5
Science Photo Library/SuperStock
Language and Cognitive Growth
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to accomplish the following objectives:
• Describe the basic stages of brain development, and explain how it affects language development.
• Describe the role of language in the formation of concepts and categories.
• Explain the role of language in memory growth.
• Explain how language development affects learning, and identify characteristics of children’s
early learning.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 111
10/26/12 11:24 AM
CHAPTER 5
Pre-Test
Introduction
B
y the time Katya’s mother, Martine, knew that she was pregnant, Katya’s brain was
already starting to develop. When Katya was born, her brain weighed approximately
2 pounds, or a quarter of her birth weight. While her brain had all the capacity to
develop into an organ of near-infinite learning, her environment would greatly influence
the course of that development. Martine and Katya’s father, Jeffrey, were not focused on
brain development per se, but everything they did for their newborn served to build the
neural pathways essential to brain growth. Healthy food, sleep in a quiet environment,
and a home filled with music, games, and brightly colored objects—all served to stimulate
the brain growth necessary for cognitive development. This chapter describes how the
infant brain develops, beginning before birth, and its role in cognitive and linguistic development in infants and toddlers. After examining the interrelationship between language
and cognitive development, we go on to identify six characteristics of children’s preschool
learning that serve as guidelines for planning curriculum for early childhood education.
Cognitive development refers to the way in which thought processes develop in the
brain. Long before they begin to speak or even appear to understand language, children
have begun to develop cognitively. Cognitive growth and linguistic growth are tandem
processes—some would even say “codependent” or “interdependent” processes. As children gain experience of the world around them, they begin to develop a larger memory
capacity and to organize their world into categories that will eventually become concepts.
Words and concepts are closely related. When a child learns the word dog, the name of
an object, she has a tool for learning what things are included or excluded from the category dog. If she uses dog to refer to a cat, someone will correct her, and she will have one
more piece of information for building her concept. So it is with all word learning. From
the time children begin to acquire language, their ability to conceptualize is enhanced, as
is their memory capacity. Words, and language in general, provide convenient tags that
allow young children to store and retrieve information. Being able to conceptualize and to
store and recall those concepts are essential to learning.
Before we can talk sensibly about cognition, though, it is necessary to consider the development of the organ that makes it possible—the brain.
Pre-Test
1. The plasticity of the young brain
a.
b.
c.
d.
makes it less susceptible to environmental influences.
requires that young children have particular genetic markers.
occurs within a critical period of development.
is a controversial theory.
2. A concept differs from a category in that a concept
a.
b.
c.
d.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 112
is a group of entities.
is a single entity.
is a cognitive organizer.
combines related elements.
10/26/12 11:24 AM
Section 5.1 Brain Development
CHAPTER 5
3. Which of the following is NOT a reason for developmental improvement in
memory?
a.
b.
c.
d.
gains in memory capacity
better focus on which material to remember
improvement in use of strategies
increases in amount of material to remember
4. Which of the following is a characteristic of early learning?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Learning precedes in a predictable way.
Genetics heavily influence learning.
Learning is rooted in socialization.
Adults are responsible for children’s learning.
Answers
1.
2.
3.
4.
c. Occurs within a critical period of development. The answer can be found in Section 5.1.
b. Is a single entity. The answer can be found in Section 5.2.
d. Increases in amount of material to remember. The answer can be found in Section 5.3.
c. Learning is rooted in socialization. The answer can be found in Section 5.4.
5.1 Brain Development
A
t birth, the infant brain is about 25% of its eventual adult weight. It has already
grown in utero from a tiny plate, which by the fourth week after conception has
closed into a neural tube to form the brain and the spinal cord. First to form are the
brain stem structures that will control reflexes and basic motor coordination—the eventual
ability to crawl and to stand, for example (See Sequence of Brain Development). At this point,
the brain is forming brain cells, or neurons, at the rate of 250,000 per minute. At 5 weeks
gestation, the two lobes have formed, and the brain continues to form neurons. By the time
a child is born, most of the neurons are already in place. Brain development, however,
also requires the creation of
neural connectors, or synapses, and most of these are
formed after birth. At birth,
there are approximately 2,500
synapses per neuron, but by
the age of 2 or 3, it is around
15,000 per neuron, more than
the brain will ever use. Therefore, another aspect of brain
development is the pruning
This illustration shows the three major stages of brain development
of unneeded synapses and
in a fetus.
cells. Pruning refers to the
discarding of unused cells
Dorling Kindersley RF/Thinkstock
and continues to some degree
throughout life.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 113
10/26/12 11:24 AM
CHAPTER 5
Section 5.1 Brain Development
Sequence of Brain Development
The human brain develops from bottom to top—from brainstem (1), which develops in utero, to the
midbrain at the top of the brain stem (2), followed by the limbic brain, which is the inner central portion
of the brain (3). Finally, the outer layer of the brain, the cortex (4), develops. These areas are identified
in Figure 5.1.
The least complex functions—breathing, most reflexes, and most sensory capabilities—are the responsibility of the brain stem. The cortex is responsible for the higher cognitive functions. Much of human
brain development occurs after birth over the course of many years. This longer period of development
means that the cortex has many years to grow, hence its greater volume. The cortex can also be influenced by more environmental factors.
Figure 5.1: The structure and functions of the human brain
4. Cortex:
Reasoning, abstract
thinking, logical thought.
3. Limbic system:
Emotional attachment,
affect, long-term memory.
2. Midbrain:
Appetite, large motor
activity, waking-up response.
1. Brainstem:
Most basic survival functions
such as heart rate, blood
pressure, breathing.
This figure shows all of the major areas of the brain and their functions. Which ones do you think
contribute to language development?
The Critical Period
Although brain development continues through adulthood, the major difference between
brain development in a child and an adult is a matter of degree. The child’s brain is far
more impressionable, or “plastic,” in early life than in adulthood. This plasticity means
that young children’s brains are far more susceptible to enriching influences and to learning than are adults’, but it also means that they are more vulnerable to the influences
of unfavorable circumstances—poor nutrition, lack of sleep, or lack of mental stimulation and emotional security. This time when the brain is most impressionable, before the
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 114
10/26/12 11:24 AM
Section 5.1 Brain Development
CHAPTER 5
plasticity ends, is often referred to as the critical period for brain development. In fact, it
would be more accurate to refer to critical periods or windows of opportunity since different areas and functions of the brain appear to develop at different times. For example,
there is a critical period for the development of normal vision. From the time they are
born, infants need normal visual input in order to develop acuity, or the perception of
fine detail, and binocular vision, or the coordinated use of both eyes, which is necessary
to develop depth perception. If a child is born with a strabismus, more commonly known
as “lazy” eye, or with crossed eyes and the condition is not corrected early, the ability to
develop depth perception is threatened.
There is little doubt that environment is extremely important during the first year of life. A
British team studying Romanian children adopted into English families before the age of
4 concluded that they showed significant intellectual gains after adoption, although those
who showed the most improvement were adopted before the age of 6 months (Rutter et
al., 1998). Not all researchers have reported such encouraging results, but all have shown
improvement once children were adopted out of the impoverished environment.
A long-term study done at the University of North Carolina adds further evidence
that the infant brain is extremely susceptible to environmental influences. Researchers
demonstrated that early intervention with children deemed at-risk, as defined by the
mothers’ low income and education levels, could have a measurable impact on the IQ
of these children. The five-year intervention began in the first few months after birth.
The experimental group received a program of full-day year-round childcare, nutrition counseling, and parent involvement activities. The control group received only formula and diapers. After 3 years, the impact of the researchers measured the IQ of both
groups. The results were startling: The average IQ score of children who had received
the additional stimulation through greater parent involvement was 105 while the average IQ of the children who
had received only formula
and diapers was 85. What is
more significant is that the
higher IQ held over time—
at age 21 the experimental
group still displayed a significant intellectual advantage over the control group
(Ramey, Campbell, & Blair,
1998). Long-term effects are
less obvious when the intervention starts at age 4, but
it may also be that the longterm effects are difficult to
assess because such precise
data are unavailable for
Children who have spent time in orphanages may experience
government-supported proslower cognitive development, although good care can help to
grams such as Head Start.
overcome early deficits.
What data are available do
suggest some benefit, howGideon Mendel/Corbis
ever, and since we know
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 115
10/26/12 11:24 AM
Section 5.1 Brain Development
CHAPTER 5
that the young brain remains highly receptive until age 5 or so, we cannot dismiss the
importance of environmental enrichment and stimulation up to that age and beyond.
We learned in Chapter 3 that the critical period for language development likely extends
to puberty, although some capacities are diminished after the age of 5. Because language
and cognitive development are so closely related, as we find out later in the chapter, some
impairment is likely to result if a child is not exposed to language before the age of 5. Children are born with the capacity to acquire language—the human brain is prewired, so to
speak. At 3 months old, a baby can distinguish several hundred different sounds, far more
than are required to learn any one native language. At this point, the brain is capable of
acquiring any human language at all. But over the next several months, the infant’s brain
adapts to the sounds of the language, or languages, spoken around him and ignores and
loses those that are not. Young children’s brains retain the plasticity needed to relearn any
of those earlier sounds, but that ability begins to atrophy at around age 5, and after the
onset of puberty, the ability to acquire the sounds of another language is greatly reduced.
Hence people who learn a new language before puberty are more likely to sound like
native speakers than those who learn it later.
