| Toddlers typically
follow a predictable sequence as they develop
language. At around 12 months, they begin to produce
their first words. By about 24 months, children
use 50 or more words to express themselves, leading
to the vocabulary spurt (Goldfield and Reznick,
1996), when they learn up to five new words a
day (Bloom and Markson, 1998). Children absorb
new words very quickly. Toddlers as young as 13
months are able to infer word meaning after as
few as four, and sometimes only one, exposure
to the word (Kay Raining Bird and Chapman, 1998).
This is partly because caregivers use repetition,
vocally emphasize the word being taught, adapt
their speech to the child, help the child focus
on the object being taught and respond to specific
language needs. One crucial aspect of language
acquisition is the social transaction between
the caregiver and the child that enables learning
to occur.
The brain circuitry needed to learn language
is in place at birth, but the "wiring"
hasn't been hooked up yet. (Crain, 1991) For that
to happen, neurons must fire over and over again
to strengthen connections called synapses. This
is where parents and caretakers play a crucial
role: Some scientists speculate that what detonates
these charges is repeated auditory, verbal, and
sensory experience. (Rakic, 1995) People smile
at their baby, and their baby smiles back. This
is done a thousand times, and with each repetition
the faint threads of new connections are fortified
in an infant's brain until they're like steel
cable. Synapses multiply steadily between 9 months
and 2 years old. Then, once the developmental
synapses required for early language learning
are no longer needed, huge numbers of them wither
away. (Bates et al, 1979)
To compensate for the fact that their linguistic
circuits aren't in full working order for at least
a year, babies have certain perceptual abilities
that help them recognize elements of language--even
before they're born. Peter Jusczyk, a professor
of psychology and cognitive science at Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore and author of The Discovery
of Spoken Language, says that babies' exposure
to speech while in the womb actually affects how
they react to language after they're born. Infants
are sensitive to rhythms and that newborns can
differentiate between the mother's language and
a foreign language. What they're picking up on
is the musicality of the language they've grown
accustomed to hearing during their nine-month
gestation. (Pinker, 1984)
Despite a baby's innate ear for language, learning
to understand and use words requires specific
input from parents. Babies are particularly attuned
to the form of speech known as motherese. When
people raise their pitch slightly, draw out vowels,
and pronounce words in a sing-song voice, they're
speaking their baby's favorite dialect. And the
more time their baby spends listening to them,
the more time she's cultivating her speech development.
Fortunately, motherese comes naturally to parents,
not to mention most admiring strangers. (Pinker,
1994)
Another way parents can foster their babies' language
development is through something called shared
joint attention. At 9 months, babies start following
an adult's gaze to objects, and they start imitating
the adult's actions with those objects. When parents
point to an object while naming it, they're engaging
in a special kind of interaction that psychologists
call social referencing. (Bates et al, 1988)
A critical factor in whether children are able
to incorporate a word into their vocabulary is
the number of times they hear it spoken. There
is no substitute for live interaction, experts
point out. Children benefit from context: eye
contact, parents' facial expressions and gestures,
objects they can associate with the sounds of
words. It even helps babies to study their parents'
lips as part of their quest for correct pronunciation.
And, of course, babies need and want parents’
company and their attention. After all, they are
their primary love object. (Arehart et al, 1998)
Language development can vary dramatically from
child to child, so most experts spend five seconds
giving parents an age range for a language milestone
and five minutes warning them not to take it too
seriously. What's normal? Normal is when a child
is ready. (Fenson et al, 1994)
Nevertheless, a number of factors can influence
when a baby develops language skills. Among them:
Children of Multilingual Parents: It is found
that if both the parents speak different languages
in the home and the caregivers speak a different
language then those children learn to speak very
slowly. While those children, whose parents and
caregivers speak only one language, learn to speak
early. (Bates et al, 1980)
Girls Speak Earlier than Boys: It is found from
studies that girls have strong speaking and word
forming powers that boys. There have been examples
in which there were twin brother and sister. Sister
started talking at around 12 months, brother,
on the other hand consistently did everything
from walking to talking two months after sister.
But now they're both about even in development.
