The Biological Maturation Theory : George 's Language Development

Factors play a big role in everyone’s development; in Gavin’s development the two biggest factors were genes and the divorce. Gavin’s genes could have influenced his shy behavior. Being shy could have kept him from experiencing things that could have changed him in many ways. If Gavin had not been so shy then maybe his language comprehension would not have been continuously below average because he would have had more practice with the people around him other then his parents. The divorce may have also affected Gavin in a

A foundational aspect of all children’s learning is oral language. Communication orally entails the ability to include four components of spoken language to incorporate, and build on, a child’s vocabulary and grammar. These four elements consist of the phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic components. Development of a child’s language skills should form together resulting in literacy success later in life. In order to master the teaching of oral language, three strategies are used. These include, the use of open –ended questions, talking about sophisticated words and incorporating sociodramatic play in to lessons, which in the end, enhance expressive and receptive oral language skills. Fellowes & Oakley and numerous other literature sources explore the significance of oral language in the child’s development.

All language theorists acknowledge nature and nurture both play significant roles in children’s language development. However, the theoretical debate to whether nature or nurture is the dominant tool during a child’s language

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.

The purpose of this study was to identify pronounced deficits in the language of children with FASD. There were fifty children in this study. 27 of the children (10 female) with FASD, and 23 typically developing control children (9 females), ages 5-13. The children with FASD had been diagnosed with an alcohol related disorder. This study analyzes language in children with FASD in order to identify deficits and diagnostic measures for these deficits. Two measures were used to test the children on language ability: the Comprehensive Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test- Second Edition (CREVT-2) and the Test of Language Development- Third Edition (TOLD-3). The tests were administered and scored. There were no significant differences between the children’s results obtained from the receptive and expressive subtests. However, overall, children with FASD scored lower on the CREVT-2 than the control group. Children with FASD also had lower scores than the control group on relational vocabulary, sentence imitation, word ordering, grammatical comprehension, and malapropisms, which were tested in the TOLD-3 test. Research has been done on children prenatally exposed to alcohol, with and without FASD diagnosis. It is typical for these children to be delayed in fundamental language skills, acquisition, comprehension, speech development,

The case of “Genie” is a tragic look at the effects of child abuse and neglect on childhood development. Genie’s case was particularly extreme, as she lived the first 13 years of her life in isolation and confinement. With little to no human interaction throughout her entire life, she developed no language skills. Researchers were extremely interested in this case, as it gave them a chance to explore two theories of language development. One theory is Noam Chomsky’s view that children are born with an innate ability to learn and understand language. Chomsky termed this structure in our brain the “Language Acquisition Device” (LAD). An alternate theory by Eric Lenneberg stated that language development is a result of our environment, and stressed the importance of critical periods. Lenneberg believed that the critical period for language development only lasted until around 12 years of age, and inability to develop language during these critical periods would result in major deficits.

Although Jim did learn speech it became noticeably odd to others around him as he had developed his own, unique grammatical characteristics and his poor articulation meant he didn’t acquire normal language skills (Sachs et al 1981). Bruner suggests that this was due to lack of social interaction in his learning of speech, which again highlights the importance of nurture in promoting a child’s language development.

Norman Geschwind. According to Norman Geschwind (1984), this theory focuses on physical and mental development. It proposes that language acquisition is produced through the structures and functions of the brain. Since, certain regions of the brain play vital roles in language and literacy learning, damage to these regions may cause serious deficits in language. If a child suffers from a neurological problem, it is believed that the problem lies within the child (Nelson, 2010, pg. 58-59). This theory exemplifies Kathy’s language development because as mentioned in the case history, Kathy acquired a closed head injury at an early age when language development was still occurring. According to Rowe, Levine, Fisher, and Goldin-Meadow (2009) children with larger lesions in the

Everyday we are developing no matter our age, but it is how we develop children that will tell a tremendous amount an individual. How a child developments is fundamentally important at a young age as it affects all aspect of their lives once the child matures. Throughout the class, we looked at many theorists during the course of the semester as well as looked at many articles pertaining to the concepts of the development of children. The theorists and articles opened up our minds to a world that we have never seen before and concepts about child development we have never been taught but have seen in the practical work we do every week. What makes humans unique is the ability that we have to interpret the language being used, as Lois Bloom

Numerous theories try to explain the process of language acquisition. These theories fall into one of two camps. The environmentalist (or connectionist) theory of language acquisition asserts that language is acquired through environmental factors (Halvaei et al. 811). Theorists in this camp believe that a child learns language by gaining information from the outside world and then forming associations between words and objects. The nativist (or rationalist) approach, on the other hand, asserts that it is innate factors that determine language acquisition. Noam Chomsky, often described as “the father of modern linguistics”, falls into this camp as he believes that speech is the result of hidden rules of language that are hidden somewhere in the brain (Rahmani and Abdolmanafi 2111). Steven Pinker, a colleague of Chomsky, is a renowned psychologist, cognitive scientist and linguist who discusses his own theories on language acquisition in his book Words and Rules.

correct in the sense of the ability to learn language by a built in or

Early language development predicts the amount of vocabulary knowledge as the child develops and is a key factor that is linked with later academic achievement (Pungello et al., 2009; Weisleder & Fernald, 2013). Also, background factors must be analyzed and assessed, in order to understand how language growth differs from one child to the next. Exposure to speech is very important and helps influence early development of language and the processing speed (Fernald, Marchman, & Wielder, 2013 as cited by Weisleder & Fernald, 2009). A study done by Kwon et al., (2013), found that play has a significant effect on the language complexity for children’s language use pertaining to the structure of play or activity setting (free play), however the gender of the parent did not influence the language growth for the child. Furthermore, children are able to identify familiar words when speech is directed towards the child and not over heard, facilitated vocabulary learning at the age of 24 months (Weislder & Fernald, 2013). For example, over hearing adult conversation is not as beneficial towards the child’s vocabulary learning.

Most young children develop language rapidly, moving from crying and cooing in infancy to using hundreds of words and understanding their meanings by the time they are ready to enter kindergarten. Language development is a major accomplishment and is one of the most rewarding experiences for anyone to share with a child. Children learn to speak and understand words by being around adults and peers who communicate with them and encourage their efforts to talk.

Children encompass the ability to learn whichever language system they are introduced to, therefore a newborn would learn the fictional Klingon language (Hoff, 2006). Klingon is not a natural language such as English or Spanish, and does not adhere to all the rules of a natural language. Due to this issue, the child would encounter problems in saying everyday terms in Klingon. Also, since Klingon is a fictional language and not spoken in society the child would not be able to communicate with others, which may cause the child to reject this fictional language. This rejection may be related to the lack of acceptance of this fictional language in society. This could constrain the child’s ability to learn a new language in which he/she

According to Zukowski (2013), language development refers to the process of learning in early life where infants acquire various forms, meaning and word usage. In addition, language refers to the different utterances in regards to linguistic input. Language development in childhood focuses on major arguments in