There is also strong evidence that the development of social skills and emotional wellbeing depend on positive, nurturing attachments being formed during the first year of
life, and that emotional security is necessary for intellectual development as well. Child
psychologists know very well that there is a straightforward relationship between
emotional well-being and brain development. Babies cry when they need something,
whether food, sleep, a dry diaper, or another blanket. During the first months of life,
babies are busily assessing the effectiveness of their crying. If someone responds to the
cries and provides what is needed, babies will be more likely to develop a sense of security and safety with that person. When they no longer have to concern themselves with
safety, their brains can focus on
the objects and activities that surround them. On the other hand, if
their cries do not bring what they
need, then that sense of safety does
not develop, and their focus is on
ensuring that their basic needs are
met (Hawley, 2000; Lieberman &
Zeanah, 1995).
Over the past two decades, research
literature and the popular media
have reported much anecdotal
data from children reared in Romanian government-run orphanages.
A Canadian study of Romanian
adoptees showed that these children experienced severe attachment problems (Chisolm, 1995).
Experience of adoptive parents
Positive interactions with adults that include casual
conversation and a variety of experiences help young
children to develop both cognitively and linguistically.
Creatas/Thinkstock
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 116
10/26/12 11:24 AM
Section 5.1 Brain Development
CHAPTER 5
and experts who have studied these children supports what to most of us is common
sense: Infants need nurturing to grow emotionally strong and able to learn.
What happens in the first three years is especially critical to which neural connections get
strengthened and which are discarded. The first three years are thus critical to the brain’s
development and to children’s ability to learn.
Growing a Healthy Brain
Many educators of young children ask, what can we do to help children to develop into
well-adjusted, successful learners? Most early childhood educators do not encounter their
young pupils until they are well past the 6-month stage. That 6-month stage is critical to
developing strong emotional attachments and security.
But there is still much brain development that occurs after this point, and so there is much
that we can do. The popular media have reported many stories in recent years about
the extraordinary measures that some parents have put into place for stimulating brain
growth—playing opera or classical music for the growing fetus, teaching sign language
to infants under a year old, purchasing video and audio stimulation kits intended to provide brain stimulation activities that will lead to advanced brain development. Despite
the popularity of these interventions, there is no scientific evidence that such measures
are any more effective than a normal environment that includes interaction with other
people, affection, adequate nutrition and sleep, as well as audio and visual stimulation
that comes as a part of regular daily activities. Providing well-fed babies with a variety of
things to look at, different voices, and different songs during the waking hours will get
most children off to a good start.
Let’s take a closer look at the environment and activities that foster brain development
in the first five years and that ensure children are ready for learning in school. Preschool
children need the following things for optimal brain development:
•
•
•
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 117
Adequate nutrition and sleep. Especially in the first year when the brain is actively
creating neural connections, or synapses, children require adequate amounts of
protein, fats, and vitamins in their diets. They also need adequate sleep. Both
good nutrition and sleep help to create these synapses.
Loving interactions with caring adults. Young children need a sense of security so
that they can turn their focus away from acquiring what they need to the task
of learning. When basic needs are met, then interactions with caring adults
“strongly stimulate a child’s brain, causing synapses to grow and existing connections to get stronger. Connections that are used become permanent. If a child
receives little stimulation early on, the synapses will not develop, and the brain
will make fewer connections” (Graham, 2001, revised by Forstadt, 2011).
Exposure to casual conversations, rhymes, songs, reading, and stories. Many of the
synapses being formed are those that will soon make language possible. Young
children need to hear language and experience language in a variety of contexts
so that they will make the neural connections needed for using language appropriately in those contexts.
10/26/12 11:24 AM
Section 5.1 Brain Development
•
•
•
CHAPTER 5
Visual stimulation. Young children need a variety of visual stimuli, not only to aid
in the development of vision but in order to stimulate brain growth in general.
Colorful objects of different sizes and shapes are especially important because
they catch the baby’s attention, and caregivers need to pay attention to how well
the baby’s eyes are focusing and tracking moving objects.
A variety of experiences. If neural connections are not used or are rarely used,
they will atrophy. We learned in Chapter 3 how language learning was impaired
when a child was not exposed to language during the first years of life. It is
therefore very important to encourage children to explore and to play in safe
environments.
Routines. Children need a variety of experiences, but they also need routines and
repeated experiences in order to preserve the neural connections they form in the
first year. Routines keep the neural pathways open for all future learning.
The absence of any of these factors can lead to stress, which, if prolonged, can have a
damaging effect on brain development (see The Effect of Stress on Brain Development). The
majority of brain development that occurs after birth is in the cortex, the outer layer of the
brain responsible for most cognitive functioning and language. In the sections that follow,
we will look briefly at the areas of the brain involved in language. Then, we consider how
cognition and language are intertwined, particularly in the development of memory and
conceptual development.
The Effect of Stress on Brain Development
Traumatic life experiences such as neglect, abuse, or poverty can be toxic to a child’s brain development, especially if there is no caring, supportive adult to provide balance. A caring adult who supports
the child’s experiences and finds ways of decreasing the stresses can make the stress tolerable and
reduce the impact on brain development. For example, a child can tolerate the stressors such as the
death of a loved one or a serious illness when there is a caring adult to help him adapt.
Not all stress has a negative effect; in fact, some smaller amounts of stress such as the kinds that occur
when a playmate breaks a playdate or a favorite toy goes missing cause no long-term damage. In these
cases, the system returns to a calm state fairly quickly. But more serious stress, such as physical or emotional stress or trauma, causes the hormone cortisol to be released.
High levels of cortisol can cause brain cells to die and reduces the connections between the cells in certain areas of the brain, harming the vital brain circuits. The
connections in the brain can be severely damaged or miswired if a child is exposed
to repeated and longtime stress without the assistance of a caring adult. Babies with
strong, positive emotional bonds to their caregivers show consistently lower levels of
cortisol in their brains. (Graham & Forstadt, 2000, 2011)
Graham, J., & Forstadt, L. A. (2000, 2011). Children and brain development: What we know about how children learn.
University of Maine: Cooperative Extension Publications #4356. Retrieved from http://umaine.edu/publications/4356e/
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 118
10/26/12 11:24 AM
Section 5.1 Brain Development
CHAPTER 5
The Brain and Language
Researchers are a long way from understanding how language is organized in the cortex.
For many years, scientists believed that language was a function of the left hemisphere (in
right-handed people, but reversed in left-handers). That belief is now seen as simplistic
if not erroneous. In fact, there is evidence that the right hemisphere does play a role in
language processing and that it even takes over the functioning of the left hemisphere in
patients who have damage to the left hemisphere before the age of 5.
To some degree, it is possible to identify areas of the brain that are primarily associated
with language. We know, for example, that in roughly 98% of right-handed people, the
language processing center is located in the left hemisphere, but the ability to understand
the emotional intent of language is located in the right (Stennes, Burch, Sen, & Bauer,
2005; Segalowitz, 1983; Mihalicek & Wilson, 2011). We also know that specific areas of
the brain accomplish particular
tasks in language. Wernicke’s
area, or that region in the upper
back part of the temporal lobe,
is the area responsible for comprehension while Broca’s area,
located in the lower back part
of the frontal lobe is responsible
for oral fluency (more about
this in Chapter 7). Surgeons,
however, operating on patients
with brain tumors cannot work
on such general descriptions.
When they are removing brain
tumors, they must do so with
no or minimal damage to the
patient’s language functioning. Scientists are using an electroencephalograph to gather data
To achieve the goal, they require needed to construct a map of this child’s brain.
a precise “map” of the brain,
showing where language funcPhanie/SuperStock
tions reside in each patient.
In recent years, surgeons have mapped the language areas of the brain through “negative” mapping, or by finding out which areas of the brain had no language functioning.
In this way, they established that language functions are less centralized in the brain than
was once believed. There are many areas of the brain involved in language, and the good
news about what surgeons and therapists have learned is that if one language area of
the brain is damaged or removed, another undamaged area can often learn the “job” of
the other area. As educators, our principal concern is not with brain development per se
but with the product of that development: the child’s growing mind, especially language
and cognition. Let’s turn to the role language plays in memory development and in early
conceptualization.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 119
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.2 Language and Conceptual Development
CHAPTER 5
5.2 Language and Conceptual Development
I
f the mind were to treat each object and experience as unique and store it as such, it
would be a very cluttered place. What really happens as children see, touch, and hear
the objects and events in their lives is that they try to make sense of it all, and the way
they do that is to discover links between similar experiences and to group them together.
That is the way a concept, a general idea that is produced by combining several separate
elements or attributes into a single entity, is formed. In order to form concepts, children
have to be able to identify the similarities between experiences, and that is the task of
categorization. A category is a grouping of similar attributes—things that fly, words that
begin with b, fruits with rinds, and so forth. Concepts rely on categories being formed, but
they are not exactly the same. Take the concept of flying: To understand what the concept
entails, it is necessary to know some of the things that fly as well as some of the things that
do not, but the concept is more abstract than the category. The ability to find commonalities and establish categories is foundational to conceptualization, so both categories and
concepts are the essential building blocks of cognitive development. We are able to make
sense of the world because we possess an extensive and varied system of categories.
