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How Children Understand & Produce Their First Words
By James Keightley of giggleberries
Language development involves babies recognizing speech strings, categorizing them and understanding their meaning by associating them to social experiences. Decasper & Spencer (1986) demonstrated babies recognize familiar words whilst still in the womb and when first born, suggesting they have an innate capacity to acquire language. Johnson & Juscyzk (2001) highlight ‘cues’ as allowing babies to categorically discriminate between speech and that Oates. J & Quinn. P. C (2004) claim is an inseparable feature of the production of language. They learn to associate categorical distinctions to social experiences, adding meaning and begin to vocalize them in the form of ‘babbling’, which develops in an unfolding process of maturation to produce variegated strings of syllables. Bruner (1975) highlights the significant role of social experiences to this whole process and that adults provide a supportive framework for development. I therefore intend to describe in detail these features and how they contribute more precisely to how children come to understand and produce their first words. In order for infants to produce their first words it is necessary for them to identify and recognize speech. In their study of ‘Prenatal Speech Learning’, DeCasper and Spencer (1986, p. 66) offer a nativist perspective to recognizing speech. They found that both prenatal and postnatal babies recognize phonology, the set of sounds that make up speech strings. Pregnant women read the same passage to their babies twice a day, up to 6 weeks before birth. Postnatal tests revealed babies sucked harder on pressure sensing dummies to the recording of the same passage. Similarly, Decasper et al (1994, p. 66) tested the response of prenatal babies who’s parents had recited a rhyme to them three times a day for four weeks. They found, using a foetal heart rate monitor that an unborn baby’s heart rate increased in preference for the familiar rhyme. These both illustrate that babies recognize the phonology of speech before and from birth, and suggests an innate capacity, echoing Chomsky (1928, p. 26-27) nativist view that language is dependent on innate capacities. He claimed we are born with a ‘Language Acquisition Device’ that allow us to interpret the rules of language to produce utterances. The ability to recognize speech strings allows babies to make categorical distinctions between what they hear, so they can develop and understanding by associating categories to social experiences. But DeCasper & Spencer do not explain how babies are able to recognise speech in order to make these distinctions. Travarthen (1979) suggests babies communicate though bursts of activity having recognised ‘cues’ from their mother during a process of ‘Primary Intersubjectivity’. Chomsky saw language as containing rules that are an important feature of language acquisition and intimates the importance of cues in the comprehension of language. Cues are important because they indicate something different and trigger a response that causes the babies to make categorical distinctions between what they hear, which Oates. J & Quinn. P. C (2004) consider as being inextricably linked to language. Prosody is the ‘music’ of speech, the pitch, intonation, stress and patterns it contains and is an important cue baby’s use to identify the boundaries of speech and separate them in to recognizable parts. The significance of cues is highlighted by Mehler et al (1994, p. 67) who discovered 4 day old French babies preferred the familiarity of their native language to that of an unfamiliar language and reinforces their ability to recognize familiar prosody. The importance of prosody to recognize speech is also extended by Christophe & Morton (1998, pages 98 – 104) who also demonstrated babies abilities to discriminate between their native language and a foreign language from speech strings containing prosodic cues and no phonemic information (small units of speech used to differentiate words). They illustrated that babies use these cues to form two separate categories; native language and foreign language. The importance of prosodic cues is highlighted further by babies not being able to discriminate between native English and Dutch, as they both have similar prosody. Babies use, two particular types of cues; ‘prosodic syllable stress’ and ‘non prosodic transitional probabilities’ and is illustrated by Johnson & Juscyzk (2001, p. 70 & 71). Syllable stress relies on the stress patterns in speech strings to denote the word boundaries and the later works on the probability of syllables occurring together. Syllables within words, such as ‘pre-ty ba-by’ are more likely to follow one another in sequence than syllables that are adjacent to those on a proceeding or subsequent word, such as ty and ba. Babies recognize the syllables pre, ty, ba and by contained within the speech strings and come to learn the ‘transitional probability’ of them occurring in a fixed order, so they know where words begin and end. However, in a further study Johnson & Jusczyk (2001, p. 72) found that whilst ‘transitional probabilities’ provide important cues, adding prosodic stress to the syllables had a significant effect, and caused babies to listen longer, extending the value of prosody highlighted by Christophe & Morton (1998). It is difficult to ignore the fact that categories are linked to language and provide the building blocks for comprehending words. Once babies having used cues to make categorical distinctions they are able to associate these to social experiences to add meaning and begin to produce their first words. Christophe & Morton (1998) highlighted that babies construct two categories for understanding their own language; native language and foreign language. Young & Gotlieb (1988, p. 33) might suggest babies categorize words through a process of ‘Prototype Abstraction’, constructing an average of all the types of word exemplars they hear, such as object names (nouns) and actions (verbs) as having different averages of ‘transitional probabilities’. More specifically the process of categorizing words might be explained by a Single Process Model where babies quantitatively enrich their category representation of words over time through a process of learning. This echoes a Piagetian perspective of learning being the accommodation and assimilation of new information (words). However, a broader explanation might be extended by Mandler (1992, 2000, p. 44) who proposes a Dual Process Model. This may argue that language development is based initially on simple word schemas that hold little meaning and that we cognitively analyse it in order to link them to more complex information in our social world. This harbours more mature concepts of language known as ‘concept primitives’. However, all these suggest imply a process of learning that is bound to a baby’s social world. Social interactions provide opportunities for babies to enrich their categorical knowledge and