(Dale, 1991)
Parents’ factor: The age at which most
of the children start speaking is the same as
the age of their parents when they had started
speaking. If parents had started speaking in their
first year then their children are more likely
to start speaking in their first year too. If
parents were late talkers then their children
are more likely to be late talker too. (Killen&
Uzgiris, 1981)
First Baby Gains More Attention: It is found that
the first baby learns to speak earlier than its
siblings because parents give their full attention
towards their first baby and spend more time to
converse with their baby. But parents get less
time to converse with their babies born after
their first baby. Due to less parental attention,
those babies are found to have slow speech development.
(Markus et al, 2000). It was also researched whether
the sibling conversation plays any role. It was
found that it does not play any role because the
elder children like to order their younger rather
than involve in conversation with them. (Moeller,
Osberger, Eccarius; 1986)
Learning Disabilities: Comprehension or speech
problems can arise from learning disabilities.
Learning disabilities can sometimes cause speech
or comprehension problems. There has been case
in which a speech delay was indicative of a serious
language disorder that runs in family. At 22 months,
the child hadn't pronounced a word. The child
had to undergo through a variety of treatments.
Then it was diagnosed that the child has apraxia.
Apraxia is a disorder which is neurologically
based. (Schaefer & Moersch, 1981)
Hearing problems: If a child suffers from repeated
ear infections in the age of learning to talk,
there are chances that the child will not be able
to hear speech clearly. It is advised that the
hearing of all children should be checked when
they reach the age of three months. (Anderson,
1996)
Parents are sometimes so eager for their child
to begin talking that they're determined to do
everything they can to speed up the process. But
in this case, biology is destiny. Can parents
make it happen early? No. It won't happen until
the child is ready. But parents can delay speech
if they don't give the child enough or the right
kind of input. The good news is that the single
most important thing parents can do is also one
of the easiest--talk. (Tomblin, Shonrock, Hardy;
1989)
Mastering a language is a complex process that
involves deciphering sounds and understanding
what they mean, as well as learning to reproduce
the sounds and combine them into words and sentences
that obey the rules of grammar and syntax. (Lightfoot,
1982) Here are some approximate signposts on a
baby's road to perpetual chatter.
• 6 weeks: Babies this age begin expressing
delight by cooing, and uttering their first "oohs"
and "aahs." 2 months: Babies can hear
different speakers, male and female, saying the
same word--without being disturbed. They are learning
to generalize: same word, different voice. No
big deal.
• 4 months: Infants become aware that voice
sounds correspond to lip movements.
• 4 to 5 months: A baby understands his
own name.
• 6 months: An infant can tell from the
intonation in her dad's voice whether he's happy
or not.
• 7 months: A baby can pick out individual
words in a stream of speech. This is called segmenting
speech, or recognizing the boundaries of where
one word ends and another begins.
• 7 to 8 months: Infants start repeating
the same syllable, such as "ba, ba, ba"
or "neh, neh, neh" over and over. Language
expert, Steven Pinker calls this the baby's way
of "fiddling with the controls to see what
happens." By listening to her own babbles,
she learns to modulate sounds so that she can
duplicate her parents' speech.
• 7 to 12 months: At this stage, babies
learn causality, the first step toward logic.
When Mommy says "bye-bye," she leaves.
8 to 10 months: Babies understand their first
words, though their parents may think that it
happened much earlier.
• 10 to 12 months: This is when children
begin to babble strings of non-identical syllables.
They combine "da-dee" or rattle on in
unintelligible gibberish that nevertheless has
the rhythms and intonations of real speech.
• 10 to 18 months: At this age, the majority
of toddlers pronounce their first words, including
Dada, Mama, and bye-bye.
• 18 to 21 months: Seemingly overnight,
a child begins learning up to eight or nine new
words a day in a vocabulary spurt. She also begins
using two-word combinations and putting 95 percent
of them in the proper order.
• 24 to 40 months: Pinker refers to this
as the "all hell breaks loose" stage--when
babies begin to consistently utter many words
using proper syntax. (Fenson et al, 1993)
Language learning is one of the most important
tasks for toddlers. Initial language seems to
be learned best from social interaction. Although
children might eventually learn new words from
television, they do not seem able to establish
their first words that way. Many factors are involved
in the language learning process of toddlers.
Parents should give equal attention to all their
children. Hearing of all the children should be
checked from time to time
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