How Children Form Categories and Concepts
As adults, when we encounter a new object or event, we can usually turn to a companion
and ask, “What’s that?” Two-year-olds do that, too. It is the quickest way to learn, but it is
not quite that simple. What do they do with the answer? If, for example, a 2-year-old sees
a cruise ship docked in the harbor and asks, “What’s that?” a helpful adult says, “That is
a ship.” The child likely repeats “ship,” but where does she store it? Initially, it is a unique
occurrence, a category with a membership of one. Later, she sees the ship sailing into open
water. She might ask for confirmation, “Ship?” When the adult says yes, the child has two
important pieces of information: Ships move and they travel on water. She has also stored
some of the visual characteristics of ships.
But what about the infant who does not have the words to ask or to use as “tags” or
“labels” for things? How does she gather the information she needs to begin to organize
her world into categories and concepts? There is evidence that very young infants group
things together and form mental representations of categories well before they have
words to help them do so, and that they group things together based on the perceptual
features of the object. Perceptual categories are based on the visual attributes of objects,
such as shape and color. As they grow older, infants refine their groupings, using less
obvious features of objects to determine their category membership. These features will
be more abstract and may include the function of the object, and the categories could be
“things that move on wheels,” “things to play with,” or “things with four legs that do not
move.” This more abstract categorization is necessary for forming concepts. Conceptual
categories can also include information that comes from other people, such as the names
for objects or descriptions of what they do. This is where we begin to see the interaction
between learning words and learning concepts. (See How do Infants Categorize?)
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 120
10/26/12 11:25 AM
CHAPTER 5
Section 5.2 Language and Conceptual Development
How Do Infants Categorize?
Researchers have developed techniques for determining that infants as young as 3 to 4 months are able
to categorize (Arterberry & Bornstein, 2001; Bomba & Siqueland, 1983; Fantz, 1963). These techniques
commonly involve three stages:
Stage 1: Infant is shown a set of stimuli on a computer monitor, one after the other:
Figure 5.2: First set of stimuli
Category
Exemplar 1
Category
Exemplar 2
Category
Exemplar 3
Category
Exemplar 4
Stage 2: Infant is shown two additional stimuli:
Figure 5.3: Second set of stimuli
New Exemplar
of Familiar
Category
New Exemplar
of Unfamiliar
Category
Stage 3: Researcher measures length of time infant stares at each of the new exemplars.
Which exemplar would you expect the infant to stare at longest? What does this tell you about how the
infant is categorizing the shapes? (Remember that infants are generally more interested in things they
haven’t seen before, and in this case, they haven’t seen either shape before.)
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 121
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.2 Language and Conceptual Development
CHAPTER 5
How Do Infants Categorize? (continued)
Experiments such as these confirm that infants are processing two kinds of information: (1) They treat
the four-sided figure as a member of the same category they have previously seen even though they
have never seen that particular figure before. They have, thus, internalized a category and recognized
a member of it, even though they haven’t seen it before; and (2) they recognize that the triangle does
not belong to this category.
Word Learning Versus Concept Formation
When we examine the relationship between word learning and concept formation, it is the
same as exploring the relationship between categorization and early language development. Young infants create a rich store of categories before they are able to speak (Quinn
& Oates, 2004). When a child begins to use the word bottle or wheel, she must have a mental representation of a bottle, for example, in order to use it appropriately—the child has
“matched” the real-world object with some mental representation that has been given the
label, bottle or wheel. If this is the case, there should be a correspondence between spurts
of vocabulary growth (see Figure 5.4) and high levels of ability to categorize. Experiments
have borne out this relationship (Quinn & Oates, 2004, pp. 54–55). In other words, children
need to form categories in order to begin to learn words, but once that learning begins,
they can use the information gained in the process of learning words to form increasingly additional accurate category representations. Does the vocabulary spurt cause the
improvement in conceptualization? Or does the greater ability to form more abstract conceptual categories fuel the growth spurt? Scientists do not know the answer to these questions, but it is clear that the two processes are somehow symbiotic and interactive.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 122
10/26/12 11:25 AM
CHAPTER 5
Section 5.2 Language and Conceptual Development
Figure 5.4: Growth in vocabulary comprehension in boys and girls
240
225
210
195
180
165
150
135
120
105
90
75
60
45
30
15
0
8 mos
9 mos
10 mos
11 mos
12 mos
Boys comprehension
Boys production
Girls comprehension
Girls production
13 mos
14 mos
15 mos
What factors contribute to the increase in girls’ ability to acquire language quicker than boys?
Source: Adapted from data from Burman et al. (2008); Galsworthy et al. (2000); Goldfield et al. (1990); Heinrichs et al. (2010).
The data in Figure 5.4 raise important questions about gender differences in language
acquisition. The graph does not show that the apparent advantage that girls have appears
to extend to about the age of 7. While there may be social factors at play—adults tend to
treat male and female children differently—what is also likely is that the differences in
male and female brains mean that boys and girls process language differently. Some of
these differences include the following:
•
•
•
•
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 123
Language processing is more abstract in girls and more sensory in boys.
Areas of the left brain associated with language work harder in girls during language use than they do in boys.
In reading or being read to, the visual and auditory areas of the brain are more
active in boys than in girls.
Boys show more aggressive development in the right hemisphere development,
which governs large motor activities and spatial reasoning, while girls show
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.2 Language and Conceptual Development
CHAPTER 5
more aggressive development in the left, which
directs most language and fine motor skills. (Burman, Bitan, & Booth, 2008)
The differences in how male and female brains
process language account for some developmental
differences but generally do not affect the sequence
of language learning. In word learning, for example, boys and girls will proceed through the same
stages, although possibly at a different rate.
Children’s first words are grounded in
their immediate experience. This boy has
learned the names and colors for the toys
he plays with, and he understands even
more than he produces.
When parents talk about their children’s word
learning, they usually refer to the number or the
kinds of words they use. There is a great deal of
variation in the particular words infants learn
first, and there are also individual differences in
the rate at which words are learned. What is less
variable, however, is the progression, or stages,
involved in word learning. These stages may vary
in length, but the order is consistent across cultures—comprehension always precedes production, for example.
Comprehension
The first stage in word learning is comprehension. Comprehension precedes word production
(speech) because a baby has to draw on a greater number of abilities—controlling the
musculature of the lower jaw as well as the tongue and vocal tract—to create an intelligible representation of a word. It isn’t just that the infant hasn’t learned to use the vocal
apparatus to make words though. The infant vocal tract is not a miniature of the adult’s.
Until the age of 3 months or so, the larynx is positioned higher and the tongue is proportionally larger in the infant’s mouth than the adult’s, which is why an infant is much better
at comprehending words in the first year than speaking them.
Gulf Images/SuperStock
The earliest stages of word learning, therefore, involve comprehension. The first task is to
figure out what constitutes a word. As we learned in Chapters 2 and 3, there is not actually any silence between words in normal speech, so an infant has to figure out where the
boundaries are. Babies are especially sensitive to the prosodic qualities of speech—the
rhythm and the rise and fall in speech, and can distinguish between two languages on this
basis alone (Harris, 2004). It is likely, then, that they rely on stress patterns and other prosodic features of speech (Johnson & Jusczyk, 2001). They may also rely on certain properties of individual sounds. In Chapter 2, for example, we learned that the sounds /p, t, and
k/ are aspirated, meaning that there is a small puff of air that accompanies them when
they occur at the beginning of a word. This is a subtle clue, but it is the kind of thing that
infants use to determine where the word boundary is. A third cue comes from the context
and the frequency they hear adults use the word. For example, children hear adults using
the word dog in sentences such as
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 124
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.2 Language and Conceptual Development
CHAPTER 5
There’s the dog.
Where’s the dog?
That dog needs a bath!
After hearing dog in these different contexts, children eventually conclude that dog is a
word, and they also have a good idea what it means, particularly if the parents have provided an additional clue by pointing. Word comprehension begins around 7 months and
progresses slowly at first.
Word Production
The second stage is early word production. In most infants, the first sounds are ma, ba,
da, and sometimes ga, which usually appear in their first words at between 10 and 13
months. Some children do not produce words with reliable meanings until closer to age 2
years, and as long as their hearing is normal and they exhibit ability to comprehend, this
is not usually indicative of a problem. While children will always understand more words
than they produce, in most children there is a predictable relationship between the two.
Notice in Figure 5.4 that except for a time around 11 months when there is rapid growth
in comprehension, for girls, the lines showing growth in comprehension and production
are almost parallel.
Many of children’s early words are context-specific; that is, when they first appear, they
refer only to a particular person, object, or action. Some children, for example, use the
word blankie or bankie to refer only to a particular blanket or quilt used at naptime. In
general, more than half of the words that children use before the vocabulary spurt (Figure 5.4) are object names. Not all early words are context-specific, however. Researchers
have found that among children’s earliest words are many that are contextually flexible,
meaning that children used them in more than one situation (Bates, Bretherton, & Snyder,
1988, cited in Harris, 2004). Two very common contextually flexible words that children
use at a very young age are more and no. In their first 50 words, children demonstrate a
great deal of variety not only in the rate at which they add new words to their vocabularies but also in the content of these words.
