Child Language Acquisition

0-4 months - Vegetative - sounds of discomfort and refelctive actions.

4-7 months - Cooing - comfort sounds / vocal play using open mouthed vowel sounds.

6- 9 months - Babbling - repeated patterns of consonant / vowel sounds.

9 -12 months - Proto Words - not making actual words but use of vocalisation for the same meaning, accompanying gestures.

12-18 months - Holophrastic - one word utterances.

18-24 months - Two Word - a two word combination.

24-36 months - Telegraphic - three and more words combined.

36+ months - Post-Telegraphic - grammatically complex combinations.

1) Labelling 

. associating sounds with objects

. linking words to things

. understanding the concept of labels

2) Packaging 

. explores the extent of the label

. under / over extension occurs frequently 

3) Network Building 

. making connections between labels

. understanding opposites / similarities, relationships and contrasts

Piaget

Argued that children needed to understand a concept before they could use the language terms that referred to that content. 

Vygotsky 

Viewed language as having two seperate roles, one for communication and one for the basis of thought. He saw language in this second role as being a very helpful tool for developing understanding and believed that language and thought become very closely related after a relatively short time. 

1) Nouns 100%

2) Adjectives 92%

3) Main Verbs 87%

4) Pronouns 72%

5) Modal / Auxilary Verbs 56%

6) Suffixes 44%

7) Articles 39%

8) Verb 'to be' 33%

Method

Showed children pictures of ficitional charatcers named 'wugs'.

Children were then shown a picture of one creature and were told "this is a wug", they were then shown a picture of two wugs, followed by them asking to complete the sentence "now there are two...".

Findings

Children aged 3-4 replied 'wugs', applying the rule of plural endings ('s') whereas those who were younger could not. 

1) One / Two Word Stage : Questions rely on intonation. 

2) 2nd Year : Children acquire question words (who,what,when,where,why)

3) 3rd Year : Children begin to use auxilary verbs, although order can sometimes become confused.

Ursala Bellugi 

1) Child uses 'no' or 'not' at the start or end of a sentence.

2) Child moves no / not inside the sentence.

3) Child attaches the negatives to the auxilary verbs. 

- Crystal added to the theory that children develop pragmatic understanding of negatives which they learn from adults. When parents don't want to be in direct disagreement with their children they use 'maybe' which children learn.

Ursala Bellugi 

1) Child uses their own name.

2) Child recognises the I / me pronouns and these are used in different places within sentences, subejct pronoun (I) and object pronoun (me).

3) Child uses them according to whether they are in the subject or object position. 

Instrumental - language used to fulfil a need on the part of the speaker.

Regulatory - language used to influence the behaviour of others.

Interactional - language used to develop social relationship and ease the process of interaction.

Personal - language used to express the personal preferences and identity of the speaker.

Representational - language used to exchange information.

Heuristic - language used to learn and explore the environment.

Imaginative - language used to explore the imagination.

Labelling - simply identifying a person, object or experience.

Repeating - echoing something spoken by an adult speaker.

Answering - giving a direct response to an utterance from another speaker

Requesting Action - demanding food, drink, a toy, assistance etc.

Calling - attracting attention by shouting.

Greeting - self evident.

Protesting - objecting to requests.

Practising - using and repeating language when no adult is present.

. Used to attract and hold the baby's attention. 

. Helps the process of breaking down language into understandable chunks.

. Makes the conversation more predicatable by keeping up the conversation in the 'here and now' and referring to things the baby can see. 

Babbling

- higher pitch and exaggerated intonation and stress, frequent use of the child's name and an absence of pronouns.

Holophrastic 

- name and adjective, developing description, absence of past time alongside fewer verbs, modifiers but more concrete nouns.

Two Word

- questionning and commanding and repeating simple sentences.

Telegraphic

- repetition and partial repetition of words with grammatical fine tuning.

Skinner

'Children imitate adults', their correct utterances are reinforced when they get what they want or are praised.

Limitations

- language is based on a set of structures or rules, which would not be imitated.

- developmental milestones aren't affected by changes in background society and culture.

- children are often unable to repeat what an adult says.

- parents are more interested in politeness than grammatical correction. 

LASS - language acquisation support system.

He looked at ritualised activities that occur daily, which parents make predictable, teaching turn-talking and formulaic utterances in addition to LAD.

