Language development in early childhood

Language Development in Early

ChildhoodAngel Mendez

Ale Monroy

Dmitry Olshansky

Vocabulary

• Between ages of 2-6 spoken vocabulary grows from 200 to 10,000 words

• First: FAST MAPPING

• Later: contrast new word to word they already know

Children will make guesses

• When do kids make guesses? • When do kids have biases? • Why do we care about these biases?

Role of adults:• Recast/model for kids • Expand • Listen attentively• Stimulate child to talk further

Mutual Exclusivity Bias

• 1990 study by Au and Glusman

• Mido / Theri

• Shape Bias - first several hundred nouns are refer to objects well-organized by shape

• Whole-object Assumption

2-3 years old: Mutual Exclusivity Bias is set aside

Various descriptions. Is the Child overwhelmed?

Age 3 and further: new properties start to make sense

• Colors: shows numerous objects that don’t belong to the same category but match in color

• Synaptic bootstrapping

• Distinction between an object and action on an object

Also by 3 years and further

• Meanings start to make sense (fish/tuna)

• By 4, differences in certainty/uncertainty in adult’s voice can help with designating meanings and naming objects

3 years: combing words they know to describe once they don’t

• Plant man

• Letter lady

• Garbage man

Child begins to use metaphors

• Clouds are pillows

• Time flies by

Grammar

• Between ages 2-3 English speaking kids use simple sentences that follow subject-verb-object word order

• Basic Rules:

1. Children look to adults as speech models

2. Up until ages 3-4 children apply subject-verb-object with the verbs they've learned

3. At this age they also master plural form, and some tenses and prepositions

4. Some children have problems with overregularization, which is the extension of grammatical rules to words that are exceptions.

Complex Structures

• Questions still remain a variable after ages 2-3

• Children at this age also have trouble with subject-verb agreement and subject-case

• By the end of the child's preschool years most the use of grammatical constructions are made but it's not until middle childhood that passive expressions are mastered and applied

Explaining Grammatical Development

• Chomsky's language acquisition device (lad ) assumes that kids have instinct on using grammatical rules.

• Experts believe that language is part of cognitive development

• Children use word meanings to figure grammatical rules this is called semantic boosting

Conversation

Pragmatics – the practical, social side of language, concerned with how to engage in effective and appropriate communication.

1. Role of Siblings

2. Adjustment of Speech

3. Highly demanding situations

http://youtu.be/_BMT6BfxR7w

Supporting Language learning

• Conversations

• Variety of grammar

• Read books

• Outings i.e. Museums etc.

Say Peanut Butter

http://youtu.be/w4GjPlR6BAE