Language Development in Infants and Toddlers - Essay Example

Language Development in Infants and Toddlers Semantic Knowledge Semantic knowledge is that which tells a child the meaning of a word through the useof facial expressions or utterances (Otto). Infants can be taught what are good and bad things by making facial expressions. For example, hold something that can be hurtful like a fork or a knife, and make a hateful facial expression and speak to him, “This is baaaaaaaad”. Now hold something good like an apple or a toy, and make a happy expression while telling him that the thing is good.

Similarly, for toddlers you can do the same activity by teaching him complex adjectives like heavy and light, beautiful and ugly, wide and narrow, shallow and deep, by pointing out such objects for him and making utterances. For example, lift a heavy suitcase and utter, “Ooooooh! How heavy it is”, and he will grasp the idea that big things are heavy. Morphemic Knowledge Morphemic knowledge teaches children the word structure (Otto). For infants, it is a very good activity for the parents to read stories to them at bedtime.

My mother used to tell fairytales to my brother when he was an infant and he always seemed to respond with his goo-goo, and he would fall down to sleep very quickly. I remember that he had started talking much earlier than any of us siblings. A similar activity for toddlers can be hearing from the toddler at night how he passed his day. He would make a story of it and would also make mistakes, like saying, “I drinked milk”, instead of “I drank milk”, but the parent should repeat the corrected sentence instead of interrupting him, like saying, “Oh really you drank milk!

” Doing so will teach him morphemic knowledge. References Otto, B. (2007). Literacy Development in Early Childhood. Reflective Teaching for Birth to Age Eight. USA: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.