Language Development in Early Childhood

Slide 1 of 12: Synopsis

Human Development Video Activity
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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.
collective monologue
Two or more children talking simultaneously who seem to be having a conversation, but actually are not directing the conversation to another person and so are talking to themselves.
fast‐mapping
The way children figure out the meaning of a word after hearing it used a few times. Based on the context, children map the new word to existing mental categories. While this method is fast, it is not always accurate.
grammatical morphemes
Parts of words or tags or markers added to a word that can add to or change its meaning. For example, add the grammatical morpheme “s” to the noun “cat” and you have changed it to the plural noun “cats.”
overextend
A child’s use of a word in too broad of a way, such as calling any four‐legged animal a “dog.”
overregularization
A part of the language‐learning process in which children try to make language and grammar more regular than they actually are, such as in saying “taked” instead of “took.”
private speech
Essentially talking or thinking to oneself. A part of language development when children generally between ages 2 and 7 practice their language skills by tending to talk out loud to themselves while playing or working through a task.
underextend
A language development phenomenon in early language learners in which they use a word to to mean something more narrow than it actually does, such as using the word "dog" to only refer to the family dog and not other dogs.
 A father holding son pointing out something in the sky as if to name it

Author

S. Stavros Valenti, Hofstra University

Synopsis

Learning language is a tremendous source of pride and enjoyment for children. It gives them greater control over their environment and a greater connection to others. In this activity, you will observe how dramatically children’s language skills grow between the ages of two and six, and you will explore some of the reasons why children everywhere learn language so quickly and effortlessly.

References

Cole, M., & Cole, S. (2001). The development of children (4th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers.

Berger, K. S. (2001). The developing person through the life span (4th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers.

Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct. New York: William Morrow and Company.