Language Development
Please make sure you have completed this unit's readings before coming to Seminar, especially the article, "The Language Use Inventory for Young Children: A Parent-Report Measure of Pragmatic Language Development for 18-47-month-old children" by O'Neil. Be prepared to answer the following questions:

Notes from O'Neil Article (O'Neil, 2007):

Researchers studying young children's pragmatic development have focused on a wide range of topics and ages. Longitudinal studies that have concentrated on children's earliest gestural and verbal communicative intents have demonstrated that children begin as early as 9 to 10 months of age to use their gestures and vocalizations for such pragmatic functions as requesting, labeling, answering, greeting, and protesting

No standardized test (observational or stand-alone parent report) is currently available that is specifically designed to assess toddlers' and preschool children's (i.e., under age 4 years) pragmatic language competence.

How does screening link to follow up assessments?

The LUImay also provide a measure to equate children….

his study hoped to prove that these implants were in fact, beneficial for the development of language in young hearing impaired babies.
Dependent Variables:

he Dependent variables consisted of the actual four-month-old infants who were being implanted with the device. he infants were then assessed for their language development periodically after their implantation. hey were tested at 6, 12, 18, 24, and 32 months of age.

Measures/Scales used:

With the framework that language development occurs as the child gets older, the researchers formulated a model which gave predicted scores according to test analysis. hese scores were then compared to each individual infant's scores.

Statistics/Analysis Used:

hese comparisons were analyzed through using a "to-way repeated measures analysis of varience," (Svirsky, 2000). ANOVA provided workable information to formulate a conclusion.

Results/Conclusions:

Results showed that the infants all still lagged behind in compared to the development of language seen in normal infants, all infants implanted with the cochlear device show….

English Language Learning (Native Speakers)
Stage/Age

Language Overall

Phonology

Morphology

Syntax

Semantics

Implications on reading and writing

Practical Approaches

Birth -3 mo.

Cries, responds to tone, attentive to special sounds, and begins to vocalize.

eflexive and diverse cries, coos and gurgles.

Verbal play, some consonants, laughing.

No understanding

Sounds or intensity as opposed to meaning.

Music and talk to child

Double syllables, MAMA, tunefully vocalize

Vocalizes pleasure and pain; initiates speech, reproduces babbles.

Increased sounds and imitation

Very little understanding

Truck red; hungry eat, etc.

Use of words and instructi8ons, jargon and jabber before frequent

Imitates some words, asks questions using intonation, vast improvement in tone and sound.

Stage I morphemes; nomination,

Most language is noun based, finger pointing, usually sentences are 2 words.

Action + Agent, Agent + Object, etc. (Daddy is laughing, I push the truck)

Very imitative stage

Show pictures of nouns and ask questions

2-4 years

Talks to self, asks questions, begins using sentences, large amount of vocabulary acquisition

May omit some phrases or parts of phrases, uses final consonants most of the time fewer omissions….

Devel
Language skills are fundamental to child social and psychological development, because language provides the means by which children learn about the world and other people. Parents impart language skills cues to their children by teaching coded and decoded messages. Some parental messages are encoded subtly, as with emotional responses. For example, Paulson, Keefe, & Leiferman (2009) found that parental depression impacts the reading habits of parents, which in turn impacts the reading habits of children. Parents who read regularly to their children, but who also solicit a two-way dialogue, promote more advanced reading skills in their children vs. parents who only offer one-sided conversation (Zimmerman, et al., 2009).

Furthermore, language shapes the child's social identity construction and conceptions of reality. The importance of language in social identity construction and reality construction is evident as early as infancy (Hoff, 2012). Identity becomes a salient feature of language development as children get….

