!) to answer those questions. All children should see themselves in books that rejoice in learning.

Early childhood teachers play a key role as children develop literacy. While this cluster does not cover the basics of reading instruction, it offers classroom-tested ways to make common practices like read alouds and discussions even more effective.

The cluster begins with “ Enhancing Toddlers’ Communication Skills: Partnerships with Speech-Language Pathologists ,” by Janet L. Gooch. In a mutually beneficial partnership, interns from a university communication disorders program supported Early Head Start teachers in learning several effective ways to boost toddlers’ language development, such as modeling the use of new vocabulary and expanding on what toddlers say. (One quirk of Ada Twist, Scientist is that Ada doesn’t speak until she is 3; in real life, that would be cause for significant concern. Having a submission about early speech interventions was pure serendipity.) Focusing on preschoolers, Kathleen M. Horst, Lisa H. Stewart, and Susan True offer a framework for enhancing social, emotional, and academic learning. In “ Joyful Learning with Stories: Making the Most of Read Alouds ,” they explain how to establish emotionally supportive routines that are attentive to each child’s strengths and needs while also increasing group discussions. During three to five read alouds of a book, teachers engage children in building knowledge, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and concepts of print.

Next up, readers go inside the lab school at Stepping Stones Museum for Children. In “ Equalizing Opportunities to Learn: A Collaborative Approach to Language and Literacy Development in Preschool ,” Laura B. Raynolds, Margie B. Gillis, Cristina Matos, and Kate Delli Carpini share the engaging, challenging activities they designed with and for preschoolers growing up in an under-resourced community. Devondre finds out how hard Michelangelo had to work to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and Sayo serves as a guide in the children’s classroom minimuseum— taking visitors to her artwork!

Moving into first grade, Laura Beth Kelly, Meridith K. Ogden, and Lindsey Moses explain how they helped children learn to lead and participate in meaningful discussions of literature. “ Collaborative Conversations: Speaking and Listening in the Primary Grades ” details the children’s progress (and the teacher’s methods) as they developed discussion-related social and academic skills. Although the first graders still required some teacher facilitation at the end of the school year, they made great strides in preparing for conversations, listening to their peers, extending others’ comments, asking questions, and reflecting on discussions.

Rounding out the cluster are two articles on different aspects of learning to read. In “ Sounding It Out Is Just the First Step: Supporting Young Readers ,” Sharon Ruth Gill briefly explains the complexity of the English language and suggests several ways teachers can support children as they learn to decode fluently. Her tips include giving children time to self-correct, helping them use semantic and syntactic cues, and analyzing children’s miscues to decide what to teach next.

In “ Climbing Fry’s Mountain: A Home–School Partnership for Learning Sight Words ,” Lynda M. Valerie and Kathleen A. Simoneau describe a fun program for families. With game-like activities that require only basic household items, children in kindergarten through second grade practice reading 300 sight words. Children feel successful as they begin reading, and teachers reserve instructional time for phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and other essentials of early reading.

At the end of Ada Twist, Scientist , there is a marvelous illustration of Ada’s whole family reading. “They remade their world—now they’re all in the act / of helping young Ada sort fiction from fact.” It reminds me of the power of reading and of the important language and literacy work that early childhood educators do every day.

—Lisa Hansel

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Send your thoughts on this issue, as well as topics you’d like to read about in future issues of Young Children , to [email protected] .

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Lisa Hansel, EdD, is the editor in chief of NAEYC's peer-reviewed journal, Young Children .

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Perspectives on Language and Language Development

Essays in honor of Ruth A. Berman

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French Department, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Comprehensive overview of language as a rich, multifaceted system, inspired by the lifework of Ruth A. Berman

Offers state-of-the-art portrayals of linguistic and psycholinguistic phenomena with new insights on the interrelations of language structure, discourse theory, and the development of language and literacy

Presents innovative investigations on the interface of language and narrative in a broad range of languages, with a section devoted to linguistic studies of Modern Hebrew

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (32 chapters)

Front matter, introduction.

• Dorit Ravid, Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkort

Language and Discourse

Catégorisation, grammatication et lexicalisation.

Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot

The Hebrew Language in Israel

Parsing forms with identical consonants: hebrew reduplication.

• Outi Bat-El

Linear First-Time Derivation of Verbs and Consonant Cluster Preservation in Israeli Hebrew

• Shmuel Bolozky

Modern Hebrew Consonant Clusters

• Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald

Transcribing Spoken Israeli Hebrew: Preliminary Notes

• Shlomo Izre’el

From Vanity to Grace

• Tamar Sovran

Language Rights in the Multilingual Society of Israel

• Elena Shohamy

The Interrelations of Language and Narrative

Grammatical gender and personification.

• Bernard Comrie

Relating Narrative Events in Translation

• Dan I. Slobin

Why Do We Need Evaluation Devices Anyway?

• Yeshayahu Shen

On Interpreting: A Tutorial

• Rachel Giora

A Developmental Perspective on Language and Discourse

Teaching and artificial life.

• Tzur Sayag, Sidney Strauss

Early Language Acquisition and Emergent Literacy

Resultant states in early language acquisition.

• Eve V. Clark

The Acquisition of Subordination: From Preconjunctionals to Later Use

• Sharon Armon-Lotem

The Emergence of Expressive Options in Early Child Language: A Constructivist Account

• Edy Veneziano

Children’s Names Contribute to Early Literacy a Linguistic and Social Perspective

• Iris Levin, Dorit Aram
• Language Development
• bilingualism
• language acquisition

About this book

Editors and affiliations.

Dorit Diskin Ravid

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : Perspectives on Language and Language Development

Book Subtitle : Essays in honor of Ruth A. Berman

Editors : Dorit Diskin Ravid, Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-7911-7

Publisher : Springer New York, NY

eBook Packages : Humanities, Social Sciences and Law , Social Sciences (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer-Verlag US 2005

Hardcover ISBN : 978-1-4020-7903-0 Published: 24 January 2005

Softcover ISBN : 978-1-4419-5449-7 Published: 05 November 2010

eBook ISBN : 978-1-4020-7911-5 Published: 25 August 2006

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XXIX, 482

Topics : Linguistics, general , Psycholinguistics , Sociolinguistics

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How Do Children Learn Language?

Catherine Delahaye / Getty Images

• Stage 1: Sounds
• Stage 2: Words
• Stage 3: Sentences

Language development is an amazing process that culminates in the ability to communicate and understand speech. In fact, learning language is an innate process babies are born knowing how to do. Interestingly, all children, no matter which language their parents speak, learn language in the same way. 

Overall, there are three stages of language development, which occur in a familiar pattern. So, when children are learning to speak, understand, and communicate, they follow an expected series of milestones as they begin to master their native tongue. However, note that individual children will develop language skills at their own pace along this timeline within an expected range of deviation. Learn more about how children learn language.

Language Development Stage 1: Learning Sounds

When babies are born, they can hear and distinguish all the sounds in all the languages in the world. That’s about 150 sounds in about 6500 languages, though no language uses all of those sounds. The sounds a language uses are called phonemes and English has about 44. Some languages use more and some use fewer.

In this stage, babies learn which phonemes belong to the language they are learning and which don’t. The ability to recognize and produce those sounds is called “phonemic awareness,” which is important for children learning to read.

The best way to promote language development for babies is simply to talk to your child. Babies learn by experiencing (and listening to) the world around them, so the more language they are exposed to the better. Additionally, you can put words to their actions. Talk to them as you would in conversation, pausing for them to respond, then you can say back what you think they might say. However, note that simply talking to them attentively is enough for them to pick up language.

Baby Language Milestones

Though all children learn in basic stages, language develops at different rates in different children. Most children follow a familiar pattern.

• Birth : When babies are born, they can already respond to the rhythm of language. They can recognize stress, pace, and the rise and fall of pitch.
• 4 months : As early as 4 months , infants can distinguish between language sounds and other noise. For instance, they know the difference between a spoken word and a clap.
• 6 months : By 6 months , babies begin to babble and coo and this is the first sign that the baby is learning a language. Babies are now capable of making all the sounds in all the languages of the world, but by the time they are a year old, they will have dropped the sounds that aren’t part of the language they are learning.

