Developing speech

Vegetive stage (0-4 months): sounds of discomfort or reflexive actions

Cooing stage (4-7 months): comfort sounds and vocal play using open mouthed vowel sounds

Babbling stage (6-12 months): repeated patterns of consonant and vowel sounds

Proto words (9-12 moths): word-like vocalisations, not matching actual words but used consistently for the same meaning (sometimes called 'scribble talk'). 

Holophrastic/one-word (12-18 months): one word utterances

Two word (18-24 months): two word combinations

Telegraphic (24-36 months): three and more words combined

Post telegraphic (36+ months): more grammatically complex combinations

• LAD: Language Acquisition Device

• Believes that learning takes place though an innate brain mechanism, pre-programmed with the ability to acquire grammatical structures.

• Feels as though human language, although they seem different, share many similarities, which he describes as universal grammar

+   Children from all over the world develop a similar rate in similar rate in similar stages of           cccdevelopment 

Vegetative (0-4 months): sounds of discomfort or reflective actions

Cooing (4-7 months): comfort sounds, vocal play

Babbling (6-12 months): extended sounds resembling syllable like sequences, repeated patterns

Proto-words (9-12 moths): word-like vocalisations

Identified four categories for first words

- naming: things or people (60% of first words nouns)

- actions/events

- describing/modifying things

- personal/social words (8% personal/social words)

• Believed that language is acquired through social interaction, and this would seem true with lexical and semantic development .

• Children imitate and copy adults and, as they get either positive or negative reinforcements for their verbal behaviour, they are conditioned into using the right language

Labelling: linking words to the objects to which they refer, understanding that things can be labelled

Packaging: exploring the labels and to what they can apply. Over/underextnision occurs in order to eventually understand the range of word's meaning

Network-building: making connections between words, understanding similarities and opposites in meanings

• Believed are active leaners who use their environment and social interactions to shape their language.

• Linked linguistic development with an understanding of the concepts surrounding the word's meaning, suggesting that children cannot be taught before they are ready.

Sensorimotor (up to 2 years): the child experiences the physical world through the senses and begins classifying the things in it; lexical choices, when they appear, tend to be concrete rather than abstract. Object permanence develops - the concept that objects exist when out of sight.

Pre-operational (2-7 years): language and motor skills develop and become more competent. Language is egocentric - either focused on the child or used by the child when no one is around

Concrete operational (7-11 years): children begin thinking logically about concrete events

Formal operational (11+ years): abstract reasoning skills develop

One word/holophrastic (12-18 months): one words utterances

Two-word (18-24 months): two words combined to create simple syntactical structures. <subject + verb> <verb + subject)

Telegraphic (24 -36 moths): three or more words joined in increasingly complex and accurate orders. <subject + verb +object> <subject +verb + complement> <subject + verb+ adverbial>

Post-telegraphic (36+ months): increasing awareness of grammatical rules and irregularities. Instead of saying 'runned' using 'ran'

Stage 1: uses 'no' or 'not' at the beginning or end of a sentence

Stage 2: moves 'no'/'not' inside the sentence

Stage 3: attaches the negative to auxiliary verbs and the coupla verb 'be' securely 

• Believes that language acquisition is part of a wider development of understanding 

• He also believed that children will only acquire more complex forms of language when there intellectual development can cope - trying to teach children before they are ready will fail because they cannot grasp the ideas involved

• Language doesn't shape thought but that thought shapes language 

Conducted a study into children's pronunciation and morphological development. Part of this study was into the use of the - s plural.

The study involved:

- giving children a picture of an imaginary creature called a 'wug'

- the children where then asked what more than wug would be called

Berko found that three-quarters of the 4 and 5 year-olds surveyed formed the regular 'wugs'

She also conducted a study alongside Roger Brown in 1960 where they found that a child who referred to a plastic inflatable fish as a 'fis', substituting the s sound for the sh, couldn't link an adult's use of 'fis' with the same object.

The face theory proposed was proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, they suggested two main aspects of face in communicative interactions:

Positive - where the individual desires social approval and being included

Negative - where individual asserts their need to be independent and make their own decisions

Lev Vygotsky observed children's play and linked it to both cognitive and social development, young children often use props to support their play. Older children however use their imagination instead.

Vygotsky observed how children role-play adult behaviours as part of exploring their environment , which has interested more recent researchers.