Language Development in Normal Cases: A Chronological Sequence In normal cases, “babies and children, irrespective of the country in which they are born, all follow a similar pattern of development” (Tassoni, 2007, p. 44). The broad language development stages highlighted by Tassoni (2007) are the pre-linguistic stage and the linguistic stage. Below, I discuss the chronological sequence of the said stages, as highlighted by Tassoni.
A: Pre-Linguistic Stage
6 Weeks – Cooing
In this stage, pleasure is expressed by way of making cooing sounds.
6 - 9 Months – Babbling (phonemic expansion)
This stage is marked by the making of tuneful sounds by way of blending of consonants and vowels. Examples of sounds made include, but they are not limited to, da, ma, ta.
9 - 10 Months - Babbling (phonemic contraction) and Echolalia (repetition of syllables in words)
At this stage, babies produce a more limited range of sounds. The said sounds also start becoming a reflection….

These results are quite striking considering that the mothers come from non-professional backgrounds and had no more than 12 years of schooling on average. Another study on low-income mother-child dyads shows that the rate of vocabulary production is also positively influenced by early exposure to diverse words. In particular, children whose mothers consistently used more varied vocabulary had faster and more linear growth in child vocabulary production between 14 and 36 months than children whose mothers consistently used less varied vocabulary (Pan et al., 2005). These findings support the contention that maternal speech quality has powerful benefits in child language acquisition.
A striking feature of the vocabulary development studies recently described is the presence of a loving, supportive environment in which they occur. In other words, the benefits of qualitative and quantitative vocabulary input can be fully realized if they occur in the context of instructive and helpful interaction. For….

Nature-Nurture and Language Development
The development of language in an individual is considered as an antecedent from the cognitive ability that is found to be enacted from the genetic structure which helps in the retention and effective utilization of language in the early stages of life. However, the external stimuli with respect to culture and environment also play an effective role in the language development. Moreover, the application of language development program in the computers and machines has provided the evidence for the co-existence about the phenomena of nature and nurture for the learning capability.

ole of nature in the process of language development

ole of nurture in the process of language development

Computer Generated Speech and nature-nurture debate in human language development

EFEENCES

ole of nature in the process of language development

The progressive process of language development provides individuals with a way to communicate and express their thoughts either verbally or nonverbally, however, the language….

Education -- Oral Language Development
Oral language development has the five stages of Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics. All five stages are vital to appropriate oral language and reading development. Furthermore, each stage has its own characteristics and methods for supporting proper development in children of varying abilities.

Matrix -- Stages of Oral Language Development

STAGES OF ORAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Stage

Description

Utterances

Support

Phonology

1st stage of development; single-syllable sounds that children use to learn pronunciations and form dialect (Net Industries, n.d.; (Tompkins, 2002).

Cooing and babbling (Center for Early Literacy Learning, n.d.),

Speaking and otherwise vocalizing in response to cooing and babbling in order reinforce the cooing and babbling and encourage more vocalization from the infant (Center for Early Literacy Learning, n.d.).

Morphology

2nd stage of development; simple words are used to form sentences; increasingly uses more complex words and sentences with root words, prefixes, suffixes and punctuation (Net Industries, n.d.; (Tompkins, 2002).

"Mommy drive."

Eventually, "Mommy driving" (Stowe, n.d.)

Using "foldables" and….

The ability to learn and recall information when it is needed is essential for virtually every human activity, so it is important to develop a better understanding concerning how young children differ in this capacity compared to older children when formulating interventions to facilitate this process (Silva & Britto, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the relevant literature concerning these issues as well as what interventions have been proven effective in improving memory recall in different age cohorts. Finally, the paper provides a summary of the review of the literature and key findings concerning how young children differ from older children in their ability to recall information in the conclusion. How do young children differ from older children in the ability to recall information?
On the one hand, the world in which very young children live is one of magic and wonder, and countless novel events….

