Linguistic and Literacy Development

in Children and Adolescents

Presented by:
Jona M. Lapasaran
• Objectives:
 Explain the natural history of language
development.
 Describe bilingual development.
 Classify the emergent and early literacy,
particularly reading development and
performance.
 Name the factors affecting language
development.
 Differentiate exceptional language development
What is linguistic?
 The scientific study of knowledge and its
structure, including the study of morphology,
syntax, phonetics and semantics.

What is literacy?
 Literacy includes the capacity to read,
understand and critically appreciate various
forms of communications including spoken
language, printed text, broadcast media and
digital media.
 Natural History of Language Development

Q: How did really the language of a child developed?

Answer: There is no definite or exact sequence on how a child can ac
quire language. But since the birth of child many psychology have
developed theories or studies that led to some information on how we
as children acquire language. As the studies were compiled and
revised, it eventually formed a framework basis for the study of
language development.

 Traditionally language development depends upon the principle of

reinforcement. The principle of reinforcement is a psychological
concept based on the idea that the consequences of an action will
influence future behavior. Rewarding behavior is considered
reinforcement, because it teaches the subject that the behavior is
desired and encourages the subject to repeat it. Punishing a
behavior in the other hand, teaches the subject that the behavior
is not desired and should not be repeated.
 Some learning theories believed that language is acquired by
imitation. It is an advance behavior whereby an individual
observes and replicates another’s behavior. It is also a form of
social learning that leads to the development of traditions and
ultimately our cultures. (Wikipedia, 2013)
 Natural History of Language Development

“Certain Language”-according to American neurological psychologist,

Lashley (Bean,1932), presents in most striking form
of integrative functions that are characteristics of the
cerebral cortex and that each their highest development in
human thought process.

• Noam Chomsky (1960) – language development which asserts

that children have an innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
that enables them to learn a language early and quickly.

 The LAD concepts is a purported instinctive mental capacity which

enables an infant to acquire and produce language.

Explanation: The Language Acquisition Device or LAD is part of

Chomsky’s acquisition hypothesis. The LAD is a system of principles
that children are born with that helps them learn language, and
accounts for the order in which children learns structures, and the
mistakes they make as they learn.
 Development of Language and Development of
Sounds Patterns

Osgood (1953)- pointed out that is nothing more than a complex

integrated series of skilled movements of the diaphragm, vocal
cords, jaws, lips and tongue, with air being driven through the varied
openings of appropriate moments and pressure.
 The very first sound produced by the speech musculature is the
“birth cry” the sound which announces the triumphant entry of
a baby into this world.
 Development of Language and Development of
Sounds Patterns

What is language?
 Is a system of symbols or word sequences that is used to
communicate with others.
 It is the communication of information through symbols arranged
according to systematic rules.

 Language development is a process starting early in human life,

when a person begins to acquire language by
learning it is spoken and by mimicry.

• Infants are equipped for language even before birth, partly due to
brain readiness, partly because of auditory experiences in the
uterus.
• Children around the world have the same sequence of early
language development.
• Newborns prefer to hear speech over other sounds, they prefer to
listen to “baby talks” the high pitch simplified and repetitive was
adults speak to infants.
• The sounds of human voice, whether familiar or strange always
fascinates infants.
 Development of Language and Development of
Sounds Patterns