Zone of proximal development 

This describes how adults and children work together to move children towards independence, knowledge and competence

Garvey did a study involving pairs of children playing and found that children adopt roles and identities, acting out storylines and inventing objects and settings as required in a role-play scenario.

Children play together it is enjoyable, but it also practises social interactions and negation skills, with players' roles and responsibilities often decided as they play. Sometimes called sociodramatic play, it involves both social and dramatic skills, with explicit rules and reflecting real-word behaviour.

LASS- Language Acquisition Support System: refers to the child's interaction with the adults around them and how this interaction supports language development.

Burner looked at ritualised activities that occur daily in young children's lives -mealtimes, bedtimes, reading books - and how carers make the rules and meanings of these interactions explicit and predictable so that children can learn.

Along with other researchers introduced the concept of scaffolding to refer to the ways adults help children advance cognitively. He observed that adults withdraw support as children's skills develop.

In 1974 Cruttenden compared adults and children to see if the could predict football results from listening to the scores, finding that adults could successfully predict winners by the intonation placed on the first team, but children (up to age 7) were less accurate.

Plosives: created when the airflow is blocked for a brief time - voiced b,d,g - unvoiced p,t,k

Fricatives: created when the airflow is only partially blocked and air moves through the mouth in a steady stream - voiced (thy sound) (leisure sound) - unvoiced f, (as in thigh), s, (as is ship)

Affricatives: created by putting plosives and fricatives together - voiced (as in judge) - unvoiced (as in judge)

Approximates: similar sounds to vowels - voiced w,r,j 

Nasals: produced by air moving through the nose - voiced m,n

Laterals: created by placing the tongue on the ridge of the teeth and then air moving down the side of the moth - voiced l

Deletion: omitting the final consonant in words - e.g. do(g), cu(p)

Substitution: substituting one sound for another (especially the 'harder' sounds that develop later, such as the f sound) - e.g. 'pip' for 'ship'

Addition: Adding an extra vowel sound to the ends of words, creating a CVCV pattern e.g. doggie

Assimilation: changing one consonant or vowel for another (as in early plosive sounds 'd' and 'b') - e.g. 'gog' for 'dog'

Reduplication: repeating a whole syllable -e.g. dada, mama

Consonant cluster reductions: constant clusters can be difficult to articulate, so children reduce them to smaller units -e.g. 'pider' for 'spider'

Deletion of unstressed syllables: omitting the opening syllable in polysyllabic words - e.g. 'nana' for 'banana'

12 months: 50 words

24 months: 200 words

36 months: 2,000 words

Categorical overextension: the name for one member of a category is extended to all members of the category e.g. apple used for all round fruits (60% of overextension)

Analogical overextension: a word for one object is extended to one in a different category; usually on the basis that it has some physical or functional connection - e.g. ball used for a round fruit (15% overextension)

Mismatch statements: one-word sentences that appear quite abstract; child makes a statement about one object in relation to another - e.g. saying 'duck' when looking at an empty pond (25% of overextension)

Present tense progressive: -ing

Prepositions: in, on

Plural: -s

Past tense irregular: run/ran

Possessive: 's

Uncontractible copula: is,was

Articles: the, a

Past tense regular: -ed

Third person regular: runs

Third person irregular: has

Uncontractible auxiliary verb: they were running

Contractible copula: she's

Contractible auxiliary: she's running

Instrumental: fulfil a need - e.g. 'want milk'

Regulatory: influence the behaviour of others - e.g. 'pick up'

Interactional: develop and maintain social relationships - e.g. 'love you'

Personal: convey individual opinions, ideas and personal identity - e.g. 'me like Charlie and Lola'

Representational: convey facts and information - e.g. 'it hot'

Imaginative: create an imaginary world and may be seen in play predominantly - e.g. 'me shopkeeper'

Heuristic: learn about the environment - e.g. 'wassat?'

Labelling: naming a person, object or thing

Repeating: repeating an adult word or utterance

Answering: responding to an utterance of another speaker

Requesting action: asking for something to be done for them

Calling: getting attention by shouting

Greeting: greeting someone or something

Protesting: objecting to requests from others

Practising: using language when no adult is present

Nativist: Humans have an inbuilt capacity to acquire language -Noam Chomsky, Eric Lenneburg

Behaviourist: Language is acquired through imitation and reinforcement -B.F Skinner

Social interaction: Child language is developed through interaction with adults-Jerome Bruner, Lev Vygotsky

Cognitive: Language acquisition is part of a wider development of understanding that develops -Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget