1. Language

2. Language
Defining Characteristic of humans!
Developmentally it is amazing that they are born without knowing any words yet in a few years are fluent in a language.
Infants and children face an especially important developmental task with the acquisition of language

3. How Do Children Acquire Language?
Innateness theory of language – Children learn language mainly by following an inborn program for acquiring vocabulary and grammar
Steven Pinker believes that language is an innate human ability. It is instinct.
Steven Pinker and language acquisition

4. Noam Chomsky
He proposed that children are born with mental structures that make it possible for them comprehend and produce speech.
Language acquisition device (LAD) – Structure in the brain innately programmed with some of the fundamental rules of grammar
Lies in Broca’s area in the cerebral cortex.
It is not fixed but flexible

5. More Chomsky
Universal Grammar-The system of categories, operations, and principles shared by all human languages and considered to be innate.
Critical period- the idea that a child will be able to learn language from birth to about the age of puberty. (remember Genie?)

6. Language Development Chart

7. How Children Acquire Language
Early stages of language acquisition include the following:
The babbling stage
The one-word stage
The two-word stage
Telegraphic speech (short, simple sentences)
The naming explosion

8. Babbling
Infants have natural ability to perceive speech sounds and to produce language sounds
Comes form the vocal apparatus that is biologically adapted for speech.
“mamama”
Uses conversational rules
During this stage babies make nearly all sounds heard in all languages. However, learning will narrow to language the baby hears.
Example of conversational rules

9. Acquiring Vocabulary and Grammar
Children are excellent language learners!
Age words
Age words
One word stage: mama, dada, agua, me
Two word stage: “share me”
Telegraphic speech: more complex sentence structure. Ex: “Please share the cupcake with me”

10. Naming Explosion
18 mos. of age is when children’s word learning accelerates.
This stage is when children begin to acquire new words at a rapidly increasing rate.
Vocab. Spurt!
It then moves from naming objects to why and how. (describing what they do and how.)
Important cornerstone for judgment and reasoning.

11. Rules of Grammar
Grammar – The rules of a language, specifying how to use words, morphemes and syntax to produce understandable sentences.
Morphemes – Meaningful units of language that make up words
(ed, ing, un), Children make mistakes because they do not know how to apply rule.
Overregularization – Applying a grammatical rule too widely and thereby creating incorrect forms (e.g. using “hitted” and “feets”)

12. Other language Skills
Social rules of conversation includes taking turns talking, listening and making meaningful contributions
The use of abstract words (e.g. hope, truth) will develop overtime.