Birth to Five Language Development (CMD 550 Sum23))

Theories of language development

Nativism

Oriented in the 1950s, Nativism is a theory developed by Noam Chomsky. Chomsky believes:

Children bring an innate understanding of grammar and learn so quickly that adults can't teach everything on their own
Children use bootstrapping to obtain language aspects like semantics and/or prosody

Steven Pinker added to this idea in the 1990s and believed that:

All languages are built on the same grammar which is built into the brain

Contribution of Nativism in assessments/interventions:

1. The language acquisition device, or LAD for short, is a hypothetical 'tool' in the brain that carries particular knowledge about language and grammar. As a result, when a child hears speech, his or her LAD is activated.

2. The term "universal grammar" refers to the information contained inside the LAD. Many basic grammatical concepts are shared by all human languages:

Distinguish between verbs and nouns.
Have a manner of discussing the past and the present.
Have an approach to asking questions.
Have a counting system in place.

Concerns of Nativism in Assessment/Intervention:

The Nativist theory says that children do not have a propensity for language, suggesting that they cannot learn complete speech patterns in their environment. This therefore takes away the importance of intervention, since this theory suggests that it would not make a significant difference for the child in their language development.
Nativism supports the idea of a "Universal Grammar", however, not all languages abide by the same rules, which affects the assessment and intervention of children that speak different languages. Therefore, it is questioned whether "Universal Grammar" is true. Therapy and assessment will vary between children of different languages/cultures.

Nativism is a Nature Theory

Nature refers to genetics, including the genes we are born with and other hereditary factors. These factors impact how our personality is formed and influences our development, including language acquisition.

Nativists take the stance that all or most behaviors and characteristics are the result of inheritance, or from nature.

Another compatible theory to nativism is the semantic view - that if language is generative, semantics must also be generative to create new meanings.

Charles J. Fillmore published his theory of Case Grammar in 1968, describing universal concepts: how nouns & verbs relate to each other. This theory is comparable to Chomsky's view of syntax in that language is innate and a child has a language acquisition device or innate reservoir of knowledge.

REFERENCES

Barbieri, M. (2020). The semantic theory of language. Biosystems, 190, 104100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2020.104100

Kendra Cherry, Mse. (2022, October 19). What to know about nature vs. nurture. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-nature-versus-nurture-2795392

Behaviorism

Scientists / Theorists Related to Behaviorism:

Ivan Pavlov (1890's)

His theory of behavorism revolves around the belief that behaviors are a learned process that is a result of classical conditioning
Pavolv is famous for his experiment revolving behaviorism when demonstrating that dogs can be classically conditoned to salivate at the sound of a bell

John B. Watson (1913)

He proposed a school of though in psychology referred to as methodological behavorism. It proposed that psychologist should prioritize observable behaviors and ignore the internal mental process.
Watson conducted The Little Albert Experiement. Watson wanted to take Pavlov's classical conditoining of dogs a step further by conditioning peoples emotional reactions.

B.F. Skinner (1985)

His learning theory suggests that when a person is exposed to a stimulus, it revokes a response. The response is then reinforced thus leading to human behavior conditioning.
Skinner is famous for the Skinner box. Also referred to as the operant conditioning chamber. It was used to study operant and classical conditioning on mice.

Nature vs Nurture:

Behaviorism sides with nurture, in which it is something that is not innate but rather learned. The behaviorism theory asserts that language must to be learned because we are not born with it. The environment a child is in plays a significant role in how a child develops language and then takes that language learned and generalizes or applies it to other situations or environments. Reinforcement from an adult is required in order for a child to acquire language. This idea stems from Skinner’s Operant Conditioning.

Compatibility:

Behaviorism is compatible with the social-interactionist theory, which also asserts that language is a learned behavior. Social-interactionist theory emphasizes the role of social connections and interactions (e.g., spending time with others to absorb their language, use of “parentese” to support children’s linguistic growth. Behaviorism is more general and describes stimulus-response relationships, which can be applied to language beyond social interactions.

Contributions of behaviorism in Language Therapy

Reinforcement is utilized often in therapy through verbal praise for language use. Children may become motivated to imitate their caregiver for positive or negative reinforcement.
A token economy, or a reward for the desired behavior, increases the likelihood of the child to use language.
These relationships may also prime the child to associate language and communication with positive feelings.