Many children adopt a referential strategy, meaning that their early words refer mostly
to objects; others adopt an expressive style, meaning that they use more action words and
people’s names. Girls are slightly more likely to adopt the referential strategy, and boys
are slightly more likely to adopt an expressive strategy. These early words are largely
dependent on children’s experiences, in the sense that children have heard them many
times before using them. As they get older, they are able to add words that they have
heard less often. They are able to do so because their ability to categorize has improved
and their memory capacity has also improved.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 125
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.3 Language and Memory
CHAPTER 5
5.3 Language and Memory
W
e know that as children grow, they become better at remembering. How does this
happen and what role does language play? Sometimes, it plays very little—we
navigate the rooms in our house and reach for things in our kitchen cupboards
without using words, either mentally or out loud. But for much of the cognitive activity in
which we engage, we routinely use language to facilitate recall. Imagine a grocery shopping list without words. Conversely, it is impossible to engage in a conversation without
being able to remember what has been said. Language provides us with both a means of
encoding experience and with a means of recalling that experience. An experiment conducted many decades ago demonstrated clearly how important language is:
A simple experiment reported by Carmichael, Hogan, and Walter (1932)
demonstrated how inextricably linked they can be. In reproducing line
drawings they had been asked to remember, subjects in the study routinely
distorted them in a way consistent with additional verbal information they
had received. (Piper, 2007, p. 242)
What this means is that the language the subjects heard altered their recall of the object
shapes they had seen.
Simply put, as children grow, their memories improve. There are several possible explanations for how this happens:
1. T
heir basic capacity increases; in other words, the physical and physiological
mechanisms needed for memory expand—the connections that form between
brain cells grow and become stronger.
2. Their memory strategies improve. Through practice, they simply get better at
storage and retrieval of information.
3. They learn more about how memory works, and they use this information to
manage their own memory.
4. A
s they grow older, they know more about the content they need to remember,
so they have a better basis for remembering new material (Piper, 2007).
In all likelihood, memory growth involves all four explanations, and language is involved
in each.
Language and Basic Memory Capacity
The basic capacities of memory include recognition, association, storage, and retrieval,
and these are governed in large part by the neural connections, or synapses, which you
will learn more about in Chapter 6. What is important here is how language is involved
in the development of each.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 126
10/26/12 11:25 AM
CHAPTER 5
Section 5.3 Language and Memory
Recognition is at the heart of memory and all cognition. This phenomenon is very well
developed at birth. Newborns are remarkably good at visual and auditory recognition.
They are able to recognize their mother’s voice, and by one month are capable of recognizing differences between speech sounds such as /p/ and /b/, suggesting that there
is some innate mechanism at work (remember our discussions in Chapter 3). Around 6
months, infants can distinguish between phonetic sounds in their own language or other
languages they happen to hear. Researchers discovered, however,
by 10 to 12 months, . . . monolingual babies were no longer detecting sounds
in the second language, only in the language they usually heard. . . . The
researchers suggested that this represents a process of ‘neural commitment’ in which the infant brain wires itself to understand one language
and its sounds.” (Klass, 2011)
Bilingual babies followed a different course of brain development. Unlike the monolingual infants, at between 6 and 9 months, they were unable to detect phonetic sounds in
either of the languages to which they were exposed. At 10 to 12 months, however, “they
were able to discriminate sounds in both” (Klass, 2011). Research, summarized in Table
5.1, offers evidence that the fact that bilingual babies are exposed to more linguistic diversity means that their perception of linguistic sounds does not narrow as early as that of
monolingual children. It offers powerful support for the notion that experience helps to
shape the brain.
Table 5.1: Monolingual and bilingual brain development
Age
Skill or ability
Monolingual
infants
Bilingual
infants
In utero
Distinguish rhythms of speech from other
rhythms
Yes
Yes
At birth
Show preference for the language(s) they
have heard before.
Yes
Yes
Able to distinguish between their two
languages
Yes
4 months
Distinguish different languages visually
(i.e., by watching a silent video of speakers
switching languages)
Yes
Yes
6 months
(up to 9 months)
Distinguish between phonetic sounds in any
language they hear
Yes
No
8 months
Distinguish different languages visually
(i.e., by watching a silent video of speakers
switching languages)
No
Yes
10–12 months
Distinguish between phonetic sounds in
either language they hear
No
Yes
Sources: Byers-Heinlein, Burns, & Werker (2010); Weikum et al. (2007); Garcia-Sierra et al. (2011); Bialystok (2001).
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 127
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.3 Language and Memory
CHAPTER 5
Association, or the ability to link certain stimuli with certain responses, is also present at
birth, to some degree. For example, if a rattle is placed in an infant’s hand, he quickly learns
that moving that hand causes the rattle to make
noise. As they get older and acquire language,
children are able to make an entirely new set of
associations, and with these verbal associations,
their memory and learning capacity increase.
In terms of storage and retrieval, the role of
language is even clearer. The phenomenon of
infant amnesia, or the inability of adults to recall
what happened in the first few months of their
lives is likely related to the lack of language
at that age. The length of time that has passed
cannot account for this inability because we are
able to recall events that happened many years
earlier, often in great detail. What is more likely
is that we remember best those events that are
also encoded with language. We see this as
adults—we verbally “rehearse” the directions
to a location even though we may have driven
there many times. It is entirely possible that
our failure to remember what happened when
we were 4 or 5 months old is because we are
trying to recall with words things that were
never stored as words. This mismatch between
the way an event was stored and the way we
try to retrieve it points us to the importance of
language in building memory capacity: As children grow older, they have language as part of
their experience and thus available as a means
for encoding that experience while infants
do not.
This grandmother is telling her
granddaughter family stories associated
with the quilt. When the granddaughter
retells the story, she will rely on her
memory of the stories rather than the
events themselves.
Radius/SuperStock
Language and Memory Strategies
Memory strategies include those conscious activities we employ in the hope of improving our chances of remembering. Occurring at some time between the event we want to
remember and the attempt to recall it, memory strategies include rehearsal, organization,
and elaboration. In the previous section, we saw how rehearsal works. Organization is
another key memory strategy. Read the following list of words and then cover up the list
so that you can’t see it. How many words from this list can you remember?
dog
computer
robin
desk
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 128
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.3 Language and Memory
CHAPTER 5
radish
watermelon
printer
telephone
steak
cat
bookshelf
horse
pencil
mustard
Now, look at the reorganized list:
dog
cat
robin
horse
computer
desk
printer
telephone
bookshelf
pencil
radish
watermelon
steak
mustard
Does it make it easier to remember the 14 items once you see them as a list of four living creatures, six items of office equipment, and four edibles? The ability to categorize is
greatly simplified by having language and is a highly effective memory strategy.
Finally, elaboration is another strategy assisted by language. Elaboration also involves
making connections between items or events, but it can occur even when there is no
categorization involved. Using mnemonics is a commonly used elaboration strategy for
remembering. For example, phrases such as, “Rhythm helps your two hips move,” may
help you recall the spelling of rhythm. Clearly, the existence of language makes this kind
of elaboration possible and thus creates another memory strategy.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 129
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.3 Language and Memory
CHAPTER 5
Memory and Bilingualism
If language is critical to the development of memory strategies, what is the impact of
having two languages? Kormi-Nouri and associates (2003) studied the effect of bilingualism on memory in children between the ages of 7.9 and 13.3. They examined their recall
for specific events (episodic memory) as well as their memory for general information
and facts (semantic memory). Comparing 60 monolingual and 60 bilingual children, the
researchers found that the bilinguals did better. Another positive benefit of bilingualism
where memory is concerned occurs later in life. Researchers have recently discovered that
the onset of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia occurs, on average, four years later
in bilinguals than in monolinguals, if the bilingual continues to speak (as opposed to
read and write) two languages later in life (Craik, Bialystok, & Freedman, 2010; Bialystok,
Craik, & Freedman, 2007). While children do not have to be concerned about dementia,
the fact that bilingualism appears to confer some protection against memory loss argues
for the relevance of language acquisition to brain development.
Language and Metamemory
Metamemory refers to the knowledge or awareness that we have about how memory
works that assists us in improving our ability to remember. Suppose that you are in a
lecture and at the same time texting your friend
about plans for after class. For the most part, you
are successful at both tasks, but then suddenly
you realize that what the lecturer is saying does
not make sense to you, that you have missed
something crucial. What you will likely do is to
stop texting and listen more attentively, trying
to find clues to what you have missed. It is the
decision to employ this strategy (stop texting, listen, find clues to what you missed) that constitutes metamemory. As children grow older, they
gradually learn that there are limitations on their
ability to remember. This awareness leads them to
develop a sense of what is hard to remember and
to begin to monitor their own ability and create
strategies for remembering.
People make shopping lists because they
know the limitation of memory. This
awareness of how memory works (or
doesn’t) constitutes metamemory.
age fotostock/SuperStock
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 130
The relationship between metamemory and language is through self-monitoring. From the time
they are 2 years old, children are able to correct
many of their own language errors. The fact that
they can do so means that they are able to compare their utterances with some mental representation of what they know about language. They
monitor pronunciation, word choice, and to some
extent grammar. They are also able to monitor
what they hear. Consider the following exchange:
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.3 Language and Memory
CHAPTER 5
Quy: Dat fuhfly.
Mother: Yes, that’s a fuhfly.
Quy: No! Dat fuhfly.
Mother: Oh, a butterfly?
Quy: Yes.
