CHILDREN'S EARLY LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Children's Early Language Development

Children's Early Language Development

Introduction

Perhaps the most distinguishing features of psychological approaches to the study of child language development are the assumption of underlying continuities between behaviours at different points in the lifespan, and the attempt to understand how interactions between the baby and the environment at one point in time make possible more elaborate interactions at some later point in time. A simple example concerns the question of continuities between early motor abilities, such as crawling and reaching, and later, more sophisticated abilities, such as walking and pointing. Needless to say, when developmental psychologists are studying language, the 'environment' includes not only the physical environment provided by objects and materials, but also the social environment provided by other people. (Chomsky 1965, 36-47)

In general terms, theorists take the view that it should be possible to examine the ways in which infants and young children interact with the physical world and with other people and to determine how they change as a result. The behaviour of even very young children is often highly complex, as for example, in the case of language.

Theories

Contemporary theories such as connectionism have attempted to solve some of the problems associated with the more traditional nativist and empiricist positions. Psycholinguists, studying the rapid and apparently effortless acquisition of language by ordinary children, have addressed two major issues: what are the patterns of growth and change which characterise a child's increasing mastery of language? And, second, how does such change come about? The first question may look relatively straightforward, for it simply involves providing a description of the changes in children's language and communicative skills during that period in which they are learning the language used by those around them. (Blank 1973, 52-75) But the complexity of the problem becomes much more apparent when one watches and listens to young children. (Chomsky 1968, 15-25)

One of the main foci of research efforts into children's language acquisition has been the elaboration of descriptive systems. Such systems have resulted in a clearer understanding of just what language is, and perhaps more importantly, they have resulted in a better understanding of the skills and abilities which are implicated in production and comprehension of language at various ages. (Brinker 1982, 110-135) This concern with descriptions of language is also of central importance for teachers, therapists and clinicians working in the area of language disability. There are two reasons for this. First, a detailed and comprehensive description of the course of normal language acquisition is essential for accurate identification and assessment of children who do not learn language in the normal way or at the same speed as other children. Second, planning and evaluating attempts to remediate language learning with these children will be better organised if teachers and therapists have a clear understanding of the patterns of 'normal' language development.

The question of how developmental change comes about has received rather less attention than the issue of what changes. Theories of language acquisition have very often gone hand ...