English Language - Child Language Development

The cognition theory, formed by theorist Piaget, involves the idea that children need to understand a concept before they can use the language that is related to that concept. Examples include seriation and object permanence.

The behaviourism theory, formed by theorist skinner, involves the idea that children learn and develop language by imitation and positive-negative reinforcement.

The innateness theory, formed by Chomsky, involves the idea that children have a device called the LAD. This helps them know basic rules for learning and developing language.

The input/interaction theory, formed by Bruner, involves the idea that children need input and interaction from parents and carers in order to develop and learn language.

Seriation is the ordering of objects through size. Children need to understand the concept of size before they can use language related to size, such as superlatives (e.g. biggest).

Object permanence is a child's ability to know that objects continue to exist even though they can no longer be seen or heard and once they know objects still exist when out of sight, there seems to be a leap in pronoun-usage and name things more often.

Positive-negative reinforcement is the process where children will say something accurately and be rewarded (praise or attention) and if they say something wrong they are punished (corrected or mistake is ignored).

LASS stands for Language Acquisition Support System and is used in the input/interaction theory as interaction "scaffolds" children's language development. The LASS was a rejoinder to Chomsky's LAD.

CDS is the language used by parents and caregivers when talking to children.

The LAD is the Language Acquisition Device. It is believed to be an inbuilt device that contains the rules of their particular language.

Universal grammar is the theory that all languages share a similar grammatical structure under the surface. It is universal grammar that is in the LAD, as [proposed by Chomsky.

Virtuous errors are mistakes made by children, but that are used with underlying logic. For example, a child may say "runned" but means "ran". So the child has realised that "-ed" usually means a word is past tense and has used, just incorrectly for the time being.

The regression curve is a U-shaped curve that shows the basic progression of children's language.

The critical period is the optimal time when children need to learn and develop their language.

Genie was a "feral child" whose language development was stunted.

As Genie didn't receive much interaction or had no one to imitate it shows she the support of the interaction and behaviourism theories. It also shows that although she learnt some language later in life, she needed to learn during the critical period. It opposes the innateness theory, because she didn't learn language on her own with the LAD.

Jim was the hearing child of deaf parents. He was sat in front of a TV to learn language and didn't interact with parents vocally.

As Jim didn't receive much interaction until later in life, it shows he needed interaction to learn language (supports interaction theory). He learnt some language from watching TV, so the behaviourism theory is supported as he imitated to learn minimal language. The innateness theory is opposed as he didn't learn language using the LAD only.

The study of how morphemes are used to help create new words.

When an extra vowel sound is added to create a CVCV structure (e.g. dog becomes doggie)

When the last consonant of a word is left out. (e.g. cat becomes ca)

The repetition of particular sounds and structures (e.g. choochoo)

When one sound is swapped for another, easier sound (e.g. rabbit becomes wabbit)

When finding it difficult to produce consonant clusters, children will reduce them to smaller units (e.g. frog becomes fog)

It is the removal of an entire unstressed syllable from a word (e.g. banana becomes nana)

It is a process in which substitution occurs but the sound changes because of other sounds around it (e.g. doggie becomes goggie)

It is when the child speaks in utterances consisting of two or three words in a range of patterns (e.g. daddy go means where did daddy go)

It is when a child uses single words that relate consistently to identifiable referents (e.g. daddy)

When a child speaks in utterances using words that were previously omitted during the telegraphic stage (e.g. that baddy got eaten by the dragon)

It is the over-application of a grammatical rule; a form of virtuous error (e.g. adding -ed to words for past tense effect, so runned)