Quy has rejected his mother’s infantile pronunciation because it does not match what he
knows the word should sound like, even though he is unable to pronounce it correctly
himself. Later, when children begin to read, they develop the ability to monitor their reading, eventually developing the ability to monitor their own comprehension and intervene,
by re-reading or asking a question, when it is lacking. This ability to monitor one’s own
comprehension marks a significant difference between good and poor readers. Self-monitoring begins with language, and as language ability improves, so does memory.
Content knowledge is another factor in the parallel development of language and memory because it affects how much information is stored and how it is recalled. Consider
the experience of two women attending a cooking demonstration. Clara is an experienced cook and avid connoisseur of gourmet magazines and television shows. Margaret
heats frozen dinners in the microwave and makes dinner reservations. After the cooking
demonstration, Margaret explained that she watched a man make thin pancakes and fill
them with shrimp and sauce. Clara explained that the chef demonstrated how to make
whole wheat crepes, which he filled with shellfish that had been poached in wine and
then stirred into a sherry-flavored béchamel. Clara’s knowledge of cooking and the language for talking about it have obviously influenced what she recalled and the amount
of detail. This is similar with children: The more they know about the world, the easier it
is for them to categorize their experiences; the more language they know, the easier it is
to label those categories, and as we have seen, the ability to form categories is critical to
concept formation.
What are children actually doing while the basic capacities, memory strategies, and
metamemory develop? How do their activities contribute? Generally speaking, they are
interacting with the adults in their lives, possibly with other siblings, engaging in a variety of language activities. Long before they can speak, they hear and attend to language
being addressed to them, and in that way they learn that language is purposeful, communicative, and meaningful, and, we hope, associated with pleasurable events. As children
learn the labels for objects, they are not worried about increasing their memory capacity
or vocabulary size—they are merely consumed by an eager and lively curiosity that they
are trying to satisfy. Whether babbling or producing rhymes or telling stories, they engage
in language because it is fun. Children don’t realize that they are also developing elaboration strategies to help with memory, yet they are very much in charge of their own learning. They can be prompted through social interactions, but the speed and the sequence in
which they learn is up to them. Other than providing a rich language environment, adults
do not control the pace of development. What they do control is the environment, and here
they play a critical role. Language is central to the growth of memory, which is, in turn,
central to children’s overall cognitive development, and it is a principal means by which
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 131
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
CHAPTER 5
children come to understand and to organize their experience. It is, therefore, incumbent
on adults to provide a variety of play and other opportunities for language and thus cognition to grow and to thrive.
Although from the perspective of young children, their “job” during the first few years
of life is to figure out how their world is organized and how they relate to others in it,
what is happening largely without their awareness is that they are preparing for schooling. They are getting ready, with help, to read and to write as the basis for everything
else they need to learn in school. In the final section of the chapter, we examine the role
of language in the development of early academic skills.
5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
A
lthough we tend to think of children’s academic thinking ability as developing during the school years, the fact is that the foundations are laid much earlier. Researchers have estimated that at least a third of children’s academic skills are acquired
before the age of 6 years (Yardley, 1973; Piper, 2007). That means that it is especially important that early childhood educators understand the role that language plays in creating
these early skills. Before going deeper into this topic, it is necessary to make one thing
clear: The kind of language that helps children to learn is not necessarily the adult telling
them how to do something. That kind of intervention often deprives children of the opportunity to learn something on their own. In the process of learning on their own, children
also learn more about how to learn. The language that is helpful is the kind that prompts
children or subtly directs them
toward finding the solution
themselves. Fortunately, there
are abundant opportunities in
the early years for children to
learn and to develop strategies
for learning more (see Learning
in Preschool). Much of this learning will help them with the subjects they will later encounter
in school because their parents
have actively taught them—
the ABC song, for example, or
how to count to 10, or they have
watched educational television
or videos, or they have found
their own resources for learning, perhaps by observing older This father and daughter are reading a book about the alphabet,
thereby laying the foundation for academic learning when she
children. The three areas that we
goes to school.
will examine here are reading,
writing, and arithmetic, generBlend Images/SuperStock
ally considered to be the building blocks of a good education.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 132
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
CHAPTER 5
Learning in Preschool
The learning that occurs in the first five years happens at home and, for many children, in preschool
and daycare settings. Wherever it occurs, it is important because research has shown that the quality of
preschool experience has a measurable effect on children’s later cognitive performance.
Researchers observing 4-year-olds in preschool classrooms in 10 countries found compelling evidence
that the children’s scores on tests at age 7 were positively influenced by their preschool experience. In
particular, they found that cognitive performance was associated with their having spent more time
in small-group activities and having a greater number and variety of toys and objects to play with.
They found that language development was enhanced by having more activities that children chose for
themselves rather than by the teacher and by having better educated teachers. In countries where the
norm was for the children to spend most of their time working or playing individually, more interaction
with teachers was linked to better language development.
On the other hand, in countries where teacher-centered classrooms were the norm, better language
learning was associated with less interaction with teachers. These findings underscore “the importance
of active exploration for young children’s concept learning and the importance of active speaking for
their language learning” (Bardige, 2009, p. 147).
Early Learning and Arithmetic
Most children know how to solve simple addition problems with sums smaller than 10
before they enter first grade. One of the strategies they use to do this is to choose the larger
of the two numbers to be added and then count upward from it the number of times
indicated by the smaller number. Sometimes, fingers are involved! So a child adding two
and four will begin with four and count up two—five, six—to arrive at the right answer.
Language and memory are required for this simple task; a child has to be able to remember the strategy to use and keep in mind the starting place and the number of places to
count ahead. Most 5-year-olds can do this, many 4-year-olds can, but it is still beyond the
ability of a 2- or even most 3-year-olds. Children apply the same strategy in reverse for
subtraction, counting backward. This is not the only strategy children employ to figure
out the answers to arithmetic problems. Whether they are counting forward or counting
backward, children cannot count at all without language.
During the early childhood years, there are abundant opportunities for children to learn
numeracy. From the time that a baby notices that all the bananas have been eaten and says,
“All gone,” and then follows up with a request, “More,” we can see that the foundations
for numeracy are in place. Later, as a child plays with blocks or finger puppets or small
cars, she begins to count them, add and take away, the opportunity arises for parents or
teachers to encourage the child by probing with questions such as, “And now how many
are there?” and perhaps counting along with the child. In such a way, they assist children
to learn not only basic arithmetic but the language for doing it.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 133
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
CHAPTER 5
Mathematics and Bilinguals
Researchers have further demonstrated the close relationship between language and
mathematics skills by studying bilingual children. A team of British researchers analyzed
primary school children using two languages in mathematics and English lessons. They
found that having two languages was not at all confusing but appeared to deepen their
understanding of key concepts. It appeared, for example, that children who were allowed
to use their mother tongue as well as English grasped division and multiplication more
easily than monolinguals (British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] News, 2007).
Early Learning and Reading
The earliest learning associated with reading occurs when children develop concepts
about books. In other words, they figure out what a book does or what it is for. As they are
read to, or as they observe others reading, they begin to attend to print. They learn that
there is a connection between those marks on the page and oral language and that they
have meaning to the person reading them. By the time they get to kindergarten, some children will already have learned to read, meaning that they can not only identify a number
of words correctly but that they are able to read printed text and understand its meaning,
whether that text be a sign, a book, or a billboard. In simple terms, what happens is that
children hear stories being read to them, they show an interest in “decoding” the printed
text by pointing to text and asking, “What’s that?” by watching children’s educational
television or video, or through more direct intervention such as a parent showing them
flashcards or writing down words for them. Early readers excel at the decoding stage and
quickly move on to more advanced strategies such as predicting, and they are able to do
so because they have had a great deal of exposure to reading and stories. In short, they
know that the task of text is to tell a story or convey a message, and they set themselves
the task of figuring out how to extract that meaning.
Among children who do not learn to read before they get to school, most know a great
deal about the reading process anyway. They have begun to learn that words are different
from drawings and that not all squiggles and lines are the same. Making these distinctions is a complex perceptual task; it requires that children learn which curved, horizontal,
vertical, and diagonal lines are meaningful and which are not. An interesting question
arises here: Does learning to name the letters (e.g., recite the alphabet) help children learn
to read? My older son, who was able to read simple children’s stories by his 3rd birthday,
saw no point to the exercise at all. When he was 4, he told his teacher that learning to say
the ABCs was “silly because you just mix them all up anyway.” On the one hand, there
is some indication that children’s ability to identify and name letters predicts their early
reading achievement (deHirsch, Jansky, & Langford, 1966; Walsh, Price, & Gillingham,
1988; cited in Piper, 2007). It would be a mistake to assume, however, that simply teaching
young children to name letters will improve reading ability, because the association may
not be direct. What is more likely is that knowing the names of letters means that a child
has been exposed to a stimulating print-rich environment that has not only allowed her
to learn the names of letters but has helped her to a greater awareness of what reading
entails and a rich set of oral language skills. While teaching young children the alphabet
will probably be helpful, it is equally important to help children develop strong oral language skills.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 134
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
CHAPTER 5
In order to become proficient readers, children must acquire more than letter perception
and identification skills. They also have to make the connection between letter and phoneme (Chapter 2) and learn to identify words. But ultimately, what they must do to become
true readers is to re-create meaning from printed text. In other words, they must acquire
comprehension skills. Reading comprehension is one of the most active and complex cognitive activities in which we engage, even as adults. It is also an important skill children
must acquire to succeed in school and to develop and pursue a wide range of interests for
the rest of their lives. A full description of what is involved in reading comprehension, or
listening comprehension, is beyond the scope of this book. We can examine the process in
general terms with the following example.
