Child Language Acquisition: How do children pick up language?

                                                                         Child Language Acquisition:

How do children pick up language?

Have you ever spoken to a young child who hasn't learnt how to speak properly yet? Some of the sentences they produce can be clever; still most will not make sense. They usually come out with minor and simple sentences like "I go home" and "He big". While these may sound cute, they can often be frustrating to the parents and the child who cannot communicate properly in order to get what they need.

After completing research I discovered there are many different stages of this development phase:

1. The "Silent Period"- this is the most irritating and often causes parents to try to get the baby to repeat what they are saying, providing useful opportunities for the infant to pick up language. They often babble to respond to their parents who are talking to them, usually around 6-12 months old.

2. "Beginning to talk"- is often repeating short words and phrases heard from their surroundings like "Dog", "House" or "That's mine". This usually occurs around the 12-24 months old stage.

3. "Building up English Language"- this includes the expanding of their vocabulary like "The car" becomes "The red car" which becomes "The red shiny car".

4. "Frustration"- often occurs when the child cannot remember a particular word or context of the word.

5. "Mistakes"- when parents use "Parentese" (A language adopted by parents to speak to young infants) this is remembered and repeated by the child.

 

Around the ages 6-10 years the children understand the meanings of words and language dependant on their definition. They should begin to understand words with multiple meanings and spellings and explain relationships between these. Some idioms may be understood.

It is quite extraordinary how quickly children learn language and that they must learn how to speak before they can read and write. Unless they have experienced damage to the brain, they know how to speak properly within a few years. Parents influence this largely without being specifically trained to complete this task. Babies hear a continuous stream of sound without the pauses between words and sentences and still pick up language. When babies are just three days old they can distinguish the voice of their mother from different voices, which is why they often feel comfort from their mother singing lullabies.

A study from the University of Washington in 2013 suggests that babies are learning language from inside the womb.  Christine Moon, lead author and a professor of psychology claims this study shows foetuses learn prenatally about the particular speech sounds of a mother's language and moves the measurable result of experience with speech sounds from six months of age to before birth. If this is true, it would give another reason to explain how children pick up language from surroundings as well as being taught it.

By Chloe Sayers

References: "Living Language: Language Acquisition" George Keith and John Shuttleworth published in 1999.

http://ilabs.washington.edu/i-labs-news/new-research-while-womb-babies-begin-learning-language-their-mothers Molly McElroy, University of Washington, 2013