Language Development Stage 2: Learning Words

At this stage, children essentially learn how the sounds in a language go together to make meaning. For example, they learn that the sounds m - ah - m - ee refer to the “being” who cuddles and feeds them, their mommy.

This is a significant step because everything we say is really just a stream of sounds. To make sense of those sounds, a child must be able to recognize where one word ends and another one begins. These are called “word boundaries.”

However, children are not learning words, exactly. They are actually learning morphemes, which are the smallest, discrete chunks words can be broken into. A morpheme may be a word on its own or may be combined with other morphemes to form a word. So in “mommy,” there are two morphemes: “ma” and “mee.”

Help your child build their language skills by reading to them often. And of course, keep having child-centric conversations with them as studies show that babies learn language best within a social context. Another way to encourage their communication and social skills is to mimic their noises (such as their babbling) and say them back to them. You can also mirror their facial expressions and describe their actions as well as narrate what is happening around them.

Understanding Plurals

The word mommies has two morphemes: mommy and –s . Children at this stage can recognize that the –s means "more than one." They also begin to associate that meaning with other words when the sound is added.

Baby and Toddler Language Milestones

As your baby develops over the second half of their first year and into toddlerhood , their ability to make sounds and respond conversationally will continue to improve.

• 8 months : Babies can now recognize groups of sounds and can distinguish word boundaries. Although they recognize these sound groups as words, they are still learning what these words mean. Babies of this age are more likely to comprehend the meaning of words related to their everyday experiences, particularly food and body parts.
• 12 months : At this point, children are able to attach meanings to words. Once they can do that, they can begin to build a vocabulary. They also begin to mimic new words they hear.
• 18 months : In order to communicate, children must know how to use the words they are learning. In this stage of language development, children are able to recognize the difference between nouns and verbs. Generally, the first words in a child’s vocabulary are nouns.

Language Development Stage 3: Learning Sentences

During this stage, children learn how to create sentences. That means they can put words in the correct order. For example, they learn that in English we say "I want a cookie" and "I want a chocolate cookie," not "Want I a cookie" or "I want cookie chocolate."

Children also learn the difference between grammatical correctness and meaning. Noam Chomsky created an example of this difference in the sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” Children will know that although the sentence is grammatically correct, it doesn’t make sense. They know that green is a color and so it can't be colorless and that ideas don't sleep. However, they also know that the noun and verb structure of the sentence works.

To promote language development during this stage model good speech habits by speaking clearly, looking at them in the eye, not interrupting , and giving them a chance to talk. You can also add on to what they say to give them an idea of more complex ways to articulate their ideas and requests. Ask your child lots of questions and encourage their questions too to keep the dialog going.

Toddler and Preschooler Language Milestones

Your toddler and preschooler is now using full words, simple sentences, and eventually more complex dialog.

• 24 months : At this stage, children begin to recognize more than nouns and verbs and gain an understanding of basic sentence structure. They can use pronouns, for example. They also know the right order of words in a sentence and can create simple sentences like "Me cookie?", which means "May I have a cookie?".
• 30 to 36 months : By this age, about 90% of what children say is grammatically correct. The mistakes they make are usually things like adding -ed to irregular verbs to form the past tense. For example, they might say "I falled down" instead of "I fell down." They learned the grammatical rule to form the past tense by adding -ed to a verb but have not yet learned the exceptions to the rule.
• Beyond 3 years : As they grow, children continue to expand their vocabulary and develop more complex language. Their language use doesn’t completely resemble adult language until around the age of eleven. 

By the pre-teen years, kids begin to use what are called although -type sentences. These sentences show a concession such as, "Even though the man was tired, he kept working." Young children would likely say “The man was tired, but he kept working.”

Language Development Concerns

Contact your child's pediatrician if your child's language skills seem to be developing slower than expected. Also, mention any other communication-related concerns you may have or if any other developmental milestones appear to be lagging to their pediatrician. Often your child may just be developing their language skills slower but within the normal expected range, but sometimes a delay may point to another issue.

Early intervention is important for many speech-related (and other developmental) concerns and can help to bolster these skills.

A Word From Verywell

Remember that children develop language at their own pace, and the best way to help is to talk, sing, and read to them. Other than that, simply enjoy your child's coos, ma-mas, and da-das while they last.

Hutauruk B. Children first language acquisition at age 1-3 years old In Balata. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science . 2015;(20)8:51-57. doi:10.9790/0837-20855157 

Toyoda G, Brown EC, Matsuzaki N, Kojima K, Nishida M, Asano E. Electrocorticographic correlates of overt articulation of 44 English phonemes: intracranial recording in children with focal epilepsy. Clin Neurophysiol. 2014;125(6):1129-37. doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2013.11.008

Seidl A, Cristia A. Infants' learning of phonological status. Front Psychol. 2012;3:448. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00448

Kager R. How do infants disaggregate referential and affective pitch?. Front Psychol . 2018;9:2093. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02093

Ezeizabarrena MJ, Garcia FL. Length of utterance, in morphemes or in words?: MLU3-w, a reliable measure of language development in early basque. Front Psychol . 2017;8:2265. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02265

Kuhl PK. Early language learning and literacy: neuroscience implications for education .  Mind Brain Educ . 2011;5(3):128-142. doi:10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01121.x

Bergelson E, Swingley D. At 6-9 months, human infants know the meanings of many common nouns. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA . 2012;109(9):3253-8. doi:10.1073/pnas.1113380109

Waxman S, Fu X, Arunachalam S, Leddon E, Geraghty K, Song HJ. Are nouns learned before verbs? Infants provide insight into a longstanding debate. Child Dev Perspect . 2013;7(3). doi:10.1111/cdep.12032

Erard M. The life and times of "colorless green ideas sleep furiously". Southwest Review . 2010;95(3):418-425.

Eisenberg S, Guo L, Germezia M. How grammatical are 3-year-olds? Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch . 2012;43;36-52. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2011/10-0093) 

Allen LR, Kelly BB, editors. Transforming the workforce for children birth through age 8: a unifying foundation. committee on the science of children birth to age 8: deepening and broadening the foundation for success ; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Institute of Medicine; National Research Council; National Academies Press (US) ; 2015.

By Carol Bainbridge Carol Bainbridge has provided advice to parents of gifted children for decades, and was a member of the Indiana Association for the Gifted.

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11.10: Theories of Language Development

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• College of the Canyons via College of the Canyons

Humans, especially children, have an amazing ability to learn language. Within the first year of life, children will have learned many of the necessary concepts to have functional language, although it will still take years for their capabilities to develop fully. As we just explained, some people learn two or more languages fluently and are bilingual or multilingual. Here is a recap of the theorists and theories that have been proposed to explain the development of language, and related brain structures, in children.

Skinner: Operant Conditioning

B. F. Skinner believed that children learn language through operant conditioning ; in other words, children receive “rewards” for using language in a functional manner. For example, a child learns to say the word “drink” when she is thirsty; she receives something to drink, which reinforces her use of the word for getting a drink, and thus she will continue to do so. This follows the four-term contingency that Skinner believed was the basis of language development—motivating operations, discriminative stimuli, response, and reinforcing stimuli. Skinner also suggested that children learn language through imitation of others, prompting, and shaping.

Chomsky: Language Acquisition Device

Noam Chomsky’s work discusses the biological basis for language and claims that children have innate abilities to learn language. Chomsky terms this innate ability the “ language acquisition device .” He believes children instinctively learn language without any formal instruction. He also believes children have a natural need to use language, and that in the absence of formal language children will develop a system of communication to meet their needs. He has observed that all children make the same type of language errors, regardless of the language they are taught. Chomsky also believes in the existence of a “universal grammar,” which posits that there are certain grammatical rules all human languages share. However, his research does not identify areas of the brain or a genetic basis that enables humans’ innate ability for language.

