Development and Language How do babies learn to talk so quickly when learning, in general is difficult or at least time consuming? We will look at the following ideas: Behaviourism: Imitation / conditioning Cognitivism : Neural networks Chomsky : Universal Grammar Linneburg : Critical Period

Behaviourism Behaviourists say that all behaviours are initially random, and that only rewarded behaviours flourish. It is explained that children learn language by seeing others speak; children imitate what they are seeing. Don’t believe me? Ever heard a toddler swear or cuss? Where did they get those words from? Over time children amass a huge array of words and phrases through this process. As they age, then, children are only perfecting the language that they have attained.

Problems The problem with behaviourism is that if children really did learn language like this, it would literally take forever. Conditioning, imitation and rewards can’t explain how children pick up words so quickly. Also, how do you explain children creating their own words, “Worsted, Mostest.” Adults didn’t teach them those words (most of the time). Behaviourism doesn’t do a very complete job of explaining language acquisition. Also, if it is just a matter of conditioning, why is that older adults who didn’t learn language, can’t do it?

Cognitivist Theories In the world of the cognitivist, language develops because the child is performing highly complex calculations each time they are spoken to. How many times does a sound occur? What do these sounds mean? Are they connected with an object or action? What emotion is linked to this sound? All of these connections have to be counted (each time), and then a percentage likelihood is developed for each sound and – eventually each word.

Problems Of all the cognitive ideas, this one has got to be the most far out. That a baby (who has trouble keeping drool in it’s mouth) is performing complex mathematical computations in it’s head to gain some purchase of spoken language. It seems unlikely.

Chomsky and Innate Grammar Noam Chomsky was a linguist (not a psychologist), and stated that children pick up language so quickly that there must be some biological component to explain it. He theorized that children already “know” grammar, they just need to acquire their home dialect. For example: If you tell a child a sentence that has grammatical errors in it, they can tell you, “That doesn’t sound right.” If you ask them how to fix it, they may not know. How do explain that? Chomsky believed in a genetic explanation.

Problems If language is genetic, how do you explain things like Dyslexia or other non-brain injury caused reading and writing problems? Can you have a genetically perfect verbal speech pattern but a non-working physical portion to language? If language acquisition is genetic, why do some children lag behind or excel far beyond their peers in language, but seem age appropriate in other things?

Eric Linneberg The critical period. Linneberg believed that language had a window in early childhood where a subject must learn language. If language is not acquired, then it may be impossible to master language (but not impossible to get rudimentary communication) We see this most often with children who have been severely isolated during early childhood and never get passed much more than telegraphic speech (2- or-3 word phrases).

Problems Linneberg’s ideas seem to hold up. As the babies brain develops, areas of the brain that are not used, are pared away. Even though the language area of the brain is important to adults, if it is not being used, the brain may see it as “excess capacity” and pare it away. This would mean that when an adolescent or adult tries later on to learn language, they are in fact working with “less machinery” than an adult.

Eclectic Approach Like a lot of things in science, there must be some truth in all of these. Can you condition someone to learn something that you decide? Yes. Does it seem that people who don’t learn language by a certain time find it almost impossible to have competent speech patterns? Yes. But no ONE theory seems to answer all of the questions that we have about how and why language comes about.