Language and Thinking
Language is the one aspect, which distinguishes human beings from lower species of life (Faccone et al. 2000). Sternberg (1999 as qtd in Faccone et al.) lists its properties as including communication, arbitrary symbolism, regular structure, structure at multiple levels, generation and production and dynamism. Sternberg assumes that language is most likely acquired naturally from the environment where a person is raised as an infant. The stages seem universal. The first is the cooing stage at two to four months. At this initial stage, an infant seems able to produce and possible phonemes or basic speech sounds. An infant's need to distinguish between phonemes of different languages gradually disappears around 8 months. This is when he recognizes the relationship between sound and meaning in his native language. This is how language begins to have importance to him. The findings of Sternberg's study reveal that human beings are born….

Language Autism
Language and children with autism:

Sources of cognitive deficits

Deficits in language development are one of the most commonly-noted, early signs a child may be autistic. Autistic children often fail to meet appropriate developmental milestones in language. High-functioning autistics or individuals with Asperger's Syndrome usually do not show developmental delays in using language, but may communicate in an inappropriate manner. "Autism is diagnosed on the basis of three primary areas of impairment: social functioning, language and communication, and repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests or activities...esearch on autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders suggests that the social and communication impairments are unique and specific deficits, that define the autism phenotype" (Tager-Flusberg 2006).

The extent to which social and communicative impairments in autism are interlinked remains hotly debated. It is generally agreed upon and noted by researchers and parents alike that there is a wide spectrum of difference in terms of language deficits….

Language and culture are inextricably linked. The ways in which one's culture is directly attributed to language development are well documented in the academic literature, though there seems to be little consensus on the processes involved in language acquisition and the ways that culture is manifested in both socialization and language development. One assertion, however, seems widely accepted; culture is a learned attribute that language helps convey to others. Because people use language to impart cultural beliefs and societal mores, the nexus between language and culture is an important consideration in the field of education and communication, especially concerning the varied pedagogical theories of child development. Much of what has been studied in the field of both communications and education concerning the connection between language and culture is attributed to a ussian born educator named Lev Vygotsky.
Lev Vygotsky

Vygotsky believed that children developed and acquired knowledge through the assistance of competent….

Initiating joint attention related to activity in the frontal-cortical system, especially the left hemisphere and responding to joint attention to the parietal lobes. Heimann et al. (2006) found that that deferred imitation and joint attention both influence the development of language and communication skills in infancy. Deferred imitation at nine months was the strongest of the predictors of nonverbal communication at 14 months, but the predictive power increased significantly in situations when deferred imitation and joint attention were used together.
ecently studies have been conducted with other areas of cognitive behavior. For example, de Villiers (2007) has been looking at the association of language and what he calls Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind refers to the folk psychological theory humans use to predict and explain others' behavior on the basis of their internal workings: feelings, intentions, desires, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and point-of-view. In other words, people have to create….

Pinker maintains that evolution follows a branching, rather than linear pattern. Many species develop concurrently, each with their own survival instincts. Humans, and their survival instinct of language, are just one branch of the evolutionary process rather than a pinnacle rung.
Holding the belief that we can, or might someday communicate with animals creates empathy, which leads to humane treatment of animals. A belief that animals cannot communicate with us due to inferiority leads to a sense of dominion over them.

This is also a pattern of belief and behavior that is seen with regard to humans who are perceived to have inferior languages or grammars. They are somehow less human, and therefore less deserving of humane treatment.

Pinker states that it is ridiculous to attempt to teach human language to animals. They are not biologically configured for human speech or sign. They have no need for human language as a survival….

language of Geoffrey Chaucer and its relationship to the development of English
In both literature and language, Geoffrey Chaucer made an important contribution to the development of English. In terms of the development of the English language his works and their popularity are related to the importance of the Midland dialect. This dialect formed part of the Mercian dialect of Old English, which was to assume significance due to the fact that it,

developed into centers of university, economic, and courtly life. East Midland, one of the subdivisions of Midland, had by that time become the speech of the entire metropolitan area of the capital, London, and probably had spread south of the Thames River into Kent and Surrey. "(ibid)

This form of the English language was disseminated and popularized partly by poets in the 14th century -- including Chaucer. In essence the works of Chaucer therefore added to the prominence of….