He suggested language behaviour of adults is specifically adapted to support the acquisition process.

Suggesting the turn-talking structure is developed through games and non-verbal communication before actual words are uttered.

He then emphasised that the social nature of learning, citing that other people should help a child develop skills through the process of scaffolding.

Scaffolding - involves helpful, structured interaction between adult and child to help achieve a specific goal. 

Up to 6 years old - Preperation - basic motor skills are acquired alongside some principles of spelling.

7-8 year olds - Consolidation - writing is similar to spoken language.

9 - 10 year olds - Differentiation - awareness of writing as seperate from speech emerges, a stronger understanding of writing for different audiences and purposes is evident and becomes more automatic. 

Mid Teens - Integration - heralds the 'personal voice' in writing and is characterised by evidence of controlled writing, with appropriate linguistic choices being made consistently.

Observation / Comment - the write makes an observation, and follows this with either an evaluative comment or mixes these in with the evaluation. 

Recount - usually a chronological sequence of events that follows a set pattern, Orientation - Event - Reorientation, the orientation sets the scene and the reorientation is at the end, completing the writing. 

Report - a factual and objective descripstion of events or things, tends to not be chronological.

Narrative - a story genre where the scene is set for events to occur and be resolved at the end, it too has a set pattern, Orientation, Complication, Resolution, Coda, the coda however is not always added.

. Size and proportion                        

. General layout                        

. Direction of lines                             

. Degree of connection, attention and broadness

. Covering of space

. Speed of writing

. Regularity and forms of letters

. Angle of writing

. Decoration and distortion

. Pressure and spacing

1) Drawing

2) Letter-like forms

3) Copied letters

4) Child's name and strings of letters

5) Words

6) Sentences

7) Text

Stage 1 : Scribbling Stage - random marks on the page and writing is accompanied by speaking.

Stage 2 : Mock Handwriting Stage - writing and drawings, produce wavy lines (understanding lineation) and cursive writing. 

Stage 3 : Mock Letters - letters are seperate things

Stage 4 : Conventional Letters - involves writing the name as the first word, usually putting letters on a page but unable to read it.

Stage 5 : Invented Spelling Stage - child spells in the same way they understand the word, spelling their own way.

Stage 6 : Appropriate / Phonetic Spelling Stage - attach spellling with sounds.

Stage 7 : Correct Spelling Stage - able to spell most words. 

. sound clues, sounding out the word to stress the sounds and seperate syllables.

. a clue from the word's meaning to make links with similar words.

. writing it down until it looks right.

. using grammtical knowledge to predict spellings.

. a dictionary or computer spell-checker.

Doubling consonants - e.g breezzy

Spell phonetically - e.g ment

Stressed and unstressed letters - e.g nife

Vowel combinations - e.g coulourful

Suffixing and prefixing - e.g liveing

Initial letter - e.g Ingland

Pre-phonemic - imitate writing, mainly scribbling and using pretend writing, some letter shapes are decipherable.

Semi-phonemic - link letter shapes and sounds, using this to write words.

Phonetic - understand that all phonemes can be represented by graphemes, words become more complete.

Transitional - combine phonic knowledge with visual memory, an awareness of combinations of letters and letter patterns. (magic e rule)

Conventional - spell most words correctly. 

Deletion : children will often simplify pronunciation by deleting certain sounds e.g sleep = seep, snake = nake, banana = nana

Substitution : another form of simplification involving substituting harder sounds with easier ones e.g rock = wock, toe = doe, pig = big

Reduplication : occurs in the repetition of a whole syllable e.g mama, dada

Addition : adding an extra vowel sound to the end of words e.g horsie, doggie

Understanding : understanding helps to develop langauge faster than the ability to pronounce things, e.g Berko and Brown's plastic fish

Proposed all languages have 'universal grammar' which is part of their 'deep structure'. 

Children have an inbuilt LAD which enables them to extract the rules of language from the words and structures they hear.

LAD = language acquisition device

All children go through similar stages at around the same time, supporting the idea that language acquistion is innate.

Chomsky pointed to the "poverty of stimulus" that children recieve, meaning the quality of the langauge they hear from parents / carers isn't high enough for them to simply copy it and produce 'correct grammar', arguing it can't be mimicked or an imitating exercise.