LANE 432
Lecture 3 Ch. 1
Interactionist/developmental Perspective
• Proponent: Piaget & Vygotsky.
• Hypothesis:
What children need to know is essentially available in the language they hear around
them. In addition they also believe there is a powerful learning mechanism in the human brain.
Interactionist/developmental Perspective
• Therefore, researchers in favor of this perspective
believe that there is an interplay between the innate learning ability of children and the environment in which they are in.
• Interplay: The influence in which two or more things have on each other.
• As an example, the acquisition and use of certain
words such as “more & bigger” depends on the child’s understanding of the concepts they represent.
Cross cultural research
Researchers have not only focused on the development of language itself, but also in the ways in which the
environment provides what children need to acquire a language.
• This bring us to cross cultural research.
• Cross-cultural research:
It most commonly involves comparison of some cultural trait (such as language) across a sample of societies.
Cross cultural research
•
In middle-class North American homes:
1. Researchers have found that adults modify their speech when talking to little children.
This is called child-directed speech.
•
Child-directed speech is characterized by:
Slower rate of delivery Higher pitch
Shorter simpler sentence patterns Frequent repetition
2. Adults often repeat a child’s utterance but they recast it into a grammatically correct sentence.
Randall’s dump truck example.
Cross cultural research
• In traditional Inuit societies:
Researchers observed that children are expected to watch and listen to adults only. They are not expected nor encouraged to interact or
participate in conversations.
The importance of interaction
• Many studies highlighted the importance of interaction
between children and other persons who respond to them.
• (1981) study of Jim:
1. Hearing child of deaf parents.
2. Only contact with oral language was through television.
3. At a language assessment at 3 years 9mo, resulted in that he was below age level in all aspects of language.
4. Began language conversational sessions with an adult. His language abilities began to improve.
5. His younger brother Glenn did not go through what Jim went through because he had his older brother.
The importance of interaction
• Results of Jim and Glenn’s study suggest that, impersonal sources of language such as
television and radio alone are not sufficient for language development.
• Once children have acquired some language, television can be a source of language
development.
Language disorders and delays
• Sometimes children may be late in acquiring a language.
• In order to determine whether delayed
language is a development problem or simply an age difference:
Is to see if the child responds and appears to
understand even though he/she is not speaking.
Language bilingualism
• Simultaneous bilinguals:
Children who learn more than one language from earliest childhood.
• Sequential bilinguals:
Children who learn another language later.
It is often said that children who learn more than one language at the same time will be confused or they will not learn one of the languages well.
However, this is NOT true.
The only reason why some language may be learned more than the other is if they hear it more or if it is favorite in the community.
Thank you
Have a lovely day