Piaget: Assimilation and Accommodation

Jean Piaget’s theory of language development suggests that children use both assimilation and accommodation to learn language. Assimilation is the process of changing one’s environment to place information into an already-existing schema (or idea). Accommodation is the process of changing one’s schema to adapt to the new environment. Piaget believed children need to first develop mentally before language acquisition can occur. According to him, children first create mental structures within the mind (schemas) and from these schemas, language development happens.

Vygotsky: Zone of Proximal Development

Lev Vygotsky’s theory of language development focused on social learning and the zone of proximal development (ZPD) . The ZPD is a level of development obtained when children engage in social interactions with others; it is the distance between a child’s potential to learn and the actual learning that takes place. Vygotsky’s theory also demonstrated that Piaget underestimated the importance of social interactions in the development of language. Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories are often compared with each other, and both have been used successfully in the field of education.

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Theories of Language Development: A Brief Overview of the Foundational Ideas

Language development is a seriously complex topic.

This post will start you on the road to uncovering the most important figures, theories and facts you’ll most likely hear over and over again in your language learning journey.

Deep breaths everyone, as we delve into the fascinating theories of language development.

A Brief Overview of Language Development Theories

1. chomsky’s nativist language theories, 2. b.f. skinner’s behaviorist perspective, 3. piaget’s cognitive development theory, 4. vygotsky’s constructivist learning theory, what these language development theories mean for you.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

The most prominent figure in language development is Noam Chomsky, who’s been studying this ever since his days at MIT. Then there are those who have offered their take on language development from a psychological perspective. This includes psychologists such as B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.

We’ll be giving you a brief overview of their theories and perspectives. Fair warning to all: There’s a lot of psychology here, so be prepared for a bunch of fancy new terms (we’ll explain them briefly as we go, of course).

Noam Chomsky has been studying and developing his theories since the 1950s.

In his book  “Aspects of the Theory of Syntax” published in 1965, he has pushed forward the fundamental observation that there are deep structures and surface structures in every sentence , no matter what language.

This is the reason why you can form sentences with similar meaning using a theoretically infinite combination of words.

Essentially, deep structures are the thoughts and meanings we want to express and surface structures are the words, sounds and symbols we use to try and express them.

Let’s look at some examples. Take a look at the following sentence:

Language development seems really complicated to me.

I think language development is really complicated .

Both express exactly the same thing using different words and a different word order. The deep structure is the same (the notion that language development is obviously not the simplest thing in the world), though the words used (surface structure) are different.

The use of these words and their structures are refined over the course of time. It changes and evolves on the surface, but the deeper structures remain. This is a part of Chomsky’s transformational-generative grammar theory .

Another important contribution Chomsky made to linguistic studies is the theory of universal grammar . He asserted that the human brain contains a mechanism for language acquisition, meaning that our languages share the same deeper structures despite the largely superficial surface structures .

This is why it’s possible for anyone to learn a foreign language , regardless of the complexity of its grammatical structure or script.

Tackling the issue of language from a different perspective was B.F. Skinner , the behavioral psychologist.

Simply put, the behavioral perspective postulates that everything we do is dictated by our environment and that our behavior is a response to external stimuli through operant conditioning , the process through which behavior changes with positive and negative reinforcement.

B.F. Skinner theorized that language acquisition  is dictated by our environment and the positive or negative reinforcement we receive from it.

Parents, for example, enforce correct usage of a word in children with positive facial or verbal reactions. They play larger roles in our “verbal behavior,”  a concept Skinner describes in his book. Verbal behavior introduces the concept of functions to words , as well as meanings.

For example, a child may know what to call a toilet, but they must also learn what the use of that word will allow them to acquire or express. They’ve heard their parents say this word, but what happens when they say it? Most likely, their parents take them to it.

So in this case, the most basic function of the word is to express a need to use the bathroom. A pretty important thing to be able to express, wouldn’t you say?

Jean Piaget was another prominent psychologist who offered yet another take on language acquisition and development. His focus was on child development and the stages children go through to develop and learn.

He asserted that children would only be able to fully grasp some concepts within specific  developmental stages , due to the fact that certain sections of the brain would only further develop at certain ages.

For example, since the sensorimotor stage develops first during the first two years of a child’s life, children focus on their immediate surroundings, experimenting with the things around them by playing with them, biting them or throwing them.

Throughout this stage, they’ll take things apart, put things back together and explore the concept of things existing in and out of sight. By the end of it all, they’ll be able to visualize things that aren’t there in front of them, which is arguably the most crucial part of this stage when it comes to language and communication.

Next comes the preoperational stage in which children are able to think in slightly more abstract ways. They begin to toy with symbols. They’ll use words in ways that aren’t generally accepted or understood.

For example, they may use the word “pillow” to mean “cloth” purely because of the few shared characteristics between the two objects.

They do this for egocentric communication. Anyone who’s ever tried to communicate with a two-year-old will know that they aren’t all that interested in other perspectives. They’re too busy trying to explore their own mind, so don’t take it personally.

You may have noticed already that these concepts focus less on language and more on cognitive development during childhood and you’d be right.

That being said, it’s still important to know because Piaget did establish that language plays a huge role in cognitive development , chiefly in the way children use language throughout each stage.

During the sensorimotor stage, children experiment with sounds, and language is mostly about the auditory aspects. They don’t care about the meaning, they just like to create sounds.

During the preoperational stage, children use language to express themselves, but they can’t really distinguish conversation from pure expression.

During the concrete operational stage , children state facts and observations. Finally, during the formal operational stage , children are able to use language to express, discuss and debate abstract concepts.

Not completely unrelated is Lev Vygotsky ‘s theory of social development.

It’s referred to as the constructivist perspective  and describes the concept of development through construction of thought and meaning. To understand it completely, you first have to understand his perspective.

It challenges the more widely-held concept of knowledge and proposes that knowledge is a construction of meaning unique to the individual . How a person grew up (their culture) will affect how they think. He emphasizes the importance of others in our development (i.e., social interaction and guided learning).

Vygotsky postulated that language develops similarly, but focused on the development of social speech, private speech and inner speech .

Social speech is the language we use with others while private speech (talking to ourselves) is not meant to communicate with others (this happens around the age of three). Inner speech only really begins to appear around the age of six or seven with private speech being internalized.

It’s a complex idea that goes beyond the scope of this post, but children at this stage begin to internalize language and meaning and, as Vygotsky says, begin “thinking in pure meaning.”

Suffice it to say that our relationship with language becomes increasingly more sophisticated and goes beyond the meaning of the words and into the feelings or ideas the words elicit.

In the same way that these theories have aided children and teachers in refining their learning and teaching techniques, you can use this knowledge to fine-tune your language-learning methods.

With a better understanding of these theories and their roots, you can ask yourself, “Is the approach I’m using right now working for me?”

If we consider Chomsky’s ideas of universal grammar , we can say that all languages adhere to certain grammatical parameters, like word order. Our job is then to figure out those parameters by hearing example sentences and formulating the rules of the second language. 

Or should you try tackling grammar from another angle? For example, you might do that by spending time in a different environment where that foreign language is abundant as the constructivist perspective might suggest.

Of course, if you can’t go to another country, you can immerse yourself in the language at home. There are many programs that can help you do so, like FluentU —which uses authentic videos like movie clips and music videos to teach languages in context. The program also helps you study through the use of interactive subtitles and flashcards, as well as quizzes, transcripts, a contextual dictionary and other useful learner features.

What about those of you who are trying to find ways to teach your children a second language ? Perhaps taking a look at Piaget’s developmental stages could help you figure out where your child’s mind is focused and how best to introduce a new language to them.

With so many theories out there concerning language development, see what works for you and which theories or perspectives you’d like to explore.

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Introduction to Language Development in Children: Description to Detect and Prevent Language Difficulties

Eva aguilar-mediavilla.

