Language Development Overheads

Language

• Webster: Language is a system of verbal and nonverbal symbols and sequences of symbols developed for the purpose of communication about experiential events.
• A subset of communication, which also covers gestures and paralanguage, such as crying and laughing.
• Seen to occur in animals.

Speech

• A verbal code (spoken symbols) used to express language.
• Uniquely human.
• Only one of many possible representations of language.
• Requires coordination of respiration, phonation, resonance, and articulation.

Functions of Language

• Interpersonal communication
• Vehicle for thought, via e.g., mediation, including labeling and classifying.
• Transmission of human culture.

Elements of Language

• Inner language (language of thought)
• predates expressive and receptive language
• provides integrating or processing component
• Receptive language (decoding)
• vehicle for comprehension
• prerequisite for expressive language
• Expressive language (encoding)

Development of Language Skills

• Receptive processes
• Listening
• Reading(including word recognition and analysis, and comprehension)
• Expressive processes
• Speaking
• Writing (including handwriting, spelling, and written expression)

Rules of Language

• Form
• Phonology: The system of sounds in language
• Morphology: units of meaning in language
• Syntax: Rules for language.
• Content
• Semantics: Extracting meaning from language
• Use
• Pragmatics: Use of language in social contexts

Theories of Language

• "Learned"Theory (Skinner)
• Language is essentially "verbal behavior"
• Language is acquired as child emits "operants" which are reinforced and shaped into language.
• Nativist Theory (Chomsky)
• Humans have native ability to process and produce language
• Language Acquisition Device, construct rules

Interactionist Perspectives

• Cognitive/Semantic
• Language is an outgrowth of thought (last substage of sensorimotor intelligence)
• language encodes a child’s existing knowledge
• Social/Pragmatic
• language develops from the desire to socialize
• extends existing communicative functions

Question

• Consider four theoretical perspectives:
• learned, nativist, cognitive, social
• Which perspective explains language acquisition through facilitated communication? What assumptions are made by FC about language development?

Developmental Milestones

• Year One
• reflexive crying, vegetative sounds, to random vocalizations to signaling needs
• discriminate sounds, cooing, babbling, echolalia, receptive actions
• Year Two
• first words, multiple functions, holophrases
• 400-wd. vocabulary, telegraphic speech

Later Development

• Third and fourth years
• increasing mastery of sentence structure
• 1,000 wd vocabulary by age 4
• Later childhood
• basic rules of grammar by 5
• 5-6: early interest in books, literacy
• Adolescence
• language for formal and informal situations

Language Disabilities

• Developmental comparisons
• e.g., MLU, word combinations
• Language Features
• problems with semantics, phonology, syntax, morphology, or pragmatics
• Classification based on Etiology or Characteristics

Language Disabilities

• Level I: Severe
• A. Absense of language
• B. Nonspontaneous acquisition
• C. Severe delay/distortion
• Level II: Mild-Moderate
• A. Oral language delay
• B. Oral language disorders
• C. Written language disorders
• Reading
• Graphic
• Expressive

Severe Language Disabilities

• Etiology/Correlates
• Brain pathology: mental retardation, emotional problems, CP, early brain injury
• Hearing loss: severity, onset, other disabilities
• Intellectual/cognitive factors
• Social factors
• Institutionalization

Severe Language Disabilities 2

• Competing behaviors
• Crying and tantrums
• Aggressive behaviors
• self-stimulation (stereotypy)
• self-injurious behaviors
• Bizarre language patterns
• mutism, selective mutism,
• echolalia, pronominal reversal

Mild-Moderate Language Disabilities

• Reception
• Acuity (e.g., hearing loss)
• Attention deficits
• phonological (auditory) discrimination
• syntactical discrimination
• semantic variables (e.g., vocabulary, meanings)
• "automatic receptive processing"

Mild-Moderate Language Disabilities 2

• Production (speech, written expression)
• Intention (desire to communicate)
• Semantic expression (pragmatics, word-finding)
• Syntax and morphology (syntactic vs. linguistic differences)
• Phonological production (includingdysarthria, apraxia, dysgraphia)
• Automatic expressive processing

Speech-Language-Pathologist

• Service models:
• self-contained class
• co-teaching
• one-to-one with selected students (frequently articulation disorders)
• consultation
• staff/curriculum/program development services

Language Development and Cultural Diversity

• Deficit position
• Language usage may help perpetuate lower- SES status
• Elaborated codes associated with wider range of syntactical options
• Restricted codes associated with narrower range of syntactical options

Language and Cultural Diversity

• Difference Position
• Dialect constitutes a separate, complete linguistic system rather than a grammatically limited version of standard English.
• Uninformed, insensitive assessment can lead to a "deficit" hypothesis.
• Differences between standard English and dialects are regular and predictable.

Bilingual Education

• To promote educational success and limit failure.
• To maintain academic growth while students learn English.

Bilingual Education

• Teacher competencies
• Fluency in students language
• understanding of cultural differences
• understand structural differences
• Fair assessment
• valid tests, using native language
• use several instruments, MDT

Approaches to Bilingual Education (Cummins, 1984)

• Submersion: English only
• Monolingual immersion: some support from student’s language, teachers may not be bilingual, initial language literacy not encouraged
• Majority language immersion:teachers bilingual, modified activities initial language literacy encouraged.
• Minority language immersion: heavy reliance on primary language, less pressure to learn English quickly

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