A human child is capable of many things in early childhood. One of these capabilities is being able to learn languages. From age five all the way back to birth, children are honing their language skills day by day. From birth to six months, babies learn to recognize their parents’ voices and turn toward sounds that are familiar to them. Babies learn to grunt, chuckle, whimper and gurgle and learn to gain others attention by using their voices. One of the most common examples of how babies use their voices to grab their parent’s attention is by crying. By crying babies can convey that they are tired, hungry or scared. They are also able to express and vocalize excitement and pleasure by laughing and squealing. These small babblings are common in babies all around the world. Similar to what John Locke wrote, babies are a table rasa, a blank slate and are capable of learning any language. This ability is only shown in humans as babies because by age five it becomes harder for children to learn a new language. The social interactions between babies and their surroundings form during birth to six months.
During the period from 6 months to a year, children begin to intently listen to sounds because they begin to have an active interest in the conversations around them. Around this time, babies learn to address their parents as dada and mama. Other babies also have already learned to say bye-bye. Babies progress from simple babble and sounds and learn to use their tongues to change the sounds in their mouth. This time of age is a very crucial age for learning during language development for babies. During toddler stages between 15 and 18 months they can understand up, down, and hot, and they usually know 10 to 20 words. When they reach 18 months to 24 months children now understand there are words for everything leading to a strong increase in momentum for their language development. Toddlers can follow two step instructions, know body parts, and can hum and sing. After several months of slower development kids often form an explosion of new words. After age two children and adolescents add about nine new words a day to their vocabularies. Between ages three to five children can understand most if not all of what they hear, have between 900 and 2,500 words in their vocabulary, and can tell stories on topic. Most kids can talk constantly, know all vowels and consonants, and correct their own grammar and errors by school age (five or six) and can read about age seven.
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Language production consists of four strategic steps that explain the process. The first step is conceptualizing. During this step we figure out what we want to say. There hasn’t been much figured out about this step. It has been studied but not much information has been formed on this. The next step is where we put our thoughts together in terms of language also known as a linguistic plan. This step has been studied indefinitely and has had a lot of information found about it. Slips of the tongue play a large role in our linguistic plans. There are eight categories to tongue-ties. Shift is where one part of our words moves from where it should be placed and ends up somewhere else e.g. “I was walk (walking) to the storing (store).” When two parts of our words exchange places it is called exchange e.g. “Would you like some fries (ketchup) with your ketchup (fries)?” Another category is called anticipation, which is when something from the end of our sentence is said earlier in the sentence but does not leave the end of the sentence e.g. “Bats frorage (forage) for fruit in the Spring.” Perseveration is the exact opposite of anticipation e.g. “The choir started singing the stong (song).” Another category is called addition where something is added to the sentence without necessity e.g. “I need to unthaw (thaw) the meat.” Deletion is the exact opposite of addition where something is left out e.g. “I need to hearse (rehearse) my lines.” The next one is called substitution and it is the most uncommon tongue tie e.g. “Where is my tennis bat (racquet)?” The final and most common slip of the tongue is called blend where two words are smushed into one when they are both being thought of for use e.g. “Not in the sleast (slightest/least).” The third step to the process of language production is when we articulate our linguistic plan. It has been shown that slips of the tongue can happen at any linguistic level: phoneme, morpheme, or word. Finally, self-monitoring is where we keep track of what we are saying and whether the message and tone came across the way we wanted it to come across. It is unclear of whether we actually edit what we have already said. People often engage in self-repair which is where we stop ourselves to fix what we have said wrong. Usually we interrupt ourselves when we hear error in something we said or we use “um, oh wait, or sorry” to fix in our mind what we were about to say. Internal monitoring is the inner speech version of what is going to be said and external monitoring is the act of hearing what we are really producing. Internal mechanism will catch what are about to be said, and if they do not the external system will catch it and fix it.
Language comprehension has been studied much less than language production. It assesses single words, relating two named objects, agents and actions, clausal constituents, attributes, noun phrases, locative relations, verbs and thematic role assignment, vocabulary, and complex grammar interference. This process is done by giving children questions and they answer by pointing to objects or replacing/moving them. Points are awarded for right answers and then points are scaled to get a final grade.
Language production and comprehension can really affect childhood learning and cognition. Without language production children’s learning abilities would not be half as strong as they are. Language comprehension is a key factor in the way babies’ brains develop. All the information that is taken in just by hearing and forming words is immense. The way their brains form from birth to age six is very drastic. The processes of language production and development are one of the biggest learning skills all humans go through in life. All over the world babies are learning languages from one to multiples. Some babies learn more than one language when they are growing up. Mexican families are known well for this ability. Some children learn English as their main language but also know Spanish just as fluently to be able to communicate with their family members. There is still a lot to learn about the way human brains work when it comes to language. There are some areas that have not been studied as much as others or they have not been able to find as much information. For them being our own brains, we still have much more to learn about them, ourselves, and our abilities to do or learn things.
References
- Alic, M. (n.d.). Language Development. Retrieved from Encyclopedia of Children's Health: http://www.healthofchildren.com/L/Language-Development.html
- Robinson-Reigler, B. &.-R. (2008, 2012, 2017). Cognitive Psychology Applying the Science of the Mind. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
- Simlesa, S. &. (2017, January). The Role of Executiv Functions in Language Comprehension in Preschool Children. Retrieved from Scientific Research An Academic Publisher: https://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=73731
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