1 Institute of Educational Research and Innovation, Universitat de les Illes Balears, 07122 Palma, Spain; [email protected]

Miguel Pérez-Pereira

2 Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15705 Santiago de Compostela, Spain; [email protected]

Elisabet Serrat-Sellabona

3 Department of Psychology, Universitat de Girona, 17004 Girona, Spain; [email protected]

Daniel Adrover-Roig

Associated data.

Not applicable.

1. Introduction

The present Special Issue focuses on studies of language acquisition in children. We particularly addressed the description of language development and the variables affecting it for early detection and prevention of language difficulties. Although language difficulties are very common (14% of children present a primary or secondary language difficulty), these difficulties are misdiagnosed [ 1 , 2 ]. This might be due to the lack of visibility and the scarcity of knowledge in professionals in terms of the long-term consequences of language disorders in education and mental health. To prevent misdiagnosed identification and boost assessment of language difficulties, more typical and atypical language studies are needed. In this sense, a good description of language acquisition could help to detect and prevent language difficulties. Nevertheless, most of the research on child language development has been conducted in English. However, studies in other languages and cross-linguistic studies have shown that some results regarding language development in English may not be transferred into other languages [ 3 ]. Despite the increase in the number of studies, there is still a dearth of research on typical and atypical language acquisition in other languages and in bilingual populations. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to fill the current void in these studies, give them visibility, and show the latest research in language acquisition in children.

This Special Issue address child language from different perspectives. In this sense, it includes theoretical and empirical studies on typical and atypical child language acquisition. The contributions include studies about markers of language development in typical development, studies about language development in bilingual populations and several studies about language development in atypical populations including Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), reading disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), preterm children, hearing loss and genetic syndromes.

2. Markers of Language Development

Several studies in this Special Issue describe important factors that affect language development at different ages, thus depicting several key aspects to be considered in the prevention of communication and language difficulties throughout childhood. These studies range from the beginnings of word production [ 4 ] or gestures [ 5 ] to the impact of the use of technological devices in preadolescent children [ 6 ]. In addition, they cover different aspects or linguistic components, from phonetics [ 7 ], vocabulary [ 4 ], or syntax [ 8 ], to non-referential gestures related to narrative development [ 5 ].

The study by Serrat et al. [ 4 ] shows that prelinguistic factors have a greater weight than sociodemographic factors in explaining initial expressive vocabulary. This study shows that children under 18 months of age who imitate more are those who have a greater amount of vocabulary. In a related study, in the Special Issue Rujas et al. [ 8 ] shows that imitation or repetition of sentences, as an assessment task, is a useful tool for detecting language difficulties in older children. On the other hand, the study by Liu et al. [ 7 ] allows us to observe that the acoustic analysis of the production of certain consonants can provide accurate information on speech development and, therefore, is presented as an aspect to be considered in the evaluation of children’s speech. In their review, Vilà-Giménez et al. [ 5 ] note another indicator, not much explored previously, according to which non-referential gestures act as predictors of narrative performance. This suggests that these gestures have important pragmatic functions that help to frame discourse. In older children, the study by Acebedo et al. [ 6 ] analyzes a variable that has a negative influence on language development: greater access to and use of media devices. The authors show that preadolescent children who use media devices more frequently and for communication purposes (not for school aid, or to learn new things) present lower language scores, without being influenced by sociodemographic factors.

In short, these studies show the importance of various markers of language development, both as indicators that may be related either to adequate development [ 4 , 5 , 7 ] or may contribute negatively to language development [ 6 ]. On the other hand, repetition of words (imitation) or sentences appears as an indicator of adequate development [ 4 ], as well as an important assessment tool to identify difficulties in language development [ 8 ].

3. Bilingual Development

In terms of bilingual language development, this Special Issue includes two studies. The first study by Kan et al. [ 9 ] explores the detection of language impairment in bilingual children by monolingual adults, and the second study by Diaz et al. [ 10 ] looks at the mutual longitudinal associations between vocabulary and executive functioning (EF) in monolingual and bilingual children.

As stated, Kan et al. [ 9 ] aimed at detecting the risk of language impairment in bilingual children by monolingual adults. The authors focused on how bilingual children’s response speed during a narrative task can serve for categorizing language impairment. To do so, monolingual adults listened to several audio clips from an interactive story-retell task in both Cantonese and in English. Children were six sequential Cantonese-English bilinguals of 4 years of age; three of them had a language impairment and three were TD. Results showed that the interrater reliability was high for both languages, logistic regression and ROC curves revealed that adults were able to identify language impairment in bilingual children by judging their response speed, with higher sensitivity and specificity values in L1 conditions (Cantonese) than in L2 (English). These results highlight the potential relevance of looking at response speed to complement language assessment in bilingual children with language impairment.

Focusing on the potential links between EF and receptive vocabulary, Diaz et al. [ 10 ] tested monolingual and bilingual children with 4 years of age on average. The authors used a longitudinal approach with two temporal moments spread one year and departed from the theory of dual language processing as one of the potential sources for the frequently reported gains in EF in bilinguals. Their main goal was to determine whether EF exerted a direct influence on language proficiency or vice versa. Several measures of vocabulary and cognitive flexibility were administered to a sample of bilingual children and to a control group of monolingual preschool children. Results revealed that, only in the monolingual group, vocabulary at moment 1 predicted EF at moment 2. However, EF did not predict vocabulary at moment 2. The authors interpret the lack of longitudinal relations between EF and language abilities in the bilingual group together with the absence of differences in EF between both groups as a potential challenge to the purported advantage in EF in bilinguals and claim for the need of future similar studies.

4. Atypical Language Development

The Special Issue included several papers that focused on atypical language development, considering different conditions such as DLD, reading disorders, ASD, preterm, deafness and genetic syndromes.

4.1. Developmental Language Disorders (DLD)

DLD, previously named specific language impairment (SLI), is a persistent language delay affecting everyday social interactions or educational progress, in the absence of other biomedical conditions such as ASD, brain injury, hearing loss, genetic conditions or intellectual disability [ 11 , 12 ]. Four of the papers in this Special Issue focused on DLD, evidencing the increasing interest and the need of further studies of this atypical language condition. The works presented covered syntactic processing, lexical and syntactic errors, the use of non-word repetition task as a marker of DLD, and the relation between structural aspects of language, pragmatics, social cognition, and executive functions.

The work by Roa-Rojas et al. [ 13 ] explored a common error in Spanish children with DLD, the gender agreement in clitics, with a real-time processing technique of event-related brain potentials (ERP). Their results evidenced that children with DLD, contrary to their controls, did not show an enhanced anterior negativity between 250 and 500 ms post-target onset when they listened to gender-agreement violations. This result evidences a weaker lexical representation of morphosyntactic gender features in children with DLD.

Additionally, Kornev and Balčiūnienė [ 14 ] focused on the grammatical and lexical errors in children with DLD in narrative tasks in Russian. They found that the genre of discourse and age of assessment impacted not only the error distribution in children with DLD, but also in their controls, showing a relation between the cognitive load of the task and the number of errors produced. Their results support the resource deficit model that considers that the DLD is a delay in language performance but not in language competence, with errors being directly influenced by the cognitive demands of utterance and text production.

Following this hypothesis that children with DLD exhibit a limited cognitive load, and thus that language processing can easily overload their cognitive systems, non-word repetition has been proposed as a measure of the phonological working memory capacity and a marker of DLD [ 15 , 16 ]. In this sense, the work of Ahufinger et al. [ 17 ] explored the consistency of a non-word repetition task of 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-syllables presented in a random order and with varied wordlikeness ratings. Their results showed that the task discriminated correctly children with and without DLD (from 5 years and 16 years) speaking Catalan–Spanish (bilinguals) and European Portuguese (monolinguals). In this sense, children with DLD were less accurate repeating syllables than typical language developing (TD) children. Interestingly, children with DLD were more accurate repeating non-words with high wordlikeness than low, a pattern that had not been found in TD children. In addition, bilingual children performed worse than monolingual ones. Therefore, this task identified correctly children with DLD and differentiated them from TD children in the three languages (Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese) and in bilingual and monolingual children, making non-word repetition a promising task to detect children with DLD.

