How Do children develop language

H O W D O C H I L D R E N
A C Q U I R E L A N G U A G E
A B D U L A Z I Z B A S S A N O S I
26/08/1437 Prince Sattam ibn Abdulaziz University Saudi Arabia 1

BEFORE WE START
• L1 = first language (native language, mother tongue)
• L2 = Second Language
• Acquire = to gain through experience
• Psycholinguist: a person who studies the psychological basis
of human language.
• Utterance: spoken sentence, phrase or clause.
•
26/08/1437 Abdulaziz B Assanosi azizsanosi@gmail.com 2

WARM UP
• How did we come to have speech abilities?
• A 4-year- old child can express himself with
comprehensible vocabulary and proper grammatical
rules.
• It takes long years for adult to master second
language?
• HOW DO CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE?
• This is one BASIC task psycholinguists try to explain.

CLASSIFICATION
• When we study language development, we separate
language into two distinct processes:
–Speech production
–Speech comprehension
• The study of development will be of two phases:
–Development of Speech production
–Development of Speech comprehension

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPEECH
PRODUCTION
SpeechBabblingVocalization

VOCALIZATION
•The crying, cooing and grunts that made by infants.
•They are similar to all infants, regardless of the surrounding
language.
•Even children who are born deaf make these sounds.
•They are unlearned.
•These sounds are called vocalization and they go on until
around the 6th month of age (on average)

BABBLING
• The second stage is babbling.
• After around 7th month, children make repeated syllables
(Babbling).
• Can be open syllables ( da da, ma ma)
• Closed syllable (banban . Bam bam)
• All consist of at least a consonant and a vowel.
• They are also universal.
• However there is an affect of surrounding language.

BABBLING
• They are universal because they are made of
many but not all speech sounds of world
languages.
–[sounds like ʤ, ʃ, Ɵ, ð, are involved in babbling.
–PROVIDE EXAMPLE FROM ARABIC?
• But they are different because they follow the intonation of
the surrounding language.
• So deaf children can vocalize, but they CANNOT babble.26/08/1437 Abdulaziz B Assanosi azizsanosi@gmail.com 8

SPEECH
•Occur around 1 year of age.
•Children use only some of the sounds they used in
babbling.
•There is order to the acquisition of speech sounds.
•Consonants are acquired from front to back.
•Vowels are acquired from back to front.

ORDER OF ACQUISITION OF SPEECH SOUNDS

SPEECH
•The order of acquisition is explained by:
•Visibility of articulators:
–Front consonants like (p, m, b, f, v) are made by lips and
teeth, children can see these articulators.
•Ease of articulation:
–Back vowel are easy to pronounce because the tongue is
relaxed when producing them, no need to movement or
shaping)26/08/1437 Abdulaziz B Assanosi azizsanosi@gmail.com 11

SPEECH
•There is discontinuity between babbling and speech
because:
•Babbling is not intentional, it happen by chance.
•Speech is random but match pre-listened model that
connected to objects or needs …etc.
•Babbling make children practice speech, but it is not
a continuity to it.

CHECKPOINT
• Name the three stages of development of children speech
production.
• Define vocalization.
• What are the features of vocalized sounds?
• Children who are born deaf cannot vocalize [ T or F]?
• BABBLING is affected by surrounding language [ T or F]?
• Speech is continuity to Babbling [T or F]?

CHECKPOINT
• Name some English sounds that are not likely to be used in
babbling?
• Explain the order of acquisition of speech sounds?
• What are reasons for order of acquisition of vowel speech
sounds?
• Babling is universal and it also different from one language to
other. Explain

SPEECH
•To produce comprehensive speech, children pass
through these stages:
morphemictelegraphicholophrastic
Naming

NAMING
•No final answer to the question (When do
children utter their first word because of:
•Individual differences.
•It is difficult to define what we mean by
[word]
•It is difficult to notice the first word
utterance.26/08/1437 Abdulaziz B Assanosi azizsanosi@gmail.com 16

NAMING
• First word should be:
–Recognizable speech form
–Related to object or event.
• Words with these features are uttered around the age
of 1 year.
• It is affected by:
–Brain development.
–Physical development.

NAMING
•First words of most children are
NOUNS.
•These nouns can used as proper noun:
dady for any man, mow for any cat or
any animal.
•Phone (for any rectangular device).

HOLOPHRASTIC STAGE
•Holo= [whole], Phras = [phrase or
sentence]
•Use of a single word to express complete
thought or a sentence.
•[mama] = [ I want my mother]
•Or point to a shirt and say [dady]to mean [
that shirt belongs to my father].

HOLOPHRASTIC STAGE
•In holophrastic stage children are very
inventive.
•They may use many holophrastics to point to
complex situation. [dady, go, car] my father
went by car.
•It is difficult to interpret holophrastic without
knowing the child, his surrounding
circumstances and his previous experiences.

TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH STAGE
•Two or three-word utterances made by children
to express full thought.
•Start around 2 years of age.
•Children do not develop rapidly from
holophrastic stage to two words utterances.
•It takes long to understand that two words are
better for communication.

FEATURES OF TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH STAGE
•Telegraphic utterances cover many purposes
and use many semantic relations.
•They are composed mainly of nouns, verbs, and
adjectives. No function words used.
•They follow the word order of their language.
[my cup NOT cup my] [mama go NOT go
mama]

CHECKPOINT
• What are stages followed by child to produce comprehensive
speech?
• What are the factor that affect first word production?
• Justify why it is difficult to determine first word utterance by
children.
• What are the features of telegraphic speech.

MORPHEMIC ACQUISITION
•After telegraphic stage, children start to use
function words (preposition [to], articles [the]
modal [can].
•They use also inflections like [plural –s], [past –
ed].
•This is called morphemic stage.
•Children acquire morphemes in the same order
regardless of the surrounding circumstances.
•See next26/08/1437 Abdulaziz B Assanosi azizsanosi@gmail.com 24

MORPHEMIC ACQUISITION
ExampleMorphemeOrder rank
Progressive ing1st
Plural s2nd
Past irregular3rd
Past ed4th
Copula be5th
Article6th
Third person7th

EXPLAINING MORPHEMIC ACQUISITION ORDER
• Ease of observability of referent:
–If the action or event of the morpheme is noticeable, it
is acquired earlier [e.g. present progressive vs. past].
• Meaningfulness of referent:
–If the morpheme is related to words used by child it is
acquired earlier [singular/plural] vs.[articles]
• Distinctive of the sound signal:
• If the morpheme sounds are distinctive they are
acquired earlier e.g. [ing] or [copula be] vs [progressive
be].

TERMINUS
• Explain why do children acquire morphemes in the
same order regardless of the surrounding
circumstances.
• Fill in the table below with the correct stage of speech:
Over 3 years
of age
2 – 3 years1 –year7th month to
12 months
2 to 6th month
………………….……………………………………………………………………………

ACTIVITY
•Draw an infographic [computer design with
information] to present the development of
speech production by children.
•Remember: speech stage has 4 branch stages.

THANK YOU
• This presentation is for classroom usage, it contained gaps to
be filled by classroom discussion. For more detailed
information, consult the reference book:
• An introduction to Psycholinguistics, second edition
(2006)Danny Steinberg and Natalia, Sciarini.

How Do children develop language

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