 Language Development Milestones

 Here is what to expect at different ages from infancy until school
age in a typically developing child (one who is not advanced or
delayed in language development).
 First Year
 3 months: Makes cooing and gurgling sounds
 6 months: Babbles and makes sing-song sounds
 12 months: Babbles with inflection, which sounds like talking;
says first word
 At 18 Months
• Says eight to 10 words others can understand
• Has a vocabulary of about five to 40 words, mostly nouns
• Repeats words heard in conversation
• Uses “hi,” “bye,” and “please” when reminded
 At 2 Years
• Has a vocabulary of 150 to 300 words
• Uses two- to three-word sentences, usually in noun-verb
combinations, such as "Dog bark," but also using inflection with
combinations like "More cookie?"
 Development of Language and Development of
Sounds Patterns
• Refers to self by name and uses “me” and “mine”
 At 3 Years
• Uses three- to five-word sentences
• Asks short questions, usually using "what" or "where"
• Has a vocabulary of about 900 to 1000 words
 At 4 Years
• Has a vocabulary of about 1,500 to 2,500 words
• Uses sentences of five or more words
 At 5 Years
• Identifies some letters of the alphabet
• Uses six words in a sentence
• Uses “and,” “but,” and “then” to make longer sentences
 By age 6, a child's language begins to sound like adult speech,
including the use of complex sentences, with words like "when,"
for example. However, children tend not to use sentences with
"although" and "even though" until about age 10. 1
 Development of Language and Development of Sounds
Patterns

Acquisition of Meaning - the development of differential patterns of sounds is

not one altogether as “sheer play”” without any
attention to environmental consequences or extrinsic rewards
delivered from the outside.
- the child lends up with a pattern which conforms to that
of the adults around him, and this happens well before the child
really begins to speak.

The Role of Babble - it provides the opportunity for satisfying the prerequisites
for the learning of speech.
- the child has the ability to reproduce the sounds in his
repertoire whenever he hears those sounds produced by someone else.

Improvement of Speech – by the time children are two years old, most of the
prespeech form of communication they found so useful
during the babyhood have been abandoned.
- they improve their ability to comprehend what others
are saying to them.
 Development of Language and Development of Sounds
Patterns

 Two reasons why children has a strong motivation to learn to speak:

1. Learning to speak is an essential tool for socialization.
2. Learning to speak is a tool in achieving independence.

 To impose communication, children must master two major task:

1. Improve their ability to comprehend what others are saying to them
2. Improve their own speech so that others can comprehend what they are trying
to communicate.

Pronunciation of Words – Early childhood is normally a time when rapid strides

are made in the major tasks of learning to speak- building
up of vocabulary, mastering pronunciation and combining words into
sentences.
Vocabulary - Young children vocabularies increase rapidly as they learn new
words and new meanings for old words.
Sentences - three or four word sentences are used as early as two years of age
and commonly at three. After age three, the child forms six to eight
word sentences containing all parts of speech.
 Development of Language and Development of Sounds
Patterns

 Two reasons why young children speak better than children, age for age
did in the past:
1. Parents today, especially mothers, talk more to their childrenpartly
because they have more free time and because they recognize how important it
is to give young children opportunities to talk and to encourage them to do.
2. The more contacts young children have with their peers , the more e
encouragement they have to talk and the more models they have to imitate.

Content of Speech- the speech of young children is egocentric in the sense that
they talk mainly about themselves, their interests,
their families, and their possessions.

Amount of Talking – early childhood is popularly known as the chatterbox age

because they were able to speak with ease, many
young children talk incessantly.
 Development of Language and Development of Sounds
Patterns

Factors how much young children talks: (Hurlock, 1982)

1. Intellegence – the brighter the child, the more quickly speech skills will be
mastered and consequently the ability to talk.
2. Type of Discipline- children who grow up in homes where discipline tends to
be permissive, talk more than those whose parents are
authoritarian and who believe that “children should be seen but not
heard”
3. Ordinal Position – First born children are encourage to talk more than their
late-born siblings and their parents have more time to talk to
them.
4. Family Size – Only children are encouraged to talk ore than children from
large families and their parents have more time to talk to them.
In large families, the discipline is likely to be authoritarian and these
prevents children from talking as much as they would like to.
5. Socio Economic Status – In lower class families, family activities tend to be
less organized than those in middle-and-upper-class
families. There is also less conversation among the family
members and less encouragement for the child to talk.
 Development of Language and Development of Sounds
Patterns

Factors how much young children talks:

6. Racial Status – The poorer quality of speech and of conversational skills of
many young children may be due in part to the fact that they
have grown up in homes where the father is absent, or where family life is
disorganized because there are many children, or because the mother must
work outside the home.
7. Bilingualism – young children from bilingual homes may talk as much at
home as children from monolingual homes, their speech is usually very
limited when they are with members of their peer group or with adults
outside the home.
 Learning Words

Three (3) kinds of language Learning:

1. Conditioned-response learning - the conditioned response is the learned
response to the previously neutral stimulus. The
previously neutral stimulus will then evoke the response all on its
own. At this point, the response becomes known as the
conditioned response.
2. Rote-learning - is defined as the memorization of information based on
repetition. The two best examples of rote learning are the
alphabet and numbers.
3. Trial-and-error-learning - is a problem solving method in which multiple
attempts are made to reach a solution. 

Example :when the child wants a particular toy (let us say a ball) he may babble
any number of what appear to him to be appropriate sounds until he finally
receives his toy.
 Theories of Language Development

What is Language Development?

-Language development is a slow process that starts during early
childhood, allowing children to grasp the spoken word and communicate.

• Language development is a vast field with contributions from various

disciplines. These include linguists, anthropologists, archaeologists,
geneticists, neurologists, and computer scientists, to name a few.

• Infants are equipped for language even before birth, partly

due to brain readiness, partly because of auditory experiences
in the uterus.
 Theories of Language Development

Three Theoretical Perspective in Language Development:

1. The Innatist Theory/Innate Theory

-The Innate Theory (also known as Innatist Theory, Nativist
Theory, Rationalist Theory, Mentalist Theory)
of language acquisition was developed in the mid-20 th century (1959) by the
renowned American linguist Noam Chomsky.
-It emerged as a reaction against the Behaviourist language learning
theory and contradicted its model at almost every point of the basic structure
- He postulates that humans have an innate ability to acquire language
they are genetically preprogrammed for it.
-According to him language and thoughts are separate.
-He proposed that language exists in two levels; the deep structure and the
surface structure.
Deep structure- is the abstract meaning of the utterance
Surface stucture- actual utterance
 Theories of Language Development

Three Theoretical Perspective in Language Development

The theoretical assumptions underlying the Innate Theory are as

follows:

1. Language acquisition is innately determined; that is, children are

biologically programmed for language learning. They develop language in the
same way as other biological functions. They start to speak at roughly the same
age and proceed through roughly the same stages.
2. Children are born with a special ability to systematically
discover for themselves the underlying rules of a language
system. This special ability enables them to learn the complexities of
language in a relatively short period of time.
3. Environmental differences may be associated with some variation in the
rate of language acquisition.
 Theories of Language Development

Three Theoretical Perspective in Language Development:

2. The Cognitivist Theory
-the words cognition refers to the mental process of the brain associated
with thinking knowing and remembering.
-It was developed by a Psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

Question: What is Cognitive Learning Theory?

- It explains why the brain is the most incredible network of information
processing and interpretation in the body as we learn things.
- Cognitive learning theories are based on how people think
(Ormrod, 2008)
-key point of this theory is children learn by constructing their own
knowledge.
- Piaget believed that language is important for communication, but
communication is not of itself the acquisition of knowledge.
 Theories of Language Development

Three Theoretical Perspective in Language Development:

3. The Social Contextual Theory
- Vygotsky is the pimary proponent of this theory.
- Vygotsky placed more emphasis on social contributions to the process of
development.
- He focused on the connections between people and the sociocultural
context in which they act and interact in shared experiences.
- According to Vygotsky, humas used tools that develop from a culture,
such as speech and writing, to mediate their social environments. Initially
children develop these tools to serve solely as social functions, ways to
communicate needs.

-END-
 Questions
1. How did the language of a child developed?
2. What are the two reasons why children has a strong motivation to learn
to speak?
3. What are the three kinds of language learning?
4. What is language development?
5. What are the three theoretical perspective in language development?

THANK YOU