The last work in this section, by Andres-Roqueta et al. [ 18 ], focused on the association between the results of the parents’ reports in the Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2) and several direct-child measures of structural language (phonetics, receptive and expressive grammar, receptive and expressive vocabulary and a composite score), pragmatics (receptive and expressive pragmatics and a composite score), social cognition (strange stories), and executive functions (sustained attention, inhibitory skills and a composite score). The results showed that children with DLD (between 3; 10 and 9 years old) performed worse than their TD peers in all the direct-child measures. The CCC-2 correlated with all direct child assessments in the group of DLD, but only formal measures of structural language predicted parent’s reports in CCC-2. This indicates that CCC-2 answered by parents is a reliable measure to assess formal language, being structural language its best predictor.

4.2. Reading and Writing Disorders

Close to DLD and commonly comorbid with this disorder are reading and writing learning disabilities. Reading and writing disabilities are the most prevalent type of learning disabilities, with a prevalence between 7 and 10% and one of the main factors of school failure [ 19 ]. It includes impairments in reading decoding (i.e., letter–phoneme correspondence) resulting from problems in phonological processing skills and/or naming problems [ 20 ]. Children with RD also show impaired oral language skills, although not as severe as children with DLD [ 21 ].

One paper in the present Special Issue focused on reading and writing learning disabilities. González-Valenzuela et al. [ 22 ] explored the relationship between the type of delivery (vaginal or caesarean) and the occurrence of learning disabilities in reading (reading accuracy) and writing (phonetic and visual orthography), controlling for several gestational, obstetric, and neonatal variables (maternal age at delivery, gestational age, foetal presentation, Apgar 1, and new-born weight), in six-year-old children born in twin births. Their results showed a relation between the caesarean delivery and the presence of difficulties in reading accuracy, and phonetic and visual orthography. Although the authors advise that more evidence is needed, these findings could be useful in clinical practice to avoid the use of caesarean section on demand or without specialised indication.

4.3. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Children with ASD show a communication deficit that sometimes is accompanied by formal language difficulties. Two papers in this Special Issue aboard the language and communication deficits in ASD.

One paper in this Special Issue looked at the integration of multimodal information within the communicative setting in toddlers at risk of developing ASD by means of eye-tracking measures. The study by Camero et al. [ 23 ] investigated visual attention to establish potential early markers of ASD. A group of 10 age-paired TD children and another group composed of 10 children with an increased likelihood of developing ASD looked at a human face when pronouncing pseudowords on a monitor, which were associated with several pseudo-objects. They found that children with higher odds of developing ASD showed a lower number of fixations to the eyes and larger number of gaze fixations to the mouth than the TD children. ASD children also had a slightly larger non-significant pupil dilation to faces, which was constant during the distinct task periods. They also looked more at the pseudo-object and for a longer time than TD children. In contrast, TD children showed a greater pupil dilation when hearing the pseudowords. The authors discuss that objective measures of eye tracking could be considered as potential markers for early detection of ASD and serve as relevant measures of word processing in both ASD and TD toddlers.

In another paper dedicated to ASD, Torrens and Ruiz [ 24 ] explored language and communication in preschool children with ASD compared to other developmental disorders using direct measures and parental reports of language. Results revealed that ASD children show a delay in language comprehension in contrast to language production, together with several problems in non-verbal communication, as compared with children with other developmental disorders. A high association was also observed between participant measures and parental reports of language and communication. These results lead the authors to suggest that complementing participants’ measurements with parental reports is a valuable tool for language assessment. They also suggest that language comprehension deficits and difficulties in non-verbal communication might help diagnostic purposes between children with ASD and children with other neurodevelopmental disorders.

4.4. Preterm

Preterm children (very and extremely preterm in particular) are generally considered to present atypical language development. In this Special Issue, two papers are related to this topic. The first one by Pérez-Pereira [ 25 ] is a longitudinal study on the prevalence and determinants of language delay carried out with low-risk preterm children. The study spans the period between 10 and 60 months of age, with four measuring points. The participants were grouped into four groups of different gestational ages (GA) corresponding to (1) Extremely and Very preterm, (2) Moderately preterm, (3) Late preterm, and (4) Full-term children. Comparisons of the results obtained in the different language tests indicate that there are hardly any differences between the GA groups in the incidence of language delay (scores below the 10th percentile). The results found suggest that healthy preterm children do not seem to have a higher risk of language delay than full-term children. Logistic regression analyses permitted the identification of those factors that better predicted language delay at different ages, highlighting among these factors, previous language, and cognitive delay.

The second study by Joensuu et al. on the topic of preterm children’s language development [ 26 ] investigates the associations between early language development at 2 years and literacy skills at seven years of age, in a sample of 136 very preterm (VP)/very low birth weight children (VLBW) and 137 full-term controls. Their results indicate that lexical production and MLU (Mean Length of Utterances) of the three longest utterances (measured through the Finnish CDI) and the expressive language score (from the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II) are quite good predictors of prereading skills, reading, and writing at 7 years of age. In addition, most VP/VLBW children who were below the 10th percentile in language measures at 2 years of age had weak literacy skills at 7 years of age.

4.5. Deafness

Children with hearing impairment without hearing implants use to show a delay or difficulties in language development. Research with hearing children has revealed that the combination of music (rhyme and rhythm) with phonological awareness activities in intervention programs increments language outcomes. The paper by Holcomb and Wolbers [ 27 ] attempts to test the benefits of American Sign Language (ASL) rhyme, rhythm, and phonological awareness for deaf children. An intervention program was provided to five deaf children between 3 and 6 years of age to examine the effects of explicit handshape rhyme awareness instruction on increasing engagement behavior and accuracy in recitation. The findings indicate that recitation skills (although not engagement) in young deaf children can be supported through interventions utilizing ASL rhyme and rhythm supplemented with ASL phonological awareness activities.

4.6. Genetic Syndromes

Most genetic syndromes involve cognitive and language developmental impairments. In the present Special Issue, the study by Zanaboni et al. [ 28 ] investigates oral motor, speech and language abilities of eight Italian-speaking children (aged 4.6 to 15.4 years) with glucose transporter type 1 deficiency syndrome (GLUT1DS). This syndrome, due to mutations in SLC2A1 gene, implies impaired glucose transport into the brain. Congruently, patients are treated with the ketogenic diet (KD) to meet the energy demands of the developing brain, as it was the case for the participants in this study. The children were assessed with different standardized tests. The results indicated that the patients showed deficits in orofacial praxis, the speech domain, and the language domain (semantic/phonological fluency and receptive grammar, in particular), as well as in the development of several cognitive functions. The authors highlight the importance of a complete speech and language evaluation in GLUT1DS patients to obtain a typical linguistic phenotype, which could guide and improve early diagnosis and intervention.

5. Conclusions

The present Special Issue focuses on the major topics of typical and atypical language development with monolingual and bilingual children, covering new and highly innovative studies that have increased the evidence for detecting and preventing language impairment especially in several languages such as Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Cantonese, Finnish, and American Sign Language.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the authors and reviewers who offered their manuscripts and their constructive comments for this Special Issue.

Author Contributions

Writing—original draft preparation, E.A.-M., M.P.-P., E.S.-S., D.A.-R.; writing—review and editing, E.A.-M., M.P.-P., E.S.-S., D.A.-R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This work was supported by the Grant EDU2017-85909-P funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”. The funding sources was not involved in the study design, analysis, and interpretation of data, and writing of the report or submission for publication.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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The power of language: How words shape people, culture

Speaking, writing and reading are integral to everyday life, where language is the primary tool for expression and communication. Studying how people use language – what words and phrases they unconsciously choose and combine – can help us better understand ourselves and why we behave the way we do.

