Language and Literacy Development There

Language and Literacy Development

There are a number of factors that affect the readiness for an individual's acquisition and development of written communication skills. Both muscular and cognitive development must progress to a certain point in order to facilitate the ability to make meaningful communications through a written medium. For most children, the muscular development occurs first, with the ability to grasp a writing implement such as a crayon progressing to the drawing of scribbles, and to eventually to more purposefully formed though still awkward shapes. After this, the cognitive recognition of letters and the knowledge of their shapes and sounds are necessary for the progression of written communication skills. Such knowledge coupled with the motor abilities enabling the "drawing" of specific and intentional letter-shapes is what, by definition, constitutes writing.

Theorist and researcher Jean Piaget suggested that the reflexive knowledge all species appear to be born with leads, in humans, to the construction of certain adapted schemes of understanding and manipulating the environment. The continuing adaptation and adjustment of these constructed schemes make up the stages of cognitive development, according to Piaget's theory. The sensorimotor stage takes place during infancy, and is marked by purely physical and non-symbolic interaction with the world; the pre-operational stage, exhibited by toddlers and those in early childhood, language use develops and becomes more refined. The concrete operational stage is when logic can be used to understand manipulations of real-world environmental factors, and the formal operational stage reached in late childhood allows for abstract thinking.

At this early stage, it would be premature (and thus largely frustrating and futile) to try and spark concrete signs of language development -- neither the necessary muscle control for the mouth, voice box, and other physical structures involved in the production of language nor the cognitive development of the vast majority of six-month-old infants will be up to the task of producing language. Simply talking to the infant, naming objects and people as the infant views them or comes into physical contact with them (with the latter being preferable, as this is how infants process the majority of the information they receive at this stage of their cognitive development) can promote the development of the cognitive skills necessary for language development. Again, however, it is unlikely that evidence of such progress will emerge at such a young age or this early in the cognitive development process.

One piece of evidence that suggests there is at least some degree of "hardwiring" of language in the human brain is the fact that very similar mistakes are made in certain grammatical forms and syntax structures by early speakers of any language. There seems to be an innate sense of the way words are supposed to be formed and fit together, and instances that do not follow these expected/innate rules require greater learning and effort to surmount. At the same time, there is evidence that much of language is learned through interaction with parents. This means that maternal depression, which tends to reduce activity overall and can specifically reduce interactions with children, can have a detrimental affect on language development by limiting or reducing the exposure of these children to language use and interaction.

At early stages of development, current research suggests that there is little relationship between the language skills and self-esteem levels of specific individuals. As development progresses, however, and particularly as social groups become more important and students become more aware of the progress others are making and their own progress in relation to that of others, this situation can change drastically. Slower or lessened language development can result in decreased self-esteem, which can have a damaging cyclical effect by making students less willing to engage with others or with work meant to encourage the development of language and other cognitive skills. By providing emotional as well as academic support, teachers can boost self-esteem by making it clear that different rates and periods of development are normal, making it easier for students to accept their own particular pace of learning and development and thus actually helping them to develop.