Language Development in Early Childhood - Essay Example

Language Development in Early Childhood Introduction Purpose for the Paper Language development is an important aspect of a child’s growth especially during his or her early days. This paper serves to explicitly explain the development of language in a child who is between two to four years In an analysis of a child’s language development, several factors will be taken into account. This analysis will also help in learning the new ways of listening to and understanding the child’s language, thus, enhancing the application of language development concepts learnt in class. The whole study would entail studying the child’s social setting and his interactions with other people. A variety of methodologies will be used in data collection to ascertain the child’s language development. The mode of data collection chosen will depend on its suitability at a particular point in time. For example, it may be used for future reference purposes. The methods would range from observation, interviews, use of questionnaires, experimentation, simulation and use of panels. For this particular case study we are going to dwell upon two approaches, namely: interviews with the child’s parents and observation. The child to be studied is called Jerry and his mother who at times spends time with him while he is not in school is Mary. Child Background Characteristics and Social Context Jerry is a child whose social settings comprise school environment and while not at school he stays at home with his mother and his elder brother, Peter. During his earlier days of language development, his mother noted very peculiar language development abilities that were not clearly witnessed in Peter while he was young. Jerry’s language development was very quick and could master words at a very fast rate. He talked very much with his brother while at home even though his words were not that clear. He mixed his talk with a lot of signals and gestures. This was to help him clearly send his message to the concerned parties; either his mother or brother.. Whenever Peter said any word or sentence, Jerry would always imitate him and this was an encouraging aspect that his mother always told Peter to be telling him to repeat his (Peter’s) words in order to help him master such words. At the same time, Mary also held various sessions with Jerry on language development. She always dictated words to him upon which he was supposed to repeat such for like five times. The mother, always mentioned words like ‘da-ddy, pa-pa, mu-mmy’ while pointing at the persons to whom the words always referred. Jerry was therefore given time to repeat the same while pointing at the same persons and it was observed that no mistake was done at all after several repetitions. This prompted Mary to give him other tests involving the use of television sets and computers. With the television, he was allowed to listen to a news anchor after which the mother muted the volume and gave him time to repeat the anchor’s statements. At first or second instances, he made mistakes prompting her mother to repeat to him the phrases and on the fourth instance, he made no mistakes. He was at the same time allowed to use gestures to explain further his understanding of the message that was being put across. The television sessions continued with breaks given for meals. Even during meals, he was still given practices on new words especially on the names of all sorts of food that was prepared on a particular evening. This, the mother said was to help broaden his vocabulary, a task which he also undertook so well. While at school, the mother said that his teacher praised Jerry for his good mastery of words. He was rated as the best pupil in mastery of syllables and new words. The teacher normally groups the pupils together to practice on use of specific words. This is normally done outside and within a classroom setting. In the fields, one of them normally shouts a given word, for example, ‘run, sit, jump, kick the ball and stop.’ Each one of them was to do that severally in response to the dictation and on such occasions Jerry still outdid his peers as per the teacher’s assessment of his ability. In classroom, they were given tasks in mastering sound like the consonants and the vowels. They were at the same time allowed to use words and phrases like ‘help, feel bad, hungry, sick, want sleep,’ in case they had any problem. The teacher also encouraged them to raise their hand as a sign of an issue that was not clearly understood or writing on the board that was not clearly visible. All these helped to enhance the children’s language development abilities and Jerry was no exception. Child’s Language Abilities Phonological Development Sound is fundamental in language learning. The majority of children have to learn to differentiate various sounds and to segment the speech they hear into various meaningful units so as to acquire words and sentences. For the case of Jerry, the infant gets interested in word play, rhyming and alliterations. This development continues till the first years of school where he gets to tap out the number of syllables in multisyllabic words. Jerry is also able to break the plain consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) syllables up into their components (beginning and rhyme). The onset consists of all consonants preceding the syllable’s vowel and the rime is composed of the vowel and all the following consonants. For example, the onset of the word ‘dot’ is /d/ and the rhyme is /ot/. He is able to differentiate between the non words /fol/ and /fir/. He mostly likes or favors sounds that end or start with /f/, but the child gets into difficulty if the beginning of the syllable has a consonant group like /fr/ or /fl/, for example ‘frame’ and ‘flame’. Furthermore, the child is not able to tap out