Language Acquisition And Learning Theory

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How to calculate MLU

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- choose 100 consecutive utterances and count all morphemes, even if used incorrectly. Do not count repeating words like no, no. Do not count extraneous words like um.

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At ages 1 to 2, children should have an MLU of

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1.0 to 2.0

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At ages 2 to 3, expected MLU is

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2.0 to 4.0

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At ages 3 to 4, expected MLU is

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3.0 to 5.0

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At ages 4 to 5, expected MLU is

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4.5 to 7.0

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At ages 5 to 6, expected MLU is

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6.0 to 8.0

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At ages 6 to 7, expected MLU is

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6.5 to 8.5

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At ages 7 to 8, expected MLU is

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7.0 to 9.0

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Vocabulary development

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Important aspects of vocabulary development include the number of words used and understood. Also important is the familiarity with opposites, synonyms, homonyms, humor, and symbolic language. This development depends upon the extent of the child’s exposures.

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fast mapping

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refers to the ability of a child to gain knowledge of new words and concepts with a small number of exposures to them

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Word relationships

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Children in the early stages of speaking (1 to 2 years) may use overextensions (e.g., uses mama to refer to all women) or underextensions (e.g., only the child’s favorite train can be a toy). The ability to categorize words is important in language development.

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Language function

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Children should be able to expand the ability to label and describe objects. They must develop conversational skills such as taking turns while speaking, maintaining topical conversation, and being logical. Language context should be coherent and intelligible as they grow older.

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Pragmatic skills

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There are several important pragmatic skills in language development. These include the ability understand and use indirect speech and the ability to maintain effective discussion (discourse.)

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Semantic relations that young children (12 to 18 months) in the single-word phase (holophrastic stage) should be able to express verbally

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Action: Example: Car go
Attribute: Example: Yummy cookie
Denial: refers to a refutation in response to a statement or question. Example: No doggy
Disappearance: Example: Wagon gone
Existence: Example: That car
Locative action: Example: Truck here
Possession: Example: Dolly mine
Recurrence: Example: More juice
Rejection: Example: No milk

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Semantic relations that children 18 to 24 months in the two-word phase should be able to express verbally

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Action-object: Example: Drive car
Agent-action: Example: Boy sing
Agent-object: Example: Mommy hat (Mommy’s hat)
Action-locative: Example: Go park (Let’s go to the park.)
Demonstrative-entity: Example: That toy (not this toy, but that toy)
Entity-attributive: Example: Big horse
Entity-locative: Example: Dolly chair (The dolly is on the chair.)
Instrumental (verb and noun): Example: Sweep broom (sweep with the broom)
Notice: Example: Bye kitty
Nomination: Example: That horse (That is a horse.)
Recurrence: Example: More cookie

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during birth to 3 months:

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• Vocalizes with cooing sounds
• Tracks voices or faces with eyes
• Reacts to loud noises or pain by turning head or crying
• Smiles in response to stimuli

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 3 to 6 months:

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• Uses various vocalization sounds, which mature into multisyllables
• Recognizes and responds to familiar faces

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 6 to 12 months:

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• Understands a few words or simple commands
• Recognizes own name
• Communicates needs by gesturing to objects
• Attempts to imitate speech

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 12 to 18 months:

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• Follows simple requests
• Requests objects
• Names 5 to 10 objects
• Language mostly consists of nouns
• Begins to express own emotions and experiences
• Begins to initiate conversation
• Uses single words (holophrases) to express objects, needs, and actions

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 18 to 24 months:

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• Uses multiword responses (2 to 3 words)
• Uses verbs and adjectives in combination with nouns
• Can express up to 50 words and understand nearly 200 words by age 24 months
• Can use the personal pronoun, usually me

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 2 to 3 years:

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• Starts to use plurals, personal pronouns, and regular past tense verbs; misuses irregular past tense verbs
• Can express about 500 words and understands about 3,500 words
• Can use 3 to 4 word responses and can now ask simple questions
• Can follow two-step requests
• Can state age, name, and some body parts
• Demonstrate some intent in most aspects of communication

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 3 to 4 years:

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• Uses plurals, past tense, prepositions, pronouns, some irregular words, possessives, and conjunctions
• Starts to use and understand complex expressions and questions
• Able to use about 1,000 words and can understand about 4,000 words
• Understands comparative words and opposites
• Most speech comprehensible to others

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 4 to 5 years:

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• Uses complete sentences, future tense, possessive pronouns, and irregular plurals
• Able to use about 6,000 words and can understand about 9,000 words
• Understands simple time concepts
• Begins to define and inquire about words and concepts
• Able to tell stories and jokes
• All speech comprehensible to others

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 5 to 6 years:

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• Uses concepts learned from ages 4 to 5 with fewer grammatical errors
• Understands spatial relationships• Uses superlatives, adverbs, and conjunctions to join complex sentences; understands explicative language

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 6 to 7 years:

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• Has mastered most tense and plural forms and is using –ing ending words (gerunds)
• Able to perform simple reading and writing

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Developmental milestones of speech and language during 7 to 8 years:

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• Able to converse at nearly adult level
• Able to retell a complex story with appropriate spatial content, social meaning, and figurative expressions

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Nativist theory

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holds that children have an innate or genetic ability to learn and organize language but need the presence of other people in order to learn language to its full potential.

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Behaviorist theory

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holds that the acquisition of language is similar to any learned behavior. Children are conditioned by positive or negative reinforcement to learn language. Furthermore, a particular language is learned as a product of a particular environment.

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The social interactionism theory of language acquisition

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holds that language is acquired through interaction with the environment. This theory holds that language is learned by the drive to be social.

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Jean Piaget

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a Swiss developmental physiologist who was well known for his work in developing his theory of cognitive development. He observed thousands of children and theorized that there were four stages of cognitive development.

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Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years):

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This stage begins with the development of reflexes, habits, and coordination. Children develop coordination, object permanence, and begin creativity.

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Preoperational stage (2 to 7 years):

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Child begins to use mental symbols to represent objects (symbolic functioning). Child can attend only one aspect of a situation (centration) and is egocentric in his thinking.

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Concrete operations stage (7 to 11 years):

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Child is able to use logic appropriately.

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Formal operations stage (after age 11):

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Child begins to develop the ability to think abstractly.

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The information processing theory

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children learn to think the same way that a computer processes information. Just like a computer, a human takes information, organizes it, stores it, and relates it in order to present it in a logical way by actions, speech, or writing. The theory holds that information gained from previous experience is translated or programmed, and this ability to encode and generalize information is central in problem solving. Once encoded, input is stored in the brain in the form of memory.

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distinctive features concept

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phonemes have unique characteristics that distinguish them. These unique sounds are characterized using a binary system to indicate the presence (+) or absence (–) of the particular sound feature.

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Consonantal

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sounds made by the constriction of the vocal tract. Example: consonantal (+) /g/ in the word gate and the nonconsonantal (–) /h/ in the word hat.

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Sonorant

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sounds made without turbulent airflow in the mouth and can be produced continuously at the same pitch. Example: sonorant (+) /m/ in the word make and nonsonorant (–) /d/ in the word dog.