The high wind blew the chairs into the pool.
What is involved in extracting the meaning from this sentence? The reader must accomplish the following:
•
•
•
Have some kind of recognition and retrieval system to match the words on the
printed page with the words in memory.
Select the appropriate meaning for words with more than one meaning (e.g., high
and pool).
Discern all of the meaning propositions present in the sentence. In this sentence,
those include the following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
There was a wind blowing.
The wind was strong (high).
There were chairs outside.
There was a pool.
The chairs were near the pool.
The chairs went into the pool.
Integrate all of the meaning propositions into a single sentence to store in memory. When readers integrate, they combine all the propositions, and they do so
according to the rules of English syntax.
Asked to recall this sentence several days later, a reader might remember There was a high
wind and it blew some chairs into the swimming pool. This is not the sentence he read, but
it does include all the meaning propositions and capture the writer’s intent. This is the
essence of reading comprehension—not memorizing what the words were, but remembering what was communicated.
One further skill that children need to develop if they are to become successful readers is
to monitor their own comprehension. Readers of all ages are more proficient if they are
able to monitor their understanding of the text they are reading and adopt strategies for
dealing with any problems they encounter. Different kinds of texts require different strategies—most of us can read a novel in a busy airport or with music or television blaring. We
probably would be less successful reading a graduate-level text on astrophysics in those
environments. The reason is that the strategies we use for comprehending different kinds
of text depend on our purpose, on how the material is structured, and the knowledge and
experience we bring to the task. In the child’s world, some texts will be easier to comprehend than others. Children who have heard many stories know how stories are structured
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 135
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
These girls do not yet know how to read, but because their
mother reads to them regularly, they show an interest in
reading and have learned how stories are structured.
Alaska Stock Images/National Geographic Stock
CHAPTER 5
and, to some degree, what to
expect. If they have not had
those experiences, then they
might experience a little more
difficulty working out a reading
strategy. In this case, teaching
the child word-recognition skills
won’t help much. Certainly, that
is a first step, but an even more
important step is to build up the
child’s oral language experience
with stories and narratives in
which the child can participate.
None of this would be possible,
of course, without language
and, specifically, without oral
language. Oral language (or
sign language in deaf children)
is the foundation for all future
reading and writing abilities.
Reading in Bilinguals
With bilinguals, progress toward literacy will depend on a number of factors including the
language to which they are first introduced to print. In some instances, children are introduced to print in both their languages. With Isabelle, the bilingual French-English child
we met in earlier chapters, her mother read to her in French and her father in English.
Isabelle learned to read first in English—the language which she used more often—the
summer before she began attending a French-language kindergarten. Her reading ability
transferred easily to French, and now in first grade, she is able to read both languages at
grade level. Isabelle had a strong oral basis in English, learned to read in English, and then
transferred the reading skill to French. Not all bilingual children are in this situation. “The
progress in acquiring literacy by bilingual children will depend in part on social, political and educational factors that define the child’s environment at the time that literacy
is introduced” (Bialystok, 2001; Chapter 6, para. 4). Sometimes, children have to learn to
read in the majority language (English) even though their oral language skills are stronger
in the minority language. This situation places an additional burden on bilingual children
who have not yet acquired reading skills to transfer but who must first master the cognitive skills necessary for reading in a less-familiar language. But despite the many differences, “Children must ultimately learn how to read texts, and this is a cognitive problem”
(Bialystok, 2001, Chapter 6, para. 8). They go through three stages as they move toward
independent literacy:
1. Preliteracy. At this stage, children learn that print represents language and the
basics of the writing system.
2. E
arly reading. At this stage, they learn the rules for matching the print symbols
to language sounds.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 136
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
CHAPTER 5
3. F
luent reading. At this stage, the meaning of the text takes priority. Children begin to read and to write to get and to transmit ideas or information that they did
not have before.
These are the same stages through which monolingual children progress and what precedes all of them is oral language.
Early Learning and Writing
Writing is the language skill that causes more problems for more people than any other.
Everyone learns to speak and understand oral language, most people eventually learn to
read, with varying degrees of proficiency. But even people who are extremely well read
profess to having difficulty with writing. It would seem that reading and writing should
involve the same processes in reverse, and if that were the case, proficiency in reading
should lead to proficiency in writing. Certainly, most competent writers are also very competent readers, but many competent readers are only marginally successful writers. Why?
We don’t actually know why writing is so hard to remediate. We know a great deal more
about what is involved in learning to speak and in both aural and written comprehension
than we do about learning to write. What we do know about young children learning to
write involves a complex network of interactive processes. The first task is organizing
what it is that the writer wants to say. Many of us have faced the tyranny of the blank
page and know that having a topic given to us is only slightly better than having to find
one. But let’s consider a 6-year-old faced with the challenge of writing a story. What is
involved?
The obvious first step is having something to say. Sometimes, teachers consider that they
are offering sufficient guidance when they ask children to “write a story.” But that is difficult even for an adult. We do not—or should not—begin to write until we have something
to say, so the experienced teacher knows to help children do some prewriting by talking
through the story or the experience they will write. In order to do that, writers have to
retrieve the information relevant to the topic from long-term memory. The next task is to
organize it. Our memory of an event does not always provide us with the best structure
for writing it down. This paragraph, written by a 7-year-old child, illustrates the problem:
The ocean was cold. We went to visit my uncle Josh. We went swimming. The water was
salty and also cold and that’s because Uncle Josh lives in Oregon. Oregon is colder than
California.
This child has simply put down everything he could recall about the trip to his uncle’s.
With guidance, though, this child could be talked through the story and re-create it chronologically. In order to do this, the writer has to formulate a plan for the story and keep it in
mind long enough to write it down. Until late in the third-grade year or even the fourthgrade year, children have difficulty in this kind of mental advance planning. That is why
oral language is such an important part of developing skills. The more familiar children
are with hearing and telling stories, the easier it is to organize them in their minds and then
on paper. To get the story on paper, the writer must manage the mechanics, whether with
pencil, pen, or keyboard. Often, with 5- and 6-year olds, the physical demands of writing
down their thoughts require so much of their attention that they have little to devote to
organization. It is extremely helpful for teachers (or parents or older children) to serve
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 137
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
CHAPTER 5
as scribes, writing down the stories children tell
(Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982; Kirk, 1999). They
will create better quality stories than they otherwise would, but more importantly, they have
built a skill that will transfer when they are older
and better able to cope with the physical demands
of writing. Once again, we see the importance of
oral language to children’s learning of a skill that
will not only be necessary in school but will serve
them for the rest of their lives.
The process of learning to write begins at the same
time as learning to read, although it takes a different course. In the preschool through primary
years, the process involves four stages:
1. Beginning writing, which describes the
stage at which children use their drawings to represent their meanings and
pretend-read aloud the story they convey.
Their writing at this stage may follow a
left to right orientation and may consist
of scribbles. They are essentially mimicking what they have seen older children
and adults do.
Although it appears that this boy simply
puts scribbles on a page, he is actually
showing signs of language awareness.
age fotostock/SuperStock
2. Early emergent writing, which describes the stage during which children typically demonstrate their awareness that print represents sounds. For example,
they may draw a picture and then write some of the letters associated with the
picture.
3. Emergent writing, which describes the stage at which children begin to create
more identifiable letters with spaces between them, may begin to use sequences
of letters, and make letters over and over to practice the way they are formed.
Children at this stage may begin to write their own names.
4. Early writing is the stage in which children demonstrate increased awareness
of sound/symbol correspondence by creating their own spellings. They begin
to use capital and lowercase letters and to space words more consistently. Many
children at this stage practice by copying letters, words, or even sentences.
(Adapted from Welton, 2010)
Six Characteristics of Early Learning
It is not an overstatement to say that almost all the learning we will do during a lifetime
is based in language. True, there are certain mechanical acts that we learn independent of
language before we have language, but once we acquire the ability to speak and to think
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 138
10/26/12 11:25 AM
CHAPTER 5
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
in language, we use it to teach ourselves and to learn. This is true of children in the preschool years, a time in which their learning has certain identifiable characteristics, six of
which are especially important to preschool teachers.
Learning Proceeds According to Degree of Readiness
Language itself is a good example of how this is true. It does no good to try to teach a
2-month old baby to say Mama or milk or any other word. Physically and cognitively, the
baby is not yet able to do so. In a few months, he will be able to do that, but even when
he’s 8 months old, he won’t be able to produce meaningful three-word sentences. When
I asked my granddaughter Isabelle what she wanted for her 5th birthday, she told me,
“Nana, I really, really want to learn to read.” I had tried to interest her in the task a few
months earlier, noting her intense interest in books, but I failed. After her birthday, we
spent a month on the task, and Isabelle became a reader.
Children Are in Charge of Their Own Learning
They might not know they are in charge, but they are. Their decisions are governed in
large part by maturity but also by their curiosity about the world around them. Sometimes it happens that children’s wish to learn something is in advance of their ability to
do so, and this can be very powerful. Alberto could put together simple wooden puzzles
intended for 3–4 year olds before his second birthday. He appeared to be motivated by a
desire to see the completed picture, but it was also the case that he had watched older children do it and wanted to be able to do it himself. His younger brother Juan had no interest
in puzzles, but he wanted to learn to count and would practice counting with anything he
could find to count. Juan eventually learned to do puzzles, and Alberto learned to count,
but in each case, the brothers determined, what, when, and how they would learn.