Linguistics scholars seek to determine what is unique and universal about the language we use, how it is acquired and the ways it changes over time. They consider language as a cultural, social and psychological phenomenon.

“Understanding why and how languages differ tells about the range of what is human,” said Dan Jurafsky , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor in Humanities and chair of the Department of Linguistics in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford . “Discovering what’s universal about languages can help us understand the core of our humanity.”

The stories below represent some of the ways linguists have investigated many aspects of language, including its semantics and syntax, phonetics and phonology, and its social, psychological and computational aspects.

Understanding stereotypes

Stanford linguists and psychologists study how language is interpreted by people. Even the slightest differences in language use can correspond with biased beliefs of the speakers, according to research.

One study showed that a relatively harmless sentence, such as “girls are as good as boys at math,” can subtly perpetuate sexist stereotypes. Because of the statement’s grammatical structure, it implies that being good at math is more common or natural for boys than girls, the researchers said.

Language can play a big role in how we and others perceive the world, and linguists work to discover what words and phrases can influence us, unknowingly.

How well-meaning statements can spread stereotypes unintentionally

New Stanford research shows that sentences that frame one gender as the standard for the other can unintentionally perpetuate biases.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

Exploring what an interruption is in conversation

Stanford doctoral candidate Katherine Hilton found that people perceive interruptions in conversation differently, and those perceptions differ depending on the listener’s own conversational style as well as gender.

Cops speak less respectfully to black community members

Professors Jennifer Eberhardt and Dan Jurafsky, along with other Stanford researchers, detected racial disparities in police officers’ speech after analyzing more than 100 hours of body camera footage from Oakland Police.

How other languages inform our own

People speak roughly 7,000 languages worldwide. Although there is a lot in common among languages, each one is unique, both in its structure and in the way it reflects the culture of the people who speak it.

Jurafsky said it’s important to study languages other than our own and how they develop over time because it can help scholars understand what lies at the foundation of humans’ unique way of communicating with one another.

“All this research can help us discover what it means to be human,” Jurafsky said.

Stanford PhD student documents indigenous language of Papua New Guinea

Fifth-year PhD student Kate Lindsey recently returned to the United States after a year of documenting an obscure language indigenous to the South Pacific nation.

Students explore Esperanto across Europe

In a research project spanning eight countries, two Stanford students search for Esperanto, a constructed language, against the backdrop of European populism.

Chris Manning: How computers are learning to understand language​

A computer scientist discusses the evolution of computational linguistics and where it’s headed next.

Stanford research explores novel perspectives on the evolution of Spanish

Using digital tools and literature to explore the evolution of the Spanish language, Stanford researcher Cuauhtémoc García-García reveals a new historical perspective on linguistic changes in Latin America and Spain.

Language as a lens into behavior

Linguists analyze how certain speech patterns correspond to particular behaviors, including how language can impact people’s buying decisions or influence their social media use.

For example, in one research paper, a group of Stanford researchers examined the differences in how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online to better understand how a polarization of beliefs can occur on social media.

“We live in a very polarized time,” Jurafsky said. “Understanding what different groups of people say and why is the first step in determining how we can help bring people together.”

Analyzing the tweets of Republicans and Democrats

New research by Dora Demszky and colleagues examined how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online in an attempt to understand how polarization of beliefs occurs on social media.

Examining bilingual behavior of children at Texas preschool

A Stanford senior studied a group of bilingual children at a Spanish immersion preschool in Texas to understand how they distinguished between their two languages.

Predicting sales of online products from advertising language

Stanford linguist Dan Jurafsky and colleagues have found that products in Japan sell better if their advertising includes polite language and words that invoke cultural traditions or authority.

Language can help the elderly cope with the challenges of aging, says Stanford professor

By examining conversations of elderly Japanese women, linguist Yoshiko Matsumoto uncovers language techniques that help people move past traumatic events and regain a sense of normalcy.

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Language Development, Essay Example

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The concept of language development remains to be among the most awe-inspiring procedures of human growth. Among any other creatures, the capacity of humans to speak and communicate is one specific characteristic that humans enjoy. Relatively, such a capacity involves a certain process of development that humans basically undergo. It could be understood that through research, it has been discovered that language acquisition among humans start as early as the first two to three months from birth. The exceptional capacity of the human brain to incur massive amounts of developments within these specific growth months specifically implicates a strong indication on how language acquisitions differentiate humans from other creations as far more superior specie.

For the case of Tom, it could be realized how his parents put a lot into the process to make sure that his language would be of a great part of his development. Buying different toys and even programs for the sake of assisting their child acquire language at a fast and accurate pace points out the fact that these parents are far more concerned on the manner by which their child would be able to incur good language skills making it easier for him to communicate later on. Question is, what specific procedures of language acquisition would actually make it possible for a child as young as Tom to acquire good communication skills through determining good language development? Through four stages of self reflection, several points of understanding the concept of language acquisition in relation to early childhood development have provided a distinct source of trustworthy information that could help resolve the overall concept of effective learning that is needed to assist Tom acquire the best process of language development that his parents want for him.

During the first stage of self-reflection, particular lessons on human-to-animal communication have been given attention to. This particular aspect of the learning process insists on the concept of non verbal communication. This means that meanings of particular conversations are given specific attention to without the necessity of the existence of words. With the use of emotion and connection with the animals, humans are able to create a functioning relationship with them. Without any words, the human [known as the caretaker of the animals] are able to command the animals to act upon a particular gesture. For a dog for instance, the word ‘sit’ might not yet mean anything, however, the gesture of pointing towards the dog and making downward gesture suggests such action, hence, the dog follows through. Consider that the dog’s brain is much less complicated than that of the human brain. Hence, if a dog of at least two to three months old could actually respond to such commandment without being able to fully comprehend with word, how much more would the brain of a developing child appeal to such concept.

Through observation and research, it has been found out that the first six months of a young infant’s life is one of its most formative stages. The brain develops fast allowing the child to accomplish several milestones that are able to greatly reflect the child’s capacity to adapt to the environment around him. Nevertheless, the concept of non-verbal communication plays a great role in such process of development. Notably, infants, even without being commanded to copy sounds or make their own ones  begin to babble and coo. It is said that such development begins in the mother’s womb, even before the child is born. The developing baby inside the mother’s womb could already recognize sounds surrounding him, the voice of his mother being the most prominent ones. Hence, as the mother speaks, the unborn child begins to recognize such sounds and is able to connect them with particular emotional bearings that the mother feels. As the child begins to explore the world outside his mother’s womb, he goes back to the old sounds he recognizes while he was not yet being born. Such recall allows him to connect the sound with the emotions he sees from his parents’ faces and the tone of their voice as they speak. This is the reason why it is implicated among parenting seminars that their connection, their communication and the way they behave at home and around their newly born child would actually affect his attitude as he grows and of course the way he learns language at an early age.

Through this realization, it could then be realized that like the human-to-animal talk approach, young infants also follow the same pattern especially when it comes to determining the meaning of conversation and/or simple words towards the tone and the feeling that each sentence suggests. The infant might not be able to understand the whole meaning of the sentences fully yet, nevertheless, the distinct concept of relative connection between particular elements of communication defines the proper manner by which young children develop through time.

The second lesson in the first stage of self reflection intended to focus on personal language development is given attention to. As for myself, my parents told me that my first words ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ came out when I was eight months old. The cooing and the babbling stage were among the primary foundations that defined the way I acquired language. My mother told me that my ‘oooo’ sound usually meant I was hungry; not that she knew about it immediately, but she was able to observe that every time I make such sound, I point to her breast or later on to the milk bottle. Since my father was working out of the house, I usually stayed with my mother. She cared for my every need, a reason why my mother believes that we had a special communication process when I was still a baby. Every movement of my hand, my head or any other body language a make meant something. Perhaps part of the mother’s instinct, my mother kept a constant point of observation that allowed her to explore my language which allowed her to communicate with me quite well.

