Language Development in Children - Literature review Example

 ABSTRACT This is an overview of one of the most important and influential theories of cognitive development which served as a springboard for all other intellectual theories in the years to come. This famous theory was researched and evolved by a French psychologist named Jean Piaget. According to him, there are differences between a child’s intellectual abilities and an adult’s intellectual abilities. Piaget’s monumental work greatly influenced the field of Education, Psychology as well as Philosophy. Language…2 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN Jean Piaget, a French psychologist first published his theory in 1952 which was recognized as one of the most famous and influential theories of cognitive development. It was Piaget’s theory of cognitive development that became the spring board for all other intellectual theories. Piaget believed that development took place in a child through inter action between the biological processes. He views the child as a “little scientist” who explores and experiments in the world around him. The first theorist to recognize qualitative differences between child and adult learning or intellectual abilities, was Piaget. “Children think differently than adults”. According to Piaget, the child is very much an active learner who passes through a two pronged adaptive/interactive process which includes “assimilation” which allows new information to be incorporated into the already existing cognitive structures called “accommodation”. Both these put together is what is called “Equilibration”. According to Piaget, the child develops qualitatively and quantitatively through the different developmental stages by each building on the previous one, towards a complex Language….3 group of “schemas” or knowledge. Though according to Lev Vygotsky, a Russian cognitive theorist who uses the metaphor “little apprentice” to describe a child’s learning, places the teacher in the central role who provides and supports all possible intellectual activities. Such cognition is exogenous or externally motivated. Perception and Cognition: Piaget’s theory focuses on the processes of cognitive development. According to him, a child has an innate curiosity which he uses to interact with his peers and other people he comes into contact with. Piaget maintained in his theory that children progressed through each of these stages in an “invariance sequence” that’s strictly in the same order (Sutherland, 1992). Though Piaget wrote about a four stage theory, but recently only three stages are recognized. The term “operation” is a key concept for Piaget and is defined as an internalized activity subjected to rules of logic. (Lefrancois, 1995) Pre-operational Thought: (2-7 years) At the pre-operational stage, the child becomes more capable of understanding the world around him. This stage has two sub-phases – Pre-conceptual Thinking – (2 to 4 years) At this stage the child lacks the ability to classify and regards similar objects to be somewhat identical. For example, all men must be “Daddy” and all animals are Language…4 “doggies”, all toys are his etc…A child in this age group cannot usually differentiate between apples and oranges but is extremely curious and constantly asks questions about everything he comes across in his environment. Intuitive thinking – 4 to 7 years) At this stage the child’s thinking becomes more logical and “perception” plays a major role now. “Egocentrism” or self –centered understanding dominates the way of thinking of an intuitive child and he is unable to understand the point of view of others. The dominant question asked here is “why?” Concrete Operations – (7 to 12 years) At this stage the child is able to think clearly, hold ideas or facts in this head while occupying himself with problem solving. Her “Lefrancois” tells us that the child starts his transition from "pre-logical, egocentric, perception dominated kind of thinking to a more rule-regulated thinking”. The child at this stage learns to acquire the logic of conservation. Formal Operations – (11/12 to Adulthood) This stage is characterized by abstract and complex logical thinking with a good ability at problem solving and as well as hypothesis formation. In education it has deep implications with its wide range of subjects and difficult logical concepts that have to be Language…5 applied at this stage. “The adolescent is now able to sift through a knowledge field in a process of combinational analysis” (Lefrancois, 1995). Jean Piaget’s monumental work has influenced various academic fields such as Education, Psychology and even philosophy. Even today, his empirical research serves as spring board for many contemporary theorists. Memory: (L. Vygotsky) The major factor in Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is that the fundamental role in the development of human cognition is “social interaction” and states that “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first on the social level, and later on the individual level, first between people (inter-psychological) and then inside the child (intra-psychological) This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals”. (Vygotsky, 1978, pg-57) The second aspect of Vygotsky’s theory of development is that it depends on the ZPD (zone of proximal development) where a child engages in social behavior. The more a child socializes and interacts with his peers and other people around him, the better are his chances of developing his language and memory skills. According to him, human beings have close correspondence between thought and word. A child is not able to correlate between the two before it is around two years old. After two years, thoughts Language…5 become verbal and speech becomes more rational. At this stage the child’s memory develops and he is able to correlate and remember things. Imagery: Imagery is fundamental to the process of thinking. Albert Einstein the great scientist used imagery as a base for all his problem solving and mental processes. He summarized the importance of imagery best when he said, “If I can’t picture it, I can’t understand it”. Therefore imagery plays a vital role in the learning of a language. The relationship of imagery and the ability to think forms the basis for Human cognition. The Cognitive Psychologist Allan Paivio author of the Dual Coding Theory (DCT) stated, “Cognition is proportional to the extent that mental representations (imagery) and language are integrated”. According to Dr. Paivio, the verbal and the visual information are processed differently and along different channels while the mind creates different representations for information that is processed in each channel. Therefore learning is more advanced when using the Dual Code Theory. Language development and Family: The family plays a major role in the teaching of a language to a child. The