Much Learning Happens While
Children Play
Play is serious business for children; it helps them to
develop cognitively, linguistically, and socially. Here,
Isabelle plays and learns with her potato head toys.
Play is the work of childhood. It serves
to foster motor and cognitive development, and its importance cannot be
underestimated. Playing on swings,
monkey bars, or just running after a dog
or a ball will help them to acquire gross
motor skills. Playing with puzzles and
building blocks will help to develop fine
motor skills, and when they play rhyming games or play games counting red
cars and blue cars on a road trip, they
are not only learning but they are learning how to learn.
Stephanie Hull
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 139
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Section 5.4 Language and Early Academic Learning
CHAPTER 5
The Role of Adults Is to Facilitate Rather Than to Teach
It follows that if children are really in charge of their own learning and that if play is central to that learning, that adults should not worry about teaching as much as providing
opportunities for learning. For parents, perhaps the most important role they play is to be
partners in daily interaction. Whether they are engaged in routines such as the washing
of hands or getting ready for bed, or in special activities such as decorating a gingerbread
house at Christmas or dressing up for a birthday party, the dialogues that occur between
parents and children are the means through which children learn. In school, it is very
similar. Teachers talk children through the routines of the classroom and special events,
they demonstrate when necessary, and they provide an environment that is rich with
learning opportunities. At home and at school, conversation between adults and children
should be a collaborative event with the adult adapting speech as necessary to children’s
maturity level. Parents and teachers who understand that their own knowledge cannot be
transmitted directly also understand that their job is to guide gently.
Learning Is Essential to Children’s Language Acquisition
We have seen through these five chapters that language is not something children learn
as a mental exercise but in order to communicate, to engage in meaningful interaction
with the people who surround them. We don’t have to teach children to talk, but we do
have to provide them with the opportunities to do so, and not just to talk, but to listen,
to experience language used for many purposes, and eventually to read and to write. It
begins with birth. An infant cannot understand what his mother is saying or singing, but
the fact that she does so is critical to the infant developing a sense of security, a knowledge
of what language does, and cognitive skills. When a father takes the time to explain to his
3-year-old son what he is doing as he changes the oil in his car, the father knows that some
of the language and concepts are beyond his son’s ability to understand. But the dialogue
is important because the boy will understand some of it, he will likely learn some new
vocabulary, and his interest will be piqued—in language and possibly in cars and how
they work. The child’s understandings at this point will be imperfect, but the seeds are
there and, with attention, will grow.
Dialogues between adults and children provide opportunities for learning, but the dialogue has to be real, that is, the adult has to learn to listen to the child. It isn’t always
easy—young children do not always have the language they need to express what they
want to say, or they may say it differently. Adults, and especially teachers, need to pay
attention to what is being said and ask questions or offer interpretations to help them out.
An absent-minded, “Oh, good,” or even “Wow” in response to a child’s utterance doesn’t
count as dialogue. Children catch on very quickly if the adult is not paying attention or is
only partly attending. If that happens often, the child may conclude that there’s no point
to trying to make him or herself understood.
Learning Is Embedded in the Process of Socialization
The life of a preschooler is an integrated whole of experiences. The day does not even
slightly resemble a school curriculum. The day is not divided into blocks of time—a half
hour for hygiene, an hour for motor development, an hour for cognitive learning, half an
hour for socialization, and so forth. The experiences all relate in some way to the process
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 140
10/26/12 11:25 AM
CHAPTER 5
Post-Test
of attaining full membership in the family and the larger society in which the family lives.
Children’s early learning is directed toward achieving membership in a group—family,
extended family, neighborhood, et cetera. They don’t learn words because their biological clocks say it is time to do so (although they can’t learn them before that) but because
they are trying to connect with other people. From our perspective as educators, we see
the abundance of learning that takes place during the preschool years—children learn
thousands of words, develop concepts, and acquire the foundations for all the academic
learning that will follow. That is not, however, the perspective of preschool children—
what they are doing is learning to become like the people around them. They are learning
to belong.
Conclusion
D
uring the years before children reach school age, they are building the foundations
for a lifetime of learning. The brain is much more “plastic” during these years, making this a time during which environmental influences have a tremendous impact.
There are several critical periods for learning, depending on what is being learned. The
window of opportunity for acquiring native-speaker-like control of language, for example, begins to close around the age of 5 and is almost entirely diminished by the onset
of puberty. Cognitive development occurs in tandem with language development. Word
learning is inextricably linked with the ability to categorize and conceptualize, and language plays an important role in the development of memory.
We also explored the relationship between language and early learning of arithmetic and
literacy skills. To a large extent, children are the architects of their own learning. Nevertheless, most children follow the same developmental sequence, as we will discover in
Chapter 6.
Post-Test
1. Synapses in the brain
a.
b.
c.
d.
are mostly formed before birth.
connect the brain lobes.
number about 2,500 per neuron at age 2.
are pruned throughout the life span.
2. Vocabulary comprehension for boys and girls
a.
b.
c.
d.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 141
develops at equal levels.
occurs in spurts.
has little to do with differing brain development.
is equal to their word production.
10/26/12 11:25 AM
CHAPTER 5
Key Ideas
3. The 1932 study by Carmichael, Hogan, and Walter found that
a.
b.
c.
d.
memory can be distorted by verbal information provided.
all memories have some verbal component.
the deterioration of memory starts with verbal information.
verbal information is stored in memory differently than visual information.
4. The typical sequence of gaining reading skills is
a.
b.
c.
d.
preliteracy → early reading → fluent reading → oral language.
early reading → preliteracy → oral language → fluent reading.
oral language → preliteracy → early reading → fluent reading.
early reading → oral language → preliteracy → fluent reading.
Answers
1.
2.
3.
4.
d. Are pruned throughout the life span. The answer can be found in Section 5.1.
b. occurs in spurts. The answer can be found in Section 5.2.
a. Memory can be distorted by verbal information provided. The answer can be found in Section 5.3.
c. Oral language → preliteracy → early reading → fluent reading. The answer can be found in Section 5.4.
Key Ideas
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 142
Although some cognitive development occurs before children acquire language,
once they begin to learn language, cognition and language grow in tandem.
In the first two years after birth, brain development consists of creating synapses
and, subsequently, of pruning them to the ones most frequently used.
Although brain development continues into adulthood, the young brain is much
more susceptible to both positive and negative environmental influences.
Although the language center of the brain is typically thought to be located in the
left hemisphere (in right-handed people), there is growing evidence that other
areas of the brain are also involved.
An environment rich in visual and aural stimuli assists in brain development
and, thus, in linguistic and cognitive development.
Word learning and conceptual development are closely linked.
Language is involved in almost all aspects of memory development.
Although a great deal of children’s academic thinking ability develops during
the school years, researchers estimate that a third or more is acquired before the
age of 6.
Reading and writing abilities are built upon a solid foundation of oral language,
which in turn is embedded in the process of socialization.
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Critical Thinking Questions
CHAPTER 5
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Why do you think the words more and no are usually learned early? Why do you
think they are likely to be “contextually flexible”?
2. Why does comprehension always precede production in word learning?
3. Given that children’s earliest word learning is grounded in the “here and now,”
which of the following probably has the most influence on their first words?
Why?
a. the child’s gender (whether the child is a boy or girl)
b. the language that the child’s mother or other caregiver used in normal
interactions
c. the language of children’s books and stories
4. What is the difference between categories and concepts?
5. Margaret Harris and her colleagues compared word learning in children who
were developing normally and children who were language delayed. They
found that 78% of the speech of mothers of the typically developing infants was
directed to objects on which the child was focusing attention. Mothers of language-delayed children, however, directed only 25% of their utterances to objects
the child was attending to. They were also more likely to use general names
such as thing or one when referring to objects (Harris, Jones, & Grant, 1983, cited
in Harris 2004). Based on the information in the chapter, what are two possible
explanations for these findings?
6. The author lists four known differences in how girls’ and boys’ brains process
language. Do any of these differences account for the vocabulary differences
shown in Figure 5.4?
7. Look at the labeled shapes in Figure 5.5 for seven seconds and then cover the
figure. Leave it covered as you answer the following questions.
a. Write down the colors you saw in the circles.
b. Try to describe HOW you stored the information and how you recalled it.
c. Was there anything confusing about the task? What?
Now uncover the figure. How accurate were you? What role did language play
in the task? What does this tell you about the relationship between language and
memory?
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 143
10/26/12 11:25 AM
CHAPTER 5
Key Terms
Figure 5.5
RED
YELLOW
PURPLE
BLUE
8. S
uppose your friend’s cell phone number is 555-135-9753 and you did not have
your phone or paper to record it. What memory strategies would you use to
remember it?
Key Terms
category Essential to the formation of concepts, a grouping of similar attributes—
things with wheels, words that begin with
r, vegetables that grow underground, etc.
cognitive development The process of
acquiring intelligence and increasingly
advanced thought and problem-solving
ability from infancy to adulthood.
concept A general idea derived or inferred
from specific instances or occurrences.
context-specific words In first words,
those that refer only to a particular person,
object, or action.
contextually flexible words In first words,
those that are used generically or with
several referents.
critical period (for brain development):
The period before plasticity ends and the
brain is at its most opportune time for
development.
expressive strategy The approach used
by children whose first words are action
words or people’s names.