When I asked my mother about discipline through language at such an early age, she mentioned how I responded accordingly to the change of the tone in her voice. Unlike other children who were brought up under the care of their nannies, I was able to recognize the authority in my mother’s voice and usually respond accordingly. For instance, when I cry so much to have my bottle prepared or to be fed somehow, my mother lowers her voice-tone down and matches it with her eyes and tells me gently ‘you wait for mommy to finish’, I begin to lower down my voice and begin to fiddle with my hands as I wait for her to finish the preparation of my food or my milk bottle. The constant connection we had with each other made our communication much easier to contend with. From this point of personal experience [as told to me by my mom] suggests that parents , especially the mother has a great role when it comes to determining the process of understanding that an infant [as young as four to six months old] takes into account.

Unlike what some adults believe, a young infant is able to observe and relate to the environment surrounding him. With such capacity to explore his surroundings without even stepping on the ground yet, invokes a sense of complication on how the human brain works within the first few months of development and exposure to people and the environment that exists around them. The correlative connection that infants form as they explore their surroundings make it easier for them to interpret communication and the aspect of meaning that each word would have on them and the way they connect with others especially their parents.

The third lesson invokes the development of understanding over the infant-to-child development. Infants, as noted earlier are considered to be able to differentiate sounds and meanings based on tone and the emotion that comes along with it. Young infants are very observant especially with the facial expressions of their parents and other people surrounding them. Cooing and babbling are among the first stages of communication among infants and understanding such communication approaches on the part of the parents play a great role on how the young ones would be able acquire language at a much determinable pace. Upon observation of child psychologists and language experts, it could be noted that there is a common trend that young infants follow through as they pass the stages from the first four months towards the first eighteen months of development.

One of the said developments includes the gradual random selection of phonemes that they are able to adapt to. This is the reason why some infants are noted to be talking of some specific words but are giving off the wrong sounds for particular letters. The capacity of the tongue to give-off specific vowel and consonant sounds follows a distinct process that determines the capacity of the child to determine specific phonemes. Nevertheless, this should not put aside the fact that the young infants are indeed able to give meanings to such words with a rather accurate indication of the real meaning of each term they aim to communicate to the people around them.

Mothers in particular create a protoconversational process that they and their young children could actually respond to. For instance, this particular conversation involves short phrases that are familiar with the child. The mother adjusts down to such level of communication to be able to make a connection with the infant. From such approach, the child is able to create a distinct interpretation of how the mother relates to him and thus reacts accordingly to such process. Forming less complex sentences when talking to infant gives the young one a chance to specifically give meaning to the conversation based on the things that are familiar to him and the matters that connect them to the communication process being formed.

At 12 to 18 months, the first words are already formed. This pace of development indicates a distinct consideration on how the infant has been given the chance to become more involved in the world and the people surrounding him. The eagerness to communicate with others empowers the young child to become more expressive especially when he wants something done for him. Usually infants entering this stage are notably able to recognize 50 to 100 words at a normal pace [although they may not be able to pronounce them properly yet]. The ones who acquire slower language development are able to recognize 20 to 50 words that they actually understand. Producing properly pronounced words usually do not come into realization until the first eighteen months; some others during the first 21 st months of their age.

Hence, for the case of Tom, there is no reason to panic. It could be that there is a specific point of slower development that Tom undergoes when it comes to language acquisition but it does not mean that he would never be able to cope up. There are infants who tend to develop more on comprehension than in the actual process of speaking. In this case, parental support is extremely important. Books and other programs or paraphernalia might help, but the context of parental assistance plays the greatest impact on the language acquisition of a child towards his toddler years. The parents of Tom could actually acquire the motherese language approach which inculcates into the system of conversation that the parents establish with young tom to be less complex. Sentences should be narrowed down to shorter phrases allowing the child to connect simple words that are familiar to him towards the emotional bearing or tone of the ones trying to communicate with him.

The fourth lesson is dedicated to toddler language development. Toddlers [beginning at the 24 th month or two years of age among young ones] usually undergo a particular pattern of speech. There are no more babbling or cooing patterns; but usually certain phonemes are still not fully established. The concept of determining words among these young individuals is now related not only to emotions or voice tones as they are already able to explore their surroundings. With books and aided conversational lessons, it could be understood how the toddlers are able to create connections from old learned words to newly discovered ones.

The establishment of correlation between one word towards another is also becoming evident as toddlers become involved in creating simple unstructured sentences. More like phrases, these forms of speech on the part of the young children is already a full presentation of their ideas. Parents, instead of expecting so much from their children at this age need to take into account to reward such communication patterns through trying to understand what they mean and give attention to what they actually want to happen. Pressuring them to give properly structured sentences might in some way hinder them from exploring language on their own.

It could be understood why at some point, Tom’s parents might be too anxious about the language development that their child undergoes. AS mentioned earlier, there are those who begin to speak clear words at the age of 18 months. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it is a common pattern for everyone else. There are those who take on the proper way of speaking specific words at the age of 24 months and they still do well when they grow older. While there is a pattern that language development intends to follow especially among young children, this does not mean that every child shall follow the same pace. There are those who might go faster and others who might go slower into the process.

The parents, being the primary mentors of the child, would not be able to help out in the process if they are to be as expecting as they are taking a closer look on how others develop. It should always be remembered that even the slower-developers in the aspect of language development intend to carry on good ways of comprehension and communication patterns as they age. What the parents must to is to simply assist the children through constantly conversing with them. Reading books aloud to them and allowing them to identify things that are familiar around them would help out as much as language programs would.

Tom’s parents should then be advised to be a little less anxious and view their son separate from the others. Observing him closely and trying to adjust to his way of speech and communication pattern might allow the parents to give the child a chance to develop a personal pattern of conversation that would work as much as the common communication pattern that others his age takes into account. Forming words and sentences should never be forced out of a child; development comes in naturally and a child who is guided accordingly would be able to accomplish language acquisition methods in a pace that best fits their brain development.

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5 Theories of Language Development: How Languages Came to be

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Main Theories of Language Development Takeaways:

• Language development is a slow process that starts during early childhood.

The most significant human invention is arguably language.

• The nativist linguistic theory postulates that every human being is born with innate language ability
• BF Skinner suggested that learning a language is like learning any new skill.
• Although there are several language development theories, they mostly focus on nature vs. nurture.

Any language boils down to a set of symbols representing sounds and grammar governing the system. But contrary to what you might believe, you don’t need to know grammar by heart to learn a language.

Grammar is the conventionalization system of a language, often wrongly distilled into a single word, “ rules.”  The word “rules” suggests a language should have a set of rules first, then people can speak it.

However, languages do not work this way. As a matter of fact, it’s the other way around. People collectively create the language, then come to the rules that describe it and conventionalize it.

Language is like a living creature. It grows, evolves, and changes over time. Grammar rules simply reflect the usage of language at a particular time.

Maybe no other person has manipulated the English language like William Shakespeare . But reading the Bard of Avon’s plays, you can come across many gross grammatical errors that average people don’t make.

Giving Shakespeare a break, there was no such thing as grammar back then in the way we think of it today. If you go back to the 16th century, you could hardly make sense of the English you hear.

Indeed, by learning grammar, you can develop an understanding of a language. But grammar can’t explain language development as a cognitive, social, and cultural phenomenon.

What is Language Development?

Language development is a slow process that starts during early childhood, allowing children to grasp the spoken word and communicate.

The emergence of language in human children comes after a period of significant development of the brain. This term also applies to the origin of languages and why humans developed language as a communication tool in the first place.

Language development is a vast field with contributions from various disciplines. These include linguists, anthropologists, archaeologists, geneticists, neurologists, and computer scientists, to name a few.

Today, the world is bustling with thousands of spoken languages. There are 7,111 to be exact and this number is constantly changing.

With less than living 1,000 speakers, 40% of languages ( 2,895 ) are considered “endangered”.

Thanks to language development, we can convey deep meanings. We can communicate complex ideas that help us construct the world around us.

Without language , civilization might not exist. There may not be science or art . Or, we may never have technologies or the Internet or Google!