References

Behavioral Perspective in Psychology [Behaviorism Theory]. (2022, November 3).https://www.simplypsychology.org/behaviorism.html

GoodTherapy | Skinner Box. (n.d.). Retrieved July 9, 2023, from https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/skinner-box

Concerns of Behaviorism in Language Therapy

Behaviorism discounts the role of nature in language, which is important to understand to gain a full picture of how language develops.
A more balanced view is ideal because the vaster the fund of knowledge used to understand language, the richer the intervention approaches will be.
Generalization, or the ability for the behavior to be applied to different contexts may be difficult with behaviorism, due to the reinforcement needing to be immediate and is specific to the stimuli presented.
A process called extinction, a decrease in the desired response even when the stimulus is presented, may occur if reinforcement is faded.

Semantic View

Traditionally, the theory of language development relied on the idea that language links sound to meaning. However, the semantic view theory of language development believes that if language is generative, then syntax (set of rules of a language) and semantics (meaning of sounds) help generate new sentences.

Oriented in: 1968

Nature vs Nurture:

The semantic view of language development is primarily based on the child's experiences and exposure. The various environmental variables help shape the language and knowledge a child obtains therefore, the semantic view is dependent on nurture rather than nature. Nature is the innate and genetic ability whereas nurture is based on exposure and environmental factors. Semantic concepts are universal in their function but through each individual's personal experience, those functions are explored and learned. Children have the opportunity to learn the relationship between semantics and syntax including verb tense, sentence type, and the function of nouns and verbs to apply in different settings.

Compatibility:

The semantic view of language development is compatible with the cognitive-interactionist theory of language development. This theory suggests that children have existing cognitive categories and that they continue to add to or create new categories as new information is learned. These new pieces of information are then considered part of the child's semantic web; This means that they learn how each new word relates to one another (what category does it belong in and why) and continue to build semantic relationships as they continue to grow.

Contributions of semantic view in assessment or interventions:

Semantic view is primarily developed through exposure and experiences, therefore it can be easier to have access to.

Concerns of semantic view in assessment or intervention:

Semantic view is not generally developed through innate factors, meaning children develop language individually and independently.
If a child has not had the exposure to a certain object and it appears on an assessment, this could potentially impact their score.

References

Barbieri M. (2020). The semantic theory of language. Bio Systems, 190, 104100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2020.104100

Bloom (1980) emphasizes that language content has to do with what children know about objects, how certain objects relate to one another, and about events that include those objects. Bloom (1980) also explains that children need to have an understanding of how one can classify objects to then understand how objects are grouped together. For example, children need to have an understanding of what falls under the "furniture" classification (chairs, couches, tables...etc) to then further recognize that all of these objects are considered "furniture." Bloom (1980) highlights that children need to learn about how one object relates to another to be able to talk about the objects in conversation with peers; This includes knowing how colors can relate to one another by their size, shape, or color. All of these components help children be able to form sentences and understand that each object has a meaning within that sentence.

Bloom, L. (1980). Language development, language disorders, and learning disabilities: LD 3. Bulletin of the Orton Society, 30, 115-133.

Cognitive-Interactionist

Originated in: 1936

Scientists/Theorists related to this theory:

Jean Piaget (1936)
- Children have cognitive categories (“schemas”) that they use to process and organize information from the world around them. They create new schemas and continue to modify pre-existing schemas as they learn new things.
  - Assimilation: interpreting the world around us through pre-existing knowledge/schemas
  - Accommodation: making changes to or creating new schemas when experiences or information does not fit our pre-existing knowledge
  - Connections that occur more are strengthened whereas connections that occur less are weakened
Jerome Bruner (1961)

The cognitive-interactionist theory is both nature- and nurture-based. Language growth emerges as an interaction between a child's cognitive functioning and their environment.

Nature-based: development is dependent on biology
Nurture-based: development is dependent on the environment

The cognitive-interactionist theory suggests:

Our brain shapes the gradual process of language acquisition, acting as a mediator between what we are innately born to do (e.g., learn language) and our environmental input.

Language does not hold a unique position in one's cognitive development; it is part of one's overall cognitive development.
Language acquisition is not innate, but the cognitive precursors for that language learning are.
Language emerges due to our cognitive organization and development.

Assessment/intervention contributions for children ages 0-5:

Have caregivers or adults use a toy talk while playing with toys. This provides opportunities for interactions with the environment and others.
Play-based approach motivates a child to engage while playing with materials of interest. This includes exploratory, functional, constructive, and movement play. This allows the child to take the lead and create connections with real-life scenarios.

Assessment/intervention concerns for children ages 0-5:

This model doesn't take into account the function of language and the innate want for children to interact with their caregivers
This model also doesn't take into account macro-interactions that occur within a social structure such as culture and norms. It focuses on micro-interactions that occur between one or a few individuals.

