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Language is a complex and important feature in every day life, it is how we as humans communicate to one another, how we express our needs and emotions and how we get the attention of our peers. How does language begin to develop in children? They are not born speaking the words adults use around them and they do not have a meaningful understanding of the deeper meanings behind the vocabulary we use in our every day life. The best way to understand the development of language in children is to first look at the beginnings, infancy.
When a child is born, they cannot speak words that we all understand as adults such as, “I am hungry” or “please hug me”, instead they will cry when hungry or in need and the way their caregiver responds to that are the first moments of communication. When looking at the development of language, it is easy to simply approach it through a scientific approach- when children are encountering something new with experiences or words, synapses occurs which then transfers to links called to neural pathways (Ryan, 2008). The first 3 years for a child are most important and the responsibility of developing language really falls on the environment provided to the child, not just through scientific definition.
An environment that promotes language includes vibrant displays, caregivers should maintain eye contact with the child and elaborate on items of interest to the infant. This means that as the infant grows and becomes more aware of their surroundings, the items should be kept stimulating, short picture books and stories should be available, sensory items that are soft or light up should be accessible and the whole time the parent should engage their child’s own babbles and noises with warmth and words associated with their surroundings (NIDCD, 2010). Simply talking to your infant while feeding such as, “it is time to eat, I can hear you and you are saying ‘I’m hungry’ “, encourages the development of language within the child.
As infants grow and become toddlers, they will begin to mimic the sounds around them using short one syllable words, often a child’s first words will me “ma” or “da” (mom or dad), and as their caregivers continue to provide a language rich environment, the sounds, speech and vocabulary will widen over time. Children can practice their language through flash cards with parents that have colors or shapes. When a child is being put in to an ELC there will be opportunities for further enhancement with peers as they interact with each other and the environment. The most important practice however, comes from the child’s ability to mimic the caregivers around them, through the different formations of the mouth, tongue movement and ears. Without any practice or exposure to this, language development becomes harder as infants and toddlers get older (Oswalt, 2019).
From working within a pre-k classroom and a toddler room, I get to see the different stages of development of language within children. In the toddler room, there is a 2.5 year old boy that when he first started only used a one word way to communicate such as “mine” or “ball”, within a month of him being around other peers, some further along in speech than he is, he was beginning to use more elaborate pairings and communicating much more clearly than before, so instead of just “ball” it was “want blue ball” and “play the dinosaur”. When children are exposed to language environments where they can associate words with objects that can be touched, heard, and played with they can better associate the connection between word and object. By caregivers singing, engaging the children not just in words but stimuli and allowing for social interactions between peers and other adults followed with responsiveness to needs, language is acquired, practiced and develops quickly in children.
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