develop a comprehensive understanding of words. Babies categorically discriminate the syllables ‘da-ddy’ from a speech and associate it to the social experience of seeing their mother point to their farther as the syllables are spoken. Bruner (1975, p. 73) adopts more social constructivist perspective and proposes that language develops during interaction with familiar social contexts, where babies are able to associate speech used by adults to events, objects and people. Adults provide a supportive framework that is reminiscent of Vygotsky (1896 – 1934, p. 34 & 35), who advocated that mothers are teachers and allow children to develop beyond their ‘zones of proximal development’. This perspective is extended by processes of ‘meshing’ and ‘scaffolding’ during first relationships between child and primary carer. Meshing sees the mother using ‘pseudo dialogues’ in response to a babies burst of activity during a process of co-regulation of turn taking where the infant becomes less reactive and more proactive. This further supports Travarthen’s (1979) position on ‘primary intersubjectivity’ being centred on bursts of activity during babies ‘communitive mode’ and further extends Bruner’s (1975) view that children relying on adult cues. This is also advanced by an understanding of ‘scaffolding’ and where the mother acts as a tutor during a process of ‘Joint Action Formation’, providing a sequence of stereotyped actions that act as cues and forms the basis of language development. Butterworth (1988, p. 77) provides a clearer explanation of how babies associate categorical distinctions to social experiences. He claims pointing is the strongest adult cue for babies to use, as they are predisposed to look at objects that are singled out and allows them to maximize their social experiences. This is supported by Norgate (1977, p. 78) who found that blind babies develop fewer words and reinforces babies having primitive innate capacities that language is built on (Reminisent of Chomsky). Social experiences provide rich opportunities for babies to follow adult cues, principally pointing and naming objects, so they come to understand the meaning of the words they recognize and associate the to social experiences. Harris et al (1995, p. 77) found cues were linked to babies producing their first words to named objects at around the age of 10 months. Their subsequent language development is argued to be the result of several key social influences; ‘naming insight’ where babies realize that all objects have names and general cognitive development. However, a stronger proposition as to why infants suddenly develop a ‘vocabulary spurt’ in their word production is offered by Plunkett & Marchman’s (1993, p. 80) ‘Connectionist Model’, that suggests an increased rate of production becomes easier itself through learning (Piagetian perspective). This proposes a top down process of processing where we are able to produce more words by applying existing knowledge of words and our language moves from being contextually bound to contextually flexible. Harris et al (1998, p. 87) emphasizes that language development occurs in context to social routines. A correlation exists between the first words infants use as mirroring those used by the mother. As children learn the meaning of words and apply a top down process of learning. The extent to which their speech is supported by the mother’s utterances declines, much as in the case with meshing were there are less pseudo dialogues and more proto dialogue. This reinforces the whole process of quantitative learning in the development of language and significance of the social. This process is illustrated by baby’s first attempts to produce words when they begin to generate sounds in the form of ‘babbling’. This begins with ‘cooing’ and progresses to ‘vocal play’ where babies experiment with pitch and loudness. Eventually, ‘canonical babbling’ emerges to produce recognizable syllables known as the ‘prototypical stage’ and continues to develop to ‘replicated babbling’ and eventually ‘variegated babbling’ where the baby is able to follow one sound with another. These are always phonetic simplifications of adult words and emphasize the significance of social experiences that allow babies to mirror adult words and associate them to objects, events and people so that they are able to produce their first words around the age of 10 to 13 months. However, the rate at which children’s language develops does vary and Nelson (1973, p. 93) found that it is dependent on whether the words they produce are ‘expressive’ or ‘referential’. This is supported by Bates et al (1988, p. 93) who found that children who produced referential words that contained more object names had larger vocabularies. However, Nelson could be criticized for over simplifying the development of language that may be much more complex. Nevertheless it reiterates the importance of the type of words used by parents for children to mirror. Harris (2004, p. 89) found there was a delay in language development in children who’s mothers used utterances that contained less object names. The importance of the quality of language is extended by Bernstein (1962) who found that the quality of development was related to the type of language used, as the extent of development was delayed amongst working class families that relied more on ‘restricted code’, and that was context embedded rather than actually naming what they were talking about. However, despite the importance of social experiences, language development and particularly production of words is limited by anatomical development, which reinforces a process of maturation. Up to the age of 3 months the vocal tracts of infants are similar to chimpanzees, the larynx is positioned high, near to the soft plate of the mouth and the tongue is out of proportion to the mouth. This anatomical stage is such that it allows the babies to achieve greater suction for feeding and once weight gain is achieved at 4 months the vocal tract develops more like that of an adult and becomes able to produce speech. In appreciation of how children come to understand and produce their first words it is evident that it is a complex process that can not be simplified. Whilst acknowledging that the ability to produce words is restricted anatomically, it can be seen that babies do start out with some primitive innate capacities and that equip them with the ability to recognize speech. From here on in it is clear that being able to make categorical discriminations between speech strings and to subsequently associate them to meaning is dependent significantly on social experiences. These provide a supportive and conceptual framework in which to develop comprehension and mirror adult utterances so they can produce their first words and continues to do so as their ‘babbling’ develops in to more abstract and variegated language.
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This intel was contributed by Jimbob
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May, 2012
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