Language Development

Language Development

Pre-Lingual Communication

A child needs some means of communication by which he can communicate with the other people around him. Even during his infancy, the child develops some signs and indications which help to transmit his needs to other people. Psychologists differ in their opinion about the first crying sound of the child at the moment of birth. Some consider it a desire to communicate while others think it is a reflex action. Nevertheless, all psychologists agree that the child develops some kind of sign language to communicate his needs. Even when the child is three weeks old, he uses different sounds and physical movements to indicate such physical conditions as hunger, cold, pain, wetness etc. In this manner one observes the following three kinds of signs in a child while it is preparing to develop language:

1. Crying—This is the child’s first sound and does not have to be learn for it is automatically produced by the vocal organs. Crying is uncontrolled and irregular. According to Leibnitz and Stuart, the child cries during the first two weeks without any particular cause. Crying does not bring forth any tears but the breathing becomes irregular, pulse rate increases, the fist are clenched and the body becomes red. Despite the fact that his crying is no motivated, the child normally quietens down if it is picked up by the mother. After the third week this variety of crying grows less. Normally, crying in the first seven Weeks, indicates an excess of hunger, noise and light. According to Watson, the child cries because of hunger, exhaustion and fear. Buhler has indicated numerous causes of a child’s crying — birth, light, high pitched sound, physical discomfort, interruption of sleep, exhaustion, hunger, difficulty in movement caused by tight clothes, the taking away of toys, fear, etc. Many children are found to cry immediately before they are fed and before they go to sleep. When a child is of three mouths, he cries when he wants to attract the attention of grown up people, a four month child cries when he is not allowed to play. A nine month child cries when he observes his mother going towards another child. Studies of the crying sound of children have indicated that they utter the first sounds of vowels. If the parents pay too much attention when the child cries, then the child develops a habit of crying whenever he needs anything. It is better to attend to the child immediately he cries so that he should not have to cry for a long time in order to be attended to. Crying for long period has a bad effect on the child’s digestion besides which it also causes nervous tension and loss of sleep. This creates a feeling of in security in the child, for he feels that he is being ignored by his parents. All these things have the effect of making future social adjustment difficult. Physical development also suffers. 

2. Babbling—The stage of babbling begins in the (bird month and continues up to the eighth month. During this period the child’s vocal organs develop. A child makes those sounds which give him pleasure and he repeats them because they add to his pleasure. If his parents indicate their delight at the sounds he is making, then the child feels encouraged to go on repeating them. Most of these sounds are meaningless and should be treated as such. Older People on the other hand, try to read some meaning into them and they say that the child is trying to say something. The child has to make an effort to produce such sounds. According to Jersild, these sounds later on die out and the child does not make them. In the beginning these sounds have some vocal quality although the child learns to pronounce consonants only when he sports his front teeth. Some Sounds become more definite than other because of repetition.  Hurlock believes that the child continues to babble up to the age of twelve months. But it would be more accurate to say that the period of babbling depends upon the development of the child’s speech organs and the encouragement he receives to speak. Babbling gives pleasure to the child and he is often seen babbling to himself. He grins and laughs when he hears the sound proceeding from his own mouth.  Compared to the normal child, a deaf one does not babble so much because he cannot hear the sound that he is himself making. It is in the process of babbling that the child learns gradually to control his vocal chords.

3. Gestures — The child uses different types of gestures and signs to express his meaning to others. He uses several parts of the body to make gestures. If he does not succeed in conveying his meaning through gestures, he begins to weep. In infancy several types of gestures are spontaneously visible, as for example, moving the head from side to side, smiling, stretching arms, weeping, throwing legs etc. The parents follow the meanings conveyed by the child through these gestures. As the child learns to speak, the use of gestures becomes less and less, because they are not needed any more. But gestures are used even now due to imitation and sometime to emphasize certain words.

After passing through different stages of language development, the child gradually begins to understand different words and their uses. At the age of 18 months he can use ten to twelve simple words on an average. Some children can use as many as one hundred words at this age. In next three or four months, the child’s vocabulary increases very fast. At the age of 3 years, his vocabulary may include words in four figures and this goes on increasing till the age of 12 years when it reaches the limit of 10,000 words or more.

Language Development in Different Ages

Some psychologists have described language development in different ages. This can be divided into the following three periods:

1. From two to three years of age— During this period, the child begins to use words to form sentences. He uses pronouns though he cannot use ‘I’ and ‘me’ properly. At the end of this periods he begins to use plural and past tense. Child of three years can make complex and compound sentences.

2. Four to five years of age -- At the age of four the child’s ability to form a sentence is considerably improved and he begins to make use of the rules of grammar. He is very talkative at this age. He is interested in almost everything and asks questions without waiting for the answers. It appears that curiosity is not the only cause behind these questions; a reason is the exercise of the growing vocabulary. At the kindergarten age the child achieves sufficient control over words, though he cannot understand their subtle meanings.

3. After five years — At this age most of the children go to school. They use language intelligently in talking to other persons. The school and the home play a very important role in language development at this stage. The child also learn to pronounce correctly.

Factors affecting Language Development:

1.Physical health—If the child remains very ill during the first two years of life, it very adversely affects the language development in him, because firstly he does not get contact of other children, second he has no motivation to speak because his needs are fulfilled even without asking and thirdly, he is often asked to keep silent. According to Gasel and Garrison, the deaf children learn to speak very late and their pronunciation is mostly incorrect. In comparison with other children, their Vocabulary is very much limited, becausc they cannot learn by imitation.

2. Intelligence --- Almost all the psychologist admit that the level of intelligence is closely related with the ability of speech. The language development goes along with increase in the level of intelligence. The children who are mentally undeveloped seldom develop average vocabulary. A mentally deficient child of five years of age has generally a vocabulary of and infant of 11/2 years. On the other hand, the superior child has a vocabulary more than the average. He begins to speak at least four months earlier than the average child. The mentally deficient child, on the other hand, sometimes lags behind the average child for three years. But all the children are not same in this respect. About one-third of the mentally deficient children begin to speak at the proper age. The superior children not only learn to speak early but adopt the developed pattern of speech at an early age. They cannot, however, think with the elders. Sometimes some children who are very much advanced in language development in the begging gradually lag behind even the average. Similarly, some children who appear to be very intelligent in the primary classes lag behind in higher classes.

3. Socio-economic status—The psychologists generally believe, that in comparison with the children coming from lower socio-economic status, the children from higher socio-economic status have a wider vocabulary and more linguistic ability. Some psychologists have admitted a distinction of eight months period in the language development according to socio-economic status. Among  the new corner children in the school, the children coming from families of higher socio-economic status generally depict developed vocabulary compared with that of the children coming from poor families. This, however, does not mean that socio-economic status is the sole determinant of linguistic ability. In fact, the influence of socio-economic status makes distinction in the circumstances of children. Generally, the Parents occupying a higher socio-economic status are more intelligent and more educated as compared with others.

Thus, it is natural that their children should be more intelligent than those who belong to a lower socio-economic status. Secondly, better means of learning such as radio, television, magazines etc., are available in the family of higher socioeconomic status and these, in their turn, favorably influence the intellectual development of the children. Thirdly, the children learn words by imitation of their parents. It is therefore, natural that the modes of speech and the vocabulary of the children, from families of higher socioeconomic status should be more
than of those children who come from poor families. Again, in the families of higher socioeconomic status, the parents pay more attention to the intellectual development of their children. All these factors at the higher socio-economic status favorably influence the linguistic development of the child.

4. Sex differences —A comparative study of the linguistic development of boys and girls had revealed that in comparison with the boys the girls begin to speak earlier and they can use longer sentences at an early age. The language development, length of sentence, purity of construction, uses of words, power of comprehension and ability of pronunciation of the girls is much more than that of boys. On an average their vocabulary is bigger than that of the boy of the same age and they develop a wider vocabulary at an early age. This superiority of the fair sex over the male is maintained up to a considerably higher age, so much so that at the stage of complete language distinction the girls are generally much more advanced than the boys. This distinction in linguistic abilities according to sex differences has been explained in terms of differences in family situations according to Mcarthy. In infancy, the girls generally identify with the mother the boys with the father. But while the girls get sufficient contact with the mother, the boys do not get as is due to this contact the parent that the linguistic development, of the boy suffers. The explanation given by Mcarthy has not been admitted by other psychologists. In fact, the superiority of the girls in linguistic ability can be accounted by the fact that their general development is two years earlier as compared with the boys and they reach adulthood two years earlier. It is hence that their linguistic ability is much more compared with boys of the same age.

5. Family Relationship: The studies conducted by Macarthy, Thomson and others among the children brought up in orphanages have shown that the language development of orphans lags behind the children brought up in average families. The orphans infants weep more and babble less. They begin to speak at a late age and use few sounds. An important cause of this deficiency is the absence of opportunities of the imitation of the parents. The psychologists have also found difference in language development according to birth order in the family. The real reason behind the distinctions, however, is not birth order itself but the difference which it makes in the child’s contact with the parents. According to Davis and Mcarthy, the language of the elder child is much more improved than that of the younger children because he gets more contact of the adults in the family. But if the youngest child gets sufficient contact of the parents, his linguistic development not lag behind because of his birth order. Other studies have revealed that the linguistic development of the twins lags behind the development of children born alone because the twins arc generally weaker.

6. Bilingualism — An important factor in the language development of the child is the fact whether he has to learn one or two languages in the house in his early age. In some modern Indian families, the child is so much confused by hearing a mixed language that he cannot pronounce correctly either his mother tongue or English and cannot improve vocabulary in any language. From this point of view it is better if the child is encouraged to speak his mother tongue and the same is spoken to him. If the child is taught two languages right from the beginnings the burden is likely to hamper his language development and more particularly his thinking because he often fails to decide as to which word should be used at a particular occasion. In order to learn two languages he has to memories double words everywhere, with the result that his vocabulary in an one language does not improve appreciably. It is more so because often the grammar of two languages is also different. Thus the Indian parents who try to speak in English with their children right from the beginning and encourage them to do so, stunt the mental development of their children and unnecessarily load their mind with a foreign language. The psychologists have unanimously agreed that the child should be taught through his mother tongue and the same should he spoken to him. A foreign language can be taught to him only after he masters own mother tongue.

7.General Growth—The general growth of the child very much influences his language development. If the general growth is better the language development will also be better. The child in this case will begin to speak earlier and his vocaulary may be wider. On the other hand, if the general growth is deficient, the child will be lagging behind others in language development as well.

Reference book:

·      Aggarwal, J.C. (2004). Essential of Educational Psychology.Vikas Publishing

           House Pvt Ltd, New Delhi

·      Bhatia & Bhatia, (2006). A Textbook of Educational Psychology, Doaba House,

          Delhi

·      Bhatnagar, S. &Saxena, A. (2004). Advanced Educational Psychology. Third

          Edition Surya Publications Meerut

·      Mangal, S. K. Advanced Educational Psychology. Second Edition, Prentice Hall

          of India private limited, New Delhi