Nature And Nurture In Children's Language Development

There are 4 theoretical perspectives. The different theoretical perspectives vary in their focus on the role of nature and nurture as well as the emphasis on one or more of the five aspects of language knowledge. Throughout this chapter, the focus will be on recognizing how nature and nurture interact and can be related. It provides a framework for understanding the complex ways children develop language as they interact with people and objects in their environment, school and home

Language is very important for one’s development because it can affect other areas of development and is critical to a child’s future success. For many other aspects of development, including cognitive, social and psychological language is very necessary. Language occurs before the baby is even a month old. For a developing child, the biggest thing that will contribute to our eventual language development is what we hear. Very soon, as a young infant, we demonstrate a sense of language just by simply the noise, movements, and expression that we make. Within the first year of life the baby is already babbling and speaking a hand full of words in their native language. Also they are much better at comprehending simple words spoken to them around

Nature and nurture both play a significant role in language development. Language development refers to how children understand, organise, speak and use words in order to communicate at an effective, age-appropriate level (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). For centuries, theorists have been debating the roles of nature versus nurture. Although, each child’s language will develop at their own pace and there will be many individual differences based on culture, ethnicity, health and ability. As well as physical, social, emotional and cognitive development in which will contribute to a child’s language development.

Lifespan development is a field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire life span. The purpose of field being that one can determine the average maturation levels both physically and mentally in humans being born today (Feldman, 2006). This paper will delve into the human development of a twenty-one year old fictional character named Sara Jones, in a way that is similar to people who are living today. Sara’s life will be explained and discussed from prenatal development through newborn and preschool up until middle childhood and adolescence. Although she is a fictional character her stages of development will be presented in a way that is probable for a young

The debate between many researchers is the argument of whether nature or nurture play a more important role in development. In this essay I will be looking into both aspects of nature and nurture focusing specifically on their influence towards language development in children. A main controversial question I will be looking into is the question of whether are we born already equipped with mechanisms which help us to learn language, or is language learned throughout a child’s environment by, for example, imitation and repetition? Studies done by some opposing researchers claim to show that nature and nurture promote language development

At the age of 3 months we see early signs of phonology; children will turn their heads, and stop crying once hearing parent’s voices. They indicate contentment and amusement by smiling, and repeating sounds (e.g. cooing). (Berk, 2003). In addition babies 4-7 months notice new sounds such as the telephone. They also respond to “no” and changes in tone of voice. Early sound discrimination skills are beginning to emerge. At 6 months of age, long before they are ready to talk, babies start to organise speech into the phonemic categories of their own language. (Berk, 2003). Semantics develops at the age from 8months-1 year old as they respond to sounds such as doorbells and telephones. And begin to babble repeated consonants and vowels. The Nativist theory states that language acquisition is a biological phenomenon such as the child’s ‘inner clock’ theory and any role play between child and carer and by the environment is something less important, which theoretically means that nature will take its course and the child will develop its own

Unlike a parrot that imitates the familiar and continues to repeat the same things again and again, children’s imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning. But imitation and practice do not account for how children learn all aspects of their native language. The behaviourist explanations for language acquisition offer a reasonable way of understanding how children learn some of the regular and routine aspects of language. However, their acquisition of the more complex grammatical structures of the language requires a different sort of explanation and we shall consider some of the

The critical period of child language acquisition remains of most interest, as this is where the brain is most malleable and receptive to change – however, later language development will also be addressed. Interpretations of findings and results in this essay stem from a nativist

In the other hand, behaviorists view language as complex and leaned skill, much like playing piano and dancing. B.F. Skinner argued that language represents nothing more than chains of responses acquired through reinforcement. Putting differently, children learn though process of reinforcement. For example, baby babbles “mama” the mother happily reward the baby with a hug and kisses and eventually will push the baby to say “mama” more and more; due to these reward children are motivated to repeat the behavior, thereby shaping their language and ensuring their development. Children’s language is being built up, this describe a way in which children environmental experiences influence and improve their language skills. Also that’s why parents

The consensus belief is that the capacity for language is innate, while others believe its environmental variables play a deciding role. In the end, it boils down to the nature versus nurture debate. Does the environment we are exposed to or our genetics’ play a larger role?

There are many different variations of language, language that is seen, such as sign language, body language and written language, then there is the language that is heard, such as people speaking. There are over 7,000 spoken languages in the world alone without taking into consideration nonverbal languages. For adults and children alike, this can be overwhelming because in each language there are different behaviour patterns, different registers, different age groups and what is acceptable in one language may not be considered acceptable in another such as how close is too close to stand to someone else. For children who come from families whose first language is not English, this is even more difficult when trying to live somewhere that doesn’t predominately speak their first language, which is just one of the many differences people have to be aware of when considering diversity. This essay will examine the different environmental and circumstantial factors that may influence the development of children and the role that language can play in their lives as they grow, such as what and who children are exposed to, positive and negative influences such as adults and other children and the lifelong impact these surroundings have on the child.

It is easy enough to quickly decide whether you believe in the nature or nurture debate when talking about child language acquisition, yet it is extremely important to decipher which theories are correct or not, this is what I will be looking at.

From a baby 's first word to their first complete sentence, there 's a lot to debate with their language development. The average child has a vocabulary of up to six-thousand words by the time they turn five years old (Brighthubcom, 2016). Language development is one of the most critical roles for an educator in both early childhood and primary settings. It is this ability of language development that is particularly interesting in the nature vs nurture debate. In order for educators to provide effective communication, it is important that they have the knowledge and understanding of the four key concepts of language, such as phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic development and the underlying theoretical perspectives that explain the processes of language acquisition and development.

Language is a means of communication that people use to interact with others in society. Generally, language comprises vocal sounds to which meanings have been assigned by cultural convention and often supplemented by various gestures. (Sharma, 30) For any 'normal' person, language is no longer viewed as a tool to acquire: language is placed as a standard and basic skill, almost being considered given at birth. Such an idea about language is reasonable when taking into account how the development of speech and language is acquired in early childhood. But as a rule, such a 'standard and basic' process of language development is only relevant to 'normal'

Hi Tom, there are many theories that try to explain that how children develop their language skills. From my perspective, I believe that early theories have provided a good understanding of children and their progress. In early theories, the environment was said to greatly influence a child’s learning and also played a major role in child language developments. According to Skinner, “children learn language based on behaviorist reinforcement principles by associating words with meanings. Correct utterances are positively reinforced when the child realizes the communicative value of words and phrases. For example, when the child says ‘milk’ and the mother will smile and give her some as a result, the child will find this outcome rewarding, enhancing the child 's language development” (1).