child doesn’t have to wait to go to Kindergarten to be able to learn a language because the learning Language…6 starts right here in the family. Loving and caring inter- actions between the parents and other family members are vital for a strong foundation in language development. This could be achieved by speaking a lot to the child and getting him to react, reading good story books, sharing toys, singing songs and pointing and naming different objects. Activities like drawing, painting and sticking pictures help in interaction and at the same time develops a child’s hand muscles and co-ordination, so that it becomes easier to write when the child becomes a little older and goes to school Other family members like grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and even teachers play a vital role in the child’s language developmental skills. A child’s language skills very much depends on the kind of language he listens to at home. Therefore it is very important on the part of the adults to check the language they use to a child. The skill that is developed at home forms the basis for all other aspects of the language a child would come across later. An atmosphere where the child is exposed to good language would help very much in the child becoming self confident, motivated and successful at school. First and Second Language: Obviously, language is part and parcel of human beings, without which we are unable to communicate with each other. It is therefore considered to be the most important tool that is used by man to communicate his thoughts, ideas, emotions and feelings. Educators and Language…7 Researchers today are faced with significant questions as to how humans can learn, manage and assimilate two or more languages at a time. Learning a second language is not as easy as learning a first language. There are major differences that occur in the process of language learning. One of the most striking facts of learning a second language is that a second language is learned in the context of the first language. The first language, which is most probably the mother tongue, is picked up very easily because all the people in the child’s environment, his parents and other family members speak and take a little trouble in passing down the language that they speak. Since the child is surrounded by people speaking the same language, i.e. the mother tongue, it becomes natural that he picks up the language quite easily without any strain or stress. On the other hand, learning a second language which is not the mother tongue o the child, could be much slower and a little more difficult for the fact it is more alien to him and he is not so familiar with its terms and grammar. Another factor that differentiates first language learning with second language learning is age. The younger a child, is when exposed to learning a language, the better and deeper are his roots of retention. Older children find it more difficult to learn a second language because of factors like self- consciousness, changes in motivation, the capacity to store input and then recall it back to mind and loss of ability to segment sounds of words. Another difference in learning two languages would be that the first language would be slightly affected when the child learns a second language. The learning of the first language would considerably slow down a little. Language…8 Evidence shows that the first language of a bilingual speaker is more slowly processed than that of a monolingual speaker. Becoming literate in any language is not only a complicated but a multifaceted task. Since children learn to speak their first language or mother tongue without any formal training, they find it easier to read in kindergarten because they have already been exposed to mastering the words, sounds, syntax, social nuances and grammatical rules of the language. Because of the universality of spoken language (Chomsky, 1959) theorized that language acquisition can only be explained by an inherent “language acquisition device” (LAD) They come to understand the mechanics of syntax and grammar, by first generalizing those rules. As they grow older children learn to refine their knowledge by listening and testing. Anyone who has learned a language through a course would be only able to tell you the rules of grammar in a language, but he is not capable of carrying on a full fledged conversation. Another difference in learning two languages is that culture and language are closely interwoven with each other and therefore the meanings and forms of words are reflections of a particular culture. For example in English we eat breakfast, lunch or dinner, while in Cambodia it just means to eat rice. Another word that reflects our culture is – in English we can carry something, while in Cambodia they have at least 15 words to express the action depending whether it is on the head, shoulder, a pole, in the hand, on the hip etc. (Source: Southeast Asia Community Resource Center, 1988) According to Naom Chomsky the linguist, a child is supposed to have an innate knowledge of his native language, without having to be taught the language. A child Language…9 speaks the native language with correct grammar usage without being taught the grammar of the language. But according to the Psychologist B F Skinner, he believed that children should be taught all aspects of the language. He says that unless we expose a child to the language, unless he constantly hears the pattern of the language can he experience normal language acquisition. When children learn a first language, there is little or no interference from any other language. But when he learns a second language, the rules of both the first and the second language interfere with each other and thus learning becomes slow. However, we can make learning easier by comparing and contrasting one language with the other, thus making us get a clearer picture of the second language. Therefore learning a language is easier when it is in the mother tongue and if learning a second language a lot of effort has to be taken by creating conducive situations where a child can interact with people and things in the environment so that he learns the language effectively and can use the second language whenever the need arises. References: Language development in children. http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/cognitive-development   Lefrancois, G. (1995). Theories of Human Learning (3rd Ed.). U.S.A.: Brookes /Cole. Sutherland, P. (1992). Cognitive development today: Piaget and his critics. London: Paul Chapman. Vygotsky’s Resources – Thought and Language Development- Review and Analysis www.webarchieve.org Social Development Theory – (Vygotsky) www.kolar.org/vygotsky American Scientist – The Second Tongue www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/15576 Second Language (Chomsky, 1959) www.csusm.edu/Quiocho/structuresecond.htm Read More