the number of phonemes (individual sounds) in a word (Otto 26). Therefore, it was discovered that Jerry became aware of the syllables as units of speech early on, but do not show awareness of individual phonemes until school age. This is because learning to read gives a visual assistance on breaking-up words into their smallest constituents and individual sounds cannot be easily translated into beats. Semantic development Language development starts early in human life as one begins to acquire language by learning it through spoken word and by imitation. Infants start without knowing language and the language development moves from simple to complex. At two-to-four years of age, Jerry undergoes different stages of language development. Here, he can comfortably recognize the correct pronunciation of familiar words. The child would repeat the first consonant-vowel in a multisyllable word like ‘TV’ for ‘didi’. He can also delete unstressed syllables in a multisyllable word like ‘Canada’ for ‘nada.’ The pronunciation and phonological awareness is improving. Vocabulary grows into many hundred words and he is able to learn a lot of new things quickly. The vocabulary will mainly consist of object words (nouns) and action words (verbs). Besides, the child will have difficulty using words correctly, though he is able to coin words to fill for words not yet learned. He can also understand metaphors. Syntactic Development Jerry starts to form two-word sentences, for example ‘where food’, meaning: the child is asking for food. The world class utterances are mainly nouns which are usually accompanied with a limited set of functional words. The child also starts to construct words together in threes, like’ daddy rides bicycle.’ The word order rules emerge and he also starts combining more words and develops the elements of each sentence. He begins using words with certain endings like the plural morpheme, the past morpheme and the possessive. The use of active and passive vocabulary increases, for example there is an immense increase from about three hundred words to about one thousand words. One of the major features of this stage is that it takes place without being noticed or without direct instruction from the parent or the teacher. Pragmatic Development Pragmatics is a term used to define the intentional use of language to interact with other people. It entails use of gestures, facial expression, eye gaze and body posture. The main components of this stage are as follows: Assertions: Jerry will generally talk about an activity that he has undertaken or is yet to complete in the presence of his parent. He does this basically to confirm the main ideas or purposes of the activity and to review the sequence of a given task. For example, after he has done a simple task that to him was given by his mother, the child decides to repeat the whole process to his mother orally. His mother assesses if he mastered what he was required to do in that exercise. For example, Mary asks him to repeat a phrase like ‘I eat bread and tea.’ Jerry upon repeating this phrase severally never lets his mother down as he perfectly repeats this with no hitches. Callings or Summons: Jerry will beckon his teacher or parent to come and assist him. He can also do this to show his full participation in a given process and the person being gestured to should be at some further distance. For example, Jerry raises his hand and beckoned the teacher to come and help him sharpen his pencil, a task which he could not perform. Request for Objects. During a certain event, a child may be in need of some items that he may need to use during his class work. For example, he might need a pencil in order to undertake some art work. His was seen when Jerry asked for a remote from his brother Peter in order to help him mute a television volume. Denials: This will occur when the teacher does the exact opposite of what the child asks for or expects. For example, Jerry asks for a pen and the teacher gives him a razor blade, he vehemently denied this by telling the teacher to give him a pen. Request for information: The child might seek information about an assignment given by the teacher especially on a part that he does not clearly understand. He will need further clarification on that subject for him to proceed with the task. This was evident when Jerry asked his teacher to elaborate to him the meaning of a diagram that a teacher drew and he did not understand the theme of the diagram. Stated information: This entails telling by someone something new to him. For example, a child may be requested to go home and illustrate to his parents what he learnt during the day at school. Jerry’s teacher asked to go and explain to his mother what they did on a particular day and told him that his mother should sign on his book to ascertain that the message what correctly captured. Request for Actions: This will occur when a child may need some help from the teacher or the parent. For example, Jerry once found it difficult to open a classroom window and therefore he did not hesitate to ask for help from the teacher. The teacher responded very quickly and helped him. Therefore, a child’s language development forms a major part of the child’s life cycle as a whole. It must therefore be treated with due seriousness so that the child is nurtured to be a person with a good language capability. This will help the child communicate better with his or her peers or older people as speech normally forms an important aspect in one’s dignity. Jerry’s case was a clear testimony of this as he underwent a thorough language development process at home and at school. This formed his major language development settings Work Cited Otto, Beverly. Language development in early childhood. N. J.: Upper Saddle River, Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2002. Print. Read More