Oral Language Essay

Children’s language development usually begins in their first three months. They will begin by learning to use their voice and enjoying vocal play. Babies will watch faces and mouths to try and copy movements and sounds.

Christina J. Groark, Stephanie K. McCarthy, Afton R. Kirk. (2014). Early Child Development: From Theory to Practice. Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Cognitive development in stage two of lifespan development correlates to shifts in infant’s thinking, reasoning, and use of language, problem solving, and learning. A child’s linguistic abilities develop swiftly around three years old. Then take into account by four years old, most toddlers are verbal intellectuals speaking in their native tongue proficiently (Dyer J., 2002a. pp. 87-92).

0–3 years – It is important that a baby is stimulated from when they are first born, because this helps them develop communication skills as they get older.

It is believed that babies develop language when they are in the utero and it continues throughout their lifetime. By twelve weeks old, babies may register the sounds they can hear and at the same time make basic visual, auditory and tactile mind maps (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). This allows the infant to turn towards any familiar sounds and noises. Babies begin to communicate with people around them quite quickly. By two months old, babies begin to make ‘cooing’ and other noises; this indicates the phonological component of language development. By six to nine months babies begin to experience with a mixture of sounds, and often you will hear a baby babbling. Babbling development is similar across many different languages and even hearing impaired babies will go through this stage. They may copy the sounds they are introduced too or beginning to recognize familiar

At the age of 6-11 months babies begin to babble such things such as mama. Babies at this age often try to communicate by actions or gestures and tries to repeat simple sounds that are used a lot around them.

Next, his language is still developing at this point. I showed him a stuffed animal dog and asked him if he could identify it and tell me what it is. The infant gazed at it and responded “woof,woof,woof!” He responded by what the dog sounds like. Secondly, I asked him to point out his body parts. For example, his ears, eyes and belly button. That moment I said belly button he pointed at it. He was able to repeat names and his toys that he owned. As I began to speak in long-complex sentences he stared at me for a second and then looked away and started doing something else.

Communication between a baby and parent/carer starts from birth with babies crying to let the adult know they are hungry, tired or distressed. At 1 month a baby should coo when content. At 3 months a baby should smile back

Children are more likely to remain engaged in conversation when they are the ones to initiate it and studies that observed mother-infant interactions saw that infants from 9 months of age to 23 months of age were more frequently the one to begin dialogues that contained multiple back and forth turns (Bloom et al., 1996). When a child initiates dialogue they have already had the time to mentally process what they are trying to say; vocalizations that emerge from this processing are longer and quicker in response time. The relevance of an object or action plays a key role and is best made clear when the child initiates the discussion about it. There is greater acquisition of knowledge when the child points to an object and a caregiver labels

Babies learn to talk by hearing language and having language directed at them in "conversation." Between 6-12 months, babies begin to fine-tune

Language development is related to this stage because language learning starts at birth. They listen to the speech of those close to them, and startle or cry if there is an unexpected noise.

Social interactions constructed by the mother will provide more opportunities for secure attachment to form and language learning to thrive. Scaffolding is a common method used by caregivers to share language with their children. In social interactions the caregiver demonstrate small bits of language and allow the child to absorb and respond, while offering any needed support. Conversations is driven by the caregiver and essential in routine and games, such as scripted play like tea parties. The mother and child will take turns talking, with the mother typically prompting further discussion (Bloom et al., 1996). Routine joint picture book reading is an effective tool in scaffolding. Time together builds up a foundation for a conversational

Overall, the experiment determined that CC infants had a significant increase in the number and quality of their vocalizations during the social response period while YC infants did not. CC infant’s vocalizations were also more advanced than the infants in the YC group (Goldstein, 2003). These results suggest that the more social interaction a child receives the more significant their language development over time. It is observed that children learn from social interaction; the CC infants received more social interaction when making vocalizations which caused them to increase their total number of vocalizations, which led to an increased quality of vocalizations, which supports the interactionist argument that children develop language through interaction with others and social cues. These results do conflict with the current view on language development, that infants learn by imitating the language of their caregivers. During the experiment, the mothers did not have to vocally respond, they could smile at their child, move closer to them or use other physical cues when their child made a vocalization. The children in the experiment still had an increase in the number and quality of the vocalizations even if the mother did not respond to them verbally. Goldstein’s experiment determined that social interaction to an infant’s babbling does have an influence on their language development, and help further determine just have human language

Children rely heavily on the input of their surrounding environments to develop these skills further (Eileen Allen & Marotz, 2003). The communication strategy used by children over the first year of life is predominately non-verbal before development progresses to include verbal communication (Rodnick & Wood, 1973). McDevitt and Ormrod (2010) suggest social emotional, physical and cognitive development is facilitated by the experiences children have in their “family, school and community” (p. 5). This raises the idea that the level of communicative development may differ greatly between children depending on experiential exposure. Rodnick and Wood (1973) expand on this further suggesting children will actually develop a level of grammatical and language understanding which is essential to communication, long before they commence schooling. In research conducted by Rodnick and Wood (1973) it was noted in their findings that the children subject to their research demonstrated a lower level of communication than expected at around the age of seven and suggest it may be due to environmental factors. This then draws some attention to the educator and their ability to teach a developing child not only the importance of communication, but also the skills of appropriate and effective communication.

The developmental stages of language are; pre-linguistic stage, one-word stage, two or three-word utterances, more complex sentences, further development between 3-4, and further development between 4 and 5. In the pre-linguistic stage from birth to 1 year, babies can tell the difference between voices and other sounds, they can start to use sounds such as ‘dadadadada’ or ‘mamamamama’. In the one-word stage from 12 to 18 months young children can have a variety of