Language Acquisition in Children

Usually, it’s an exciting event for parents when their child utters her or his first words .

Although we can’t know for sure when exactly the baby’s babbling turns into words with meaning. Soon, the baby turns into a chatterbox, starting to make sense of sounds and picking up new words used haphazardly.

Then, syllable by syllable and word by word, a substantial vocabulary accumulates, and a functioning language is readily accessible. It is also possible to master a second language and a third.

There might be no roof for the human brain in this regard.

Speaking of which, there is a lot of work to do regarding the understanding of the systematic mechanism of language development in the brain. That’s because we don’t know a lot about how the brain works in the first place.

But, what scientists do know is that a system of brain regions work together when acquiring and using language.

The angular gyrus, Wernicke’s area, the insular cortex, the basal ganglia, and the cerebellum are all involved in the language acquisition process. But it doesn’t stop here.

To read a word, you have to see it first, through the optic nerve and the visual cortex . When reading in Braille, for example, it’s the sensory cortex that gets involved. You can’t listen to someone speaking without the auditory cortex .

Most of us take the ability to acquire and utilize a language for granted. Yet, language is actually quite an amazing human faculty. It takes a good deal of neuronal and muscular activity to articulate or write a single word.

Read More:  What is the Shortest English Word?

Five theories of language development.

There’s no right place to start from when discussing the theories of language development. Many schools of thought have developed and influenced the history of language acquisition as an academic discipline.

Let’s get into five main theories and approaches that give us insights into the language phenomenon.

1. Daniel Everett’s Theory: Language Scratches the Communicative Itch

Picking up and using a language is something, inventing it from scratch is a whole another thing. Here come the homo Erectus !

The language phenomenon may not have started with us, homo sapiens .

According to linguist Daniel Everett , nearly two million years have passed since “homo Erectus” first started uttering meaningful sounds .

Homo erectus is considered the first human species, which also includes homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

These early hominins had big brains, walked upright, and were the first gatherer-hunters. They traveled in groups across the islands, and the ocean couldn’t get in their way.

The Erectus needed language because they had to communicate more complex ideas than just pointing to a mammoth to alert the hunting party.

“You need communication with symbols, not just grunts,” says Everett. “They accomplished too much for this to simply be the sort of communication that we see in other species without symbols.”

Settlement evidence found on the island of Flores, in Indonesia, suggests that the Erectus came together in groups — on rafts.

They crossed strong currents surrounding the island. For that, they had to paddle together and know when to stop. Homo erectus needed “words” to give commands and instructions.

Homo erectus had a vocal apparatus similar to gorillas, so they couldn’t make all the sounds we can make. Their linguistic capabilities were just enough to make them one of the most successful species to ever walked the Earth.

They roamed the face of the planet for over 2 million years. For as many as 350,000 years , we haven’t lived but about a sixth of the time.

2. Chomsky’s Nativist Linguistic Theory: Universal Grammar

Evertt’s work suggests that a language is a social tool that humans developed to communicate and share knowledge to solve problems. Linguist Noam Chomsky, however, thinks language is innate.

What is grammar ?

It is “The whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics.”

For Chomsky, who formulated the concept of universal grammar , language has a genetic component to it.

The nativist linguistic theory postulates that every human being is born with innate language ability. Pioneered by Chomsky, this theory suggests that a human baby’s brain comes to the world pre-equipped with language-learning systems.

Chomsky thinks there could be a single master language that served as the origin of all other languages.

A child comes to the world with the prerequisites for language learning. Namely, a built-in tool Chomsky calls the Language Acquisition Device ( LAD ).

This brain device allows the child to acquire linguistic abilities rapidly. Worth noting, Chomsky’s LAD is a hypothetical concept. There’s no brain region recognized as such by neuroscientists.

3. B.F. Skinner Behaviorist Theory

The innatist, or nativist theory, attributes the emergence of language as a neural mutation that occurred way back in a single individual. Everett thinks it was born from a more social necessity, slowly shaped by many individuals.

This means there’s no universal grammar shared between all languages and from which they take their linguistic cues. The notion of universal grammar and the innateness of the language faculty is also opposed to the behaviorist concept of language.

It’s American behaviorist and psychologist B.F. Skinner who developed the behaviorist theory of language acquisition.

This theory suggests that learning a language is much like learning any new skill through observation, imitation, repetition, errors, rewards, and punishments. Or what Skinner calls Operant Conditioning .

Behavior theorists posit that language development is a learned behavior. When babies first speak, they are trying to imitate the behavior of their parents and adults around them.

A language would develop as responses to stimuli from the environment. Hugging the baby for his or her first word is a reward that pushes them further on the learning curve.

Kids in school could get either rewarded or punished for their language learning acquisition process.

However, Chomsky isn’t a fan of the behaviorist theory because he claims it doesn’t address syntactic acquisition.

4. Vygotsky’s Social Interactionist Theory

The social interactionist theory is based on the work of Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky .

The basic notion of this theory is that language has a social origin. In that regard, it has some similarities with Everett’s model.

This concept suggests that the child, from birth, is continually engaging in social interactions , which allows him to develop higher cognitive functions, namely language, and thought.

According to Vygotsky’s social development model, socio-cultural interactions come first, then cognition and language development.

5. Piaget’s Constructivist Theory

For Jean Piaget , a Swiss psychologist, language is not only due to genetic predisposition or imitation

Piaget’s constructivist theory argues that language is constructed by following cognitive development. In other words, people develop their language skills and construct overall knowledge based on their own experience.

Beyond just language development, Piaget’s theory focuses on understanding the nature of intelligence itself. He defines four stages that cognitive development goes through:

• Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years
• Preoperational stage: 2 to 7 years
• Concrete operational stage: 7 to 11 years
• Formal operational stage: 12 and up

We have barely scratched the surface here. There are several other theories, each with its unique approach. Like languages themselves, thoughts on them may overlap and cross-fertilize.

What is the Maturation Theory of Language Development?

An American pediatrician, Dr. Arnold Gesell , introduced the Maturation Theory of Child Development in 1925. His theory focuses on how genetics influences development and other behavior.

Gesell believed that human skills — adaptive , motor , and language — develop and unfold naturally based on our biological makeup.

Be that as it may, he didn’t disregard environmental factors’ influences on a child’s development. However, the clinical psychologist was convinced that they were less influential than genetics .

So, Gesell focused his investigation on children’s physiological development — which he called maturation .

According to the pediatrician, the rate at which children develop depends primarily on their nervous system’s growth. And that includes the brain , spinal cord , and a complicated web of nerve fibers .

Gesell’s language acquisition theories about maturation propose that language development milestones occur between ages 40 weeks and five years.

• 0-50 weeks: A child produces meaningful sounds.
• 1 – 2 old: The child uses longer phrases and straightforward sentences.
• 2 – 3 old: The child begins to communicate in complete sentences.
• 3 – 4 old: The child uses language as a tool to expand their knowledge of the world.
• 4 – 5 old: The child has a basic mastery of the language.

Gesell also pointed out that children under the age of 10 are emotionally predisposed to learn a second or third language. And that’s because they still perceive language as fun at that stage of development.

How are the Theories of Language Development Similar and Different?

The psychological theories of language development have one thing in common. And that’s the focus on how genetics and the environment may have influenced language development. Indeed, researchers believe that language acquisition is partly inborn and partially learned through interaction. However, each language development theory places a varying degree of importance on nature and nurture.

For example, BF Skinner’s behaviorist theory focuses on how the environment influences language acquisition. Similarly, Vygotsky’s social interactionist theory highlights the impact of nurture on language development.

Daniel Everett’s theory, on the other hand, explores the genetic disposition of language development.

With that said, most theories of language development believe that language acquisition is a blend of nature and nurture.

Read More:  Why English Is Among The ‘Weird Languages’ Of The World

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Zayan Guedim

Trilingual poet, investigative journalist, and novelist. Zed loves tackling the big existential questions and all-things quantum.

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