Language Acquisition and discovering DisabilitieS

Link between Language Acquisition and Learning Disabilities

Language Acquisition and Learning Disabilities

The majority of us use language everyday, and have done for centuries, to communicate with others. The spoken word is a skill which has been developed to allow us to share our thoughts and feelings with others. It is hard to imagine a world without speech, as it is probably our most important tool for communication, but it is not the only one. I aim to discuss the significance of the spoken word, the process of language development, factors affecting language development and how such factors may be overcome.

Language acquisition is the method by which dialect develops in humans. The process of language develops in stages, and begins even before a child utters their first word. This is referred to as the paralinguistic phase, where a child has the ability to discriminate between various language sounds. By around eighteen months a child has a vocabulary of around five to twenty words, increasing to one hundred and fifty to three hundred words by around twenty four months. At four years of age a child will often talk aloud as he or she carries out activities, and will also have most vowels and consonants well established.

The first dialect acquisition comprises of the dialect development in children, while the second language acquisition also takes into account the development of language in adults. There are many theories which try to explain language acquisition, most referring to the importance of both biological and environmental factors, and how they intertwine with one another. Behavioural, nativist, cognitive and communal theories all aim on language development.

The soonest idea about dialect development presumed that children acquire language through imitation. Children who imitate the actions of those around them are generally those who also learn to talk more quickly, but imitation alone cannot explain how children become talkers. For example, young children will say "We goed to the park", they are very cleverly inventing the past tense of `go' based on the rules they have absorbed. Skinner, the Behaviourist theorist, suggested that children learn language through reinforcement. In other words, when a parent or carer shows enthusiasm for something a child tries to say, this should encourage the child to repeat the sound. Even although reinforcement may help, this theory cannot account for children's inventions of language. It can be argued that it is not just hearing language around them that is important, it is the kind of language they hear. It is also clear that babies need to hear language to develop this themselves. This point is of great importance in relation to young children with poor language experience.

Nativist theories explain that a child learns through interaction with others, and their natural ability to organise language. Early nativist theorist, Noam Chomsky, claims that children are born with an inbuilt Language Acquisition Device (LAD). He suggested that language then simply emerges as the child matures. This theory presumes that the ability to learn language is inborn, ...