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 144
memory strategies Those conscious activities we employ in the hope of improving
our chances of remembering.
metamemory The knowledge or awareness we have about how memory works
that assists us in improving our ability to
remember.
neurons Brain cells.
plasticity Refers to the ability of the
human brain to change in response to
environmental experiences.
referential strategy The approach used by
children whose first words refer mostly to
objects.
self-monitoring Children’s ability to compare their utterances with some mental
representation of what they know about
language.
synapse The junction between two nerve
cells, consisting of a minute gap across
which impulses pass.
vocabulary spurt Sudden surge in the
number of words a child knows and uses,
typically occurring a little later in boys
than in girls.
10/26/12 11:25 AM
Weblinks
CHAPTER 5
Weblinks
More information about how the infant brain develops can be found at
http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/brain-development/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode1/index.html
http://umaine.edu/publications/4356e/
An interesting summary of the benefits of the government-sponsored Head Start program can be found at
http://home.uchicago.edu/~ludwigj/papers/NYAS-LudwigPhillips-HeadStart-2008.pdf
For more on brain and gender, see
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393207004460
Accounts of the effects of deprivation on early attachment can be found at
http://childsrighttothrive.org/topics/socioemotional-development/what-are-effectsearly-severe-deprivation-attachment
For further information on language centers and the brain, see
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080102222904.htm
For further research on the cognitive benefits of bilingualism, see Being bilingual ‘boosts
brain power’ at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17892521
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 145
10/26/12 11:25 AM
pip80380_05_c05_111-146.indd 146
10/26/12 11:25 AM
6
Blend Images/SuperStock
Developmental Milestones
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to accomplish the following objectives:
• Describe the major developmental milestones in the first 6 months of an infant’s life, and explain
the importance of early vocalizations to language development.
• Describe how the major developmental milestones of the 6-month to 1-year-old infant relate to
language development.
• Describe the linguistic growth that occurs in the second year, especially the expansion of vocabulary, and explain the difference between speech delay and language delay.
• Explain how cognitive and physical changes influence language development in the third year as
children leave infancy behind and become toddlers.
• Describe development between 3 and 4 in terms of what preschool teachers can expect children to
be able to do.
• Explain the developmental changes that characterize children’s transition from toddlers to preschoolers during the year between age 4 and 5, and describe the linguistic foundation that has
been established.
pip80380_06_c06_147-176.indd 147
10/26/12 10:46 AM
CHAPTER 6
Pre-Test
Introduction
O
n his first day of kindergarten, Kai is afraid. He hasn’t been to preschool, and he’s
lived in the United States for only a year. He doesn’t know what will be expected
of him, and he is nervous about being able to speak well enough to get by. Even
though many children in the school he will attend speak his language, Mandarin, Kai
doesn’t yet know this. His parents are worried that they have not prepared him for his
new life in an American school. His language skills are good; he can read and write his
own name and those of his family members in both his languages, and he has already
picked up a lot of English in the community. Still, they worry. What will the school expect
of him? Will he understand? Will he succeed?
As long as Kai has had a relatively normal environment, there is no cause for concern. We
learned in Chapter 5 that much of cognitive development occurs before children are able
to use language. Once they begin to acquire language, that growth is accelerated because
language and cognition are intricately linked. Although most of the academic skills children need to succeed in school are acquired during the school years, about a third of those
skills are acquired before the age of 6. Understanding the course of that development is
necessary so teachers can create appropriate learning activities based on children’s developmental stages. Every child is unique, yet in the development of language, there are more
similarities than differences between children. In infancy, most children babble by the
time they are 6 months old (Chapter 3). The first identifiable words usually appear before
the first birthday (Chapter 5). Continued development generally follows a predictable
course as well, although it would be a mistake to assume any child will follow an exact
schedule. It is important to note, however, that although children reach different stages at
different times, the order in which they progress through the stages varies very little. This
consistency is due to the biological “equipment” that children bring to the task of learning language and to the interrelationship between language and cognitive development.
In this chapter, we will look at developmental milestones in a child’s life from birth until
5 years. With examples from Kai and other children, we look broadly at physical, cognitive, and language development during this period. The exact age for any particular
developmental achievement is somewhat arbitrary. The ages used here represent general
tendencies across all children rather than a calendar or schedule for development. In each
period, we begin with a general overview of physical, cognitive, and linguistic development before examining linguistic development in more detail.
Pre-Test
1. An absence of language precursors suggests
a.
b.
c.
d.
pip80380_06_c06_147-176.indd 148
that the child cries too much.
a lack of exposure to language in utero.
auditory or cognitive problems.
typical developmental markers.
10/26/12 10:46 AM
Section 6.1 From Birth to 6 Months
CHAPTER 6
2. The “dress rehearsal” for language is
a.
b.
c.
d.
cooing.
crying.
gestures.
babbling.
3. Which of the following does NOT typically occur between 12–18 months?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Children’s speech becomes more recognizable.
Children refine the meanings of the words they use.
Children overgeneralize word use less.
Children utilize full sentences in speech.
4. One linguistic difference between 2 year olds and adults is that 2 year olds
a.
b.
c.
d.
get the order wrong.
are more self-focused.
fail to include verbs in sentences.
use fewer words in sentences.
5. Children are considered preschoolers at/between age(s)
a.
b.
c.
d.
1–2 years.
3–4 years.
5–6 years.
9 months.
6. The acquisition of what we call the “first” language(s) occurs before age
a.
b.
c.
d.
2 years.
4 years.
5 years.
7 years.
Answers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
c. Auditory or cognitive problems. The answer can be found in Section 6.1.
d. Babbling. The answer can be found in Section 6.2.
d. Children utilize full sentences in speech. The answer can be found in Section 6.3.
d. Use fewer words in sentences. The answer can be found in Section 6.4.
b. 3–4 years. The answer can be found in Section 6.5.
b. 5 years. The answer can be found in Section 6.6.
6.1 From Birth to 6 Months
O
n the day he was born, Kai weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and was 21 inches long.
He cried loudly, without any tears, and although his parents showered him with
attention, he appeared oblivious to their attempts to comfort him. Over the next
few weeks, however, they began to notice that he attempted to focus on their faces when
they talked to him, and his mother was certain that his crying differed as he attempted
to express different needs. The development changes that occurred during Kai’s first 6
months might have appeared to be minimal to a casual observer. But Kai was following the
pip80380_06_c06_147-176.indd 149
10/26/12 10:46 AM
Section 6.1 From Birth to 6 Months
CHAPTER 6
same course of development as every other normally developing human child. Changes
occurring during the first 6 months of life aren’t easily observed, but there are very significant developments:
•
•
•
•
Infants develop binocular vision, meaning that their eyes begin to move together
in unison. This is especially important for their ability to see and form visual
perceptions.
They will produce tears when crying (newborns typically cry without forming
tears).
The swallowing reflex, which moves food from the front to the back of the
tongue, is still immature until the latter weeks of this period; the same tongue
movements will be important for language later.
The Landau reflex will appear at around 3 months. This reflex is an instinctive
reaction in which infants held in a face-down position will lift their heads and
fully extend their legs. It is useful to keep a baby from smothering when placed
face down. It disappears once the child has developed sufficient muscular control
to no longer need it, usually around the first birthday. This reflex helps the child
to strengthen muscle tone and refine motor skills necessary for sitting, crawling,
and walking. Without this reflex, a baby placed on a blanket would only be able
to move her head from side to side. Unable to raise her head, she would have a
limited field of vision and be unaware of anything occurring above the level of
the blanket; thus, her range of perception would be greatly reduced.
Although cognitive development is difficult to observe or measure during this period,
there are certain indicators of what is happening. For example, Kai loved to play peek-aboo, as do most infants. It is a way for them to begin to learn object permanence (i.e., that
an object does not cease to exist when it disappears from view), and most cultures have
their version of peek-a-boo.
In Japanese, for example, it is
called inai inai ba. Between 4
and 6 months old, babies begin
to realize that crying gets adult
attention, and babies will begin
to develop other ways of gaining attention—squealing or wiggling, for example. Some infants
appear to know their names by
6 months, turning toward the
person who says it. They also
begin to differentiate between
familiar faces and strangers. In
terms of language, the behavior
at this point is not linguistic per
se, but infants do exhibit behavA game of peek-a-boo with Mom is not only fun but is helping
iors indicating important prethis baby learn the concept of object permanence.
requisites to language learning.
These are the precursory behavBrand X Pictures/Thinkstock
iors discussed next.
pip80380_06_c06_147-176.indd 150
10/26/12 10:46 AM
Section 6.1 From Birth to 6 Months
CHAPTER 6
Precursors to Language
We tend to think of language acquisition as starting when the child clearly understands
words—by pointing at an object named by an adult, for example. But language learning begins much earlier than that. Some researchers argue that language learning begins
before birth (see Precursory Language Behavior), and to some degree this is true. As we
learned in previous chapters, there is an innate predisposition to learn language, and that
is formed in the brain before birth. Also, some evidence indicates that children become
accustomed to the rhythms of their mothers’ speech while in utero. Newborns’ crying has
been found to mimic the prosodic features of their own language (Cross, 2009). However,
crying is not language per se, nor is babbling. Both are precursors to lan...
Purchase answer to see full
attachment