Social-Interactionist Approach

Overview:

The social-interactionist theory was proposed by Jerome Bruner in 1983. This theory is based upon Vygotsky's sociocultural approach that emphasizes the role of culture and social environments in language learning. The social-interactionist theory is a perspective that emphasizes the crucial role of social interactions and cultural contexts in the acquisition and development of language skills. According to this theory, language learning occurs through meaningful interactions between individuals, particularly within social and communicative exchanges.

A Deeper Dive: What does a social-Interactionist Approach Really Mean?

Nature vs. nurture is a widely known concept in the world of scientific research. Nature refers to the genetic and biological factors that contribute to an individual's characteristics, traits, and behaviors. These factors include inherited genetic material, hereditary traits, and biological predispositions. Proponents of the nature side argue that genetics and biology play a dominant role in shaping who we are, including aspects such as personality, intelligence, and certain physical characteristics. Contrastingly, nurture refers to the external influences, experiences, and environment that affect an individual's development and behavior. These influences can range from parental upbringing, social interactions, cultural factors, education, and exposure to various experiences.

The social-interactionist theory highlights the significance of interaction and social settings in language acquisition while still acknowledging that language is natural, implying that children learn language because they want to communicate with the rest of the world. Therefore, the social-interactionist theory is comprised of both nature and nurture.

Additionally, the social-interactionist theory is similar to the cognitive-interactionist theory because they both focus on the structure of language and believe that children are born with intrinsic cognitive systems to store and process language.

Embracing a positive social environment

Creating achievable goals for maximum potential

Contributions to Assessment & Intervention

Social interaction is critical in the foundations of language acquisition. This is vital for intervention approaches as having an interactive environment in a speech therapy setting can contribute to the improvement of language achievement and a higher level of knowledge. Therefore, one contribution this theory makes is fostering a social environment that will create quality learning outcomes and sessions that can achieve expected goals. This is significant when creating achievable goals for clients to reach their maximum potential regardless of their language. Moreover, the social interactionist theory encompasses using interactions with the child to create tools for interventions, specifically in late talkers. Examples of this include expanding on the child’s utterance length, recasting their speech into syntactic form, and using a child-directed approach.

Using these techniques in conjunction with prompting can be very effective with this population. Additionally, this approach supports generalization because language interventions are often embedded within meaningful and socially relevant contexts.

Overall, the social interactionist theory emphasizes the importance of interactions with the child to not only improve their communication skills but to also create a positive environment for the child to grow into a new world of language knowledge.

Concerns and Considerations

The social-interactionist approach implies that language acquisition best occurs in the context of socially-based, intent-driven experiences. With this understanding, the approach recommends play-based, child-driven experiences during speech/language therapy. While beneficial in many ways (generalization, conversational diversity, etc.), some shortcomings of this approach should be considered.

Under the social-interactionist approach, underlying intent forms the basis for the acquisition of language. That is, social interactions are informed by verbal and non-verbal cues that a child may give to a care provider, prompting the provider to model the language associated with the action, object, or idea. For children with autism, communicative intent may be impaired and so the dynamic, reciprocal pattern of language development supported by this approach may not be optimally achieved. Language for this population may therefore be better described by behaviorist models, whereby children are passive beneficiaries of knowledge.

From a practical perspective, the social-interactionist approach does have some procedural shortcomings as well. As there is a degree of spontaneity in social communication, it may be more difficult to "control" a conversation so that language goals can be modeled, imitated, and spontaneously produced during speech therapy sessions. Clinicians, therefore, must engineer situations in which targets can be naturalistically compelled during intervention sessions. In the same vein, social interactions are not conducive to trial-based tasks, and so opportunities for repetition and reinforcement may be limited relative to other models.

References

Alharbi, J. M. (2023). Insight into the Role of Interaction in Language Acquisition: Vygotsky’s Interactionist Theory Of Language. ICCCM Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/8cv4s

Bergland, C. (2022). What Is Nature vs. Nurture in Psychology? Verywell Health. https://www.verywellhealth.com/nature-vs-nurture-5323408

Chapman, R. S. (2017). Children’s Language Learning: An Interactionist Perspective. Language Disorders From a Developmental Perspective, 1–53. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315092041-1

Interactionist Theory. (n.d.). StudySmarter US. https://www.studysmarter.us/explanations/english/language-acquisition/interactionist-theory/

Theories of Language Development PowerPoint created by Zara W. DeLuca, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse