Language Development

Language Development in Early Childhood

By: Alexis Perez

Are we born with language acquisition?

Neurobiologist Dr. Lise Eliot writes: “the reason language is instinctive is because it is, to a large extent, hard-wired in the brain. Just as we evolve neural circuits for eating and seeing, so has our brain, together with a sophisticated vocal apparatus, evolved a complex neural circuit for rapidly perceiving, analyzing, composing, and producing language” (Eliot, 1999). Overall, we are born to communicate with others. Our brain is divided into two hemisphere, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere primarily involves language. Within the left hemisphere in the cerebral cortex the auditory cortex processes information such as hearing and higher hearing functions. Then, the Wernicke’s area is an area associated with speech and is involved in both spoken and written language. While, in the frontal lobe of the brain the Broca’s area is an area that is related to the production of speech. However, it has been found in some studies left-handed individuals show some language abilities in their right hemisphere.

How is Language Developed?

Overtime a child will strengthen these areas in their brain to later on develop language. A major factor in a child’s language development is their nature or genetics. As a child grows in the mother’s womb their brain development is essential to ensure the “hard-wired” connections are being stimulated. Once a child is born, they begin to use these “hard-wired” connections to communicate. For example, by crying to get attention.  Another major factor in a child’s language development is their nurture or environment. The interaction between a parents to child is a strong influence during their language development.  When parents talk with their child using simple sentences studies show the child was able to connect to words earlier. A child will imitate sounds they hear. Therefore, face-to-face interaction is another great way to encourage a child’s language development. As the child develops their “hard-wired” brain analyzes and produces more complex language. Parents can foster their child’s language development by reading books, signing songs, and providing social interactions with other children.  Overtime a child will learn the linguistic rules for language. However, each child will develop language acquisition at different stages.

Speech and Language Milestones:

Birth to 3 Months –

• Reacts to loud sounds
• Recognizes familiar voice
• Coos and makes pleasurable sounds
• Has a special way to cry for different needs

4 to 6 Months –

• Follows sounds with eyes
• Notices toy that makes sounds
• Pays attention to sounds and music
• Laughs
• Babbles using different sounds (b, p, and m)

7 Months to 1 Year –

• Turns and looks in direction of sound
• Understand words for common items (“cup,” “juice”)
• Babbles using long and short group of sounds (tata, upup, bibi)
• Has one or two words

1 to 2 Years –

• Acquires new words everyday
• Uses some one-two word questions
• Puts two words together
• Uses different constant sounds at begin of words

2 to 3 Years –

• Has a word for almost everything
• Uses two-three word phrases
• Speaks in a way that is understood by family and friends
• Uses k, g, f, t, d, and n sounds

3 to 4 Years –

• Answers simples questions
• Talks about activities
• Uses sentences with four or more words
• Speaks easily without having to repeat words

4 to 5 Years –

• Uses sentences that give many details
• Uses some adult grammar
• Communicates easily with other children and adults
• Says most sounds correct except for a few letters (l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh , and th)

What should I do if my child speech or language appears to be delayed?

Parents and educators play a key role a child’s language development. If they think a child’s speech or language development is delayed then the first step is to talk to the child’s primary doctor. He or she will further observe the child and may refer the family to a speech –language pathologist. The specialist may ask about the child’s medical history and run test such as a hearing test. The specialist will recommend some activities to be practice at home or in school to help stimulate the child’s brain.

References:

Eliot, L. What’s Going On in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1999).

Genishi, C. (1998). Young Children’s Oral Language Development. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/young-childrens-oral-language-development?theme=print

Mandal, A., Dr. (2010). Language and the Human Brain. Retrieved April, 2016, from http://www.news-medical.net/health/Language-and-the-Human-Brain.aspx

National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders. (2010, September). Speech and Language Development Milestones.

Shiver, E. (2001). Brain Development and Mastery of Language in the Early Childhood Years. Retrieved, from http://www.idra.org/IDRA_Newsletter/April_2001_Self_Renewing_Schools_Early_Childhood/Brain_Development_and_Mastery_of_Language_in_the_Early_Childhood_Years/

Physical Development

Physical Development in Early Childhood Education

By: Jessica Carbonell

 

What is Physical Development?

• Physical development is the process begins in infancy and continues to late adolescent. It is developing the gross and fine motor skills along with particular muscles and physical coordination.

 

Pattern:

• Physical development in children follows a strict pattern.
  • Since large muscles form before small muscles, children learn how to perform gross motor skills such as walking before fine motor skills such as writing.
  • The center of the body begins to develop before the outer so the core of the body can become stronger and develop before those muscles in your hands and feet.
  • The development also comes from the top (head) to the bottom (toes). Hence the reason babies learn to hold their heads up before they learn to crawl.

Gross Motor Skills:

• A gross motor development refers to physical skills that use larger body movements such as the arms and legs, usually involving the whole body.

Gross motor skills, children can:

• Walk with stability and balance
• Run at a comfortable speed in one direction and around obstacles.
• Aim and throw a large ball or beanbag, or catch one thrown to her.
• Hop several times on each foot.
• Walk along and jump over a low object, such as a line.
• Bounce a large ball several times.
• Kick a stationary ball.
• Pedal and steer a tricycle.

 

Fine Motor Skills

• Fine motor development is necessary for smaller movements, usually involving fingers and hands.

Fine motor skills, children can:

• Brush teeth, comb hair, and get dressed with little help.
• Skillfully use eating utensils.
• Use scissors to cut along a line.
• Pick up small items such as coins and paperclips.
• Assemble simple small puzzles.
• Copy simple shapes, like a circle or square.
• Print some letters of the alphabet.
• Stack objects so they don’t fall.

 

How do we use Physical Development in Education?

• In preschool children are in a world of systematized learning and social interaction. Children start to learn to play games and activities that will challenge his or her physical abilities.
• This also stems from free play allowing the children to us their physical developmental skills with one another.
• Singing nursery rhymes, songs, marches also help the children learn to move to a steady beat. First the teacher models what to do and the child then follows.
• Using play dough also helps them with their fine motor skills using their hands to mold the play dough into whatever shape they want.
• During the preschool stage the teacher is the model for both skills.

 

Intelligence Development

 

Intelligence Development in Early Childhood Education

 By: Chaddrice White

How is intelligence formed?

Intelligence has been theorized by many contemporary theorists. However, they expressed that general intelligence is formed through cognitive capacities: that includes problem solving abilities, spatial manipulation, and language acquisition. Learning and language seem to be guided by genes. Moreover, many contemporary theorists have emphasized that environmental influences, including informal learning experiences, adult modeling and mentoring, family relationships, and formal schooling help cultivate intelligence.

 How is intelligence conveyed through daily interactions?

Intelligence is conveyed from one individual to another through ones’ ability to organize their knowledge into schemas and scripts. This gives a child the ability to apply previous knowledge to new information, to manipulate one’s environment; and it allows the child to think abstractly to fulfill their objectives. For example, you might have a schema for what a typical horse looks like (e.g., it’s a certain height, and it has a mane and an elongated head) and a separate schema for what a typical office contains (it probably has a desk, computer, bookshelves, and a file cabinets). Scripts encompass knowledge about the predictable sequence of events related to particular activities (McDevitt; Ormrod, 2015). As argued by Nelson, you may have a script related to how weddings typically proceed, and even many 3-year-olds can tell you what typically happens when you go to McDonald’s for a meal (as cited in McDevitt; Ormrod, 2015, p. 247).

 Constructivist Research Approach to Intelligence

After participating in a constructivist instructional unit on place value, the findings showed that the preservice teachers demonstrated a statistically significant change in place value understanding. Six common emergent mathematical qualities were identified: flexibility and reversibility, connections between mathematics topics, efficiency, development of self-created notation, improved mental mathematics proficiency, and precise vocabulary (Marawska, 2014). Therefore, learning is an important component of intelligence because of the complexity that intelligent systems must adaptively cope with. Thus the basic problem intelligent systems have to solve is the coherent context-sensitive management of interaction processes with many degrees of freedom (Christensen & Hooker, 2000). Therefore, intelligence, cf. Keijzer and Bem, a suite of tools highlighted by dynamical and adaptive systems (as cited in Christensen & Hooker, 2000, p. 6). Such systems include “intelligence is centrally concerned with the capacity for coherent, context-sensitive, self-directed management of integration and cognitive processes. Moreover, intelligence involves a sophisticated form of the root process of gradient tracking, with self-directed interaction arising as gradients become increasingly internally constructed and modified” (p. 6).

 DECLARATIVE & PROCEDURAL MEMORY

 In like manner, declarative, explicit, and procedural, implicit, knowledge fits the central framework for intelligence because both of these forms of knowledge helps the integration of cognitive processes of new information into long-term memory. A child needs declarative knowledge to be able to develop procedural knowledge, and procedural knowledge reinforces declarative knowledge. Furthermore, a large part of a child’s critical thinking involves comparing new information with what they already know, and their prior knowledge provides a framework within them that allows them to evaluate new information. In fact, teachers teach children how to learn by giving them the necessary training to take own the initiative for their own personal learning. Conversely, the child’s previous experiences are called schemas. Piaget argued that constructivist-learning methods are more effective if the children are actively engaged in the learning processes such as: constructed, active, reflective, collaborative, revolving, and inquiry-based learning processes within a classroom. To illustrate, a toddler teacher designs his curriculum carefully, exposing children to a wide range of developmentally appropriate objects, including blocks, dolls, trucks, durable books, and coloring materials. When parents ask about his plans to “multiply the intelligence” of children, he explains that he does not use flash cards or structured academic lessons with toddlers. Instead, he cultivates their intelligence through a carefully selected curriculum that fosters children’s natural curiosity and nurtures their budding (McDevitt; Ormrod, 2015).

References
Slavin, Robert E. (2014). Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice (Page 218-249).   Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

McDevitt, Teresa M.; Ormrod, Jeanne Ellis (2015). Child Development and Education (6th Edition) (Page 247-249). Pearson. Kindle Edition.

Christensen, W. D., & Hooker, C. A. (2000). An interactivist–constructivist approach to     intelligence: self-directed anticipative learning. Philosophical Psychology, 13(1),        5-45.    doi:10.1080/09515080050002717

Murawska, J. M. (2014). Preservice elementary school teachers’ conceptual understanding of     place value within a constructivist framework [Abstract] (Order No. AAI3567771). Available from PsycINFO. (1519508964; 2014-99070-417).

Cognitive Development

Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Education

By: Nataly Bello

What is the Cognitive Development?  

Theory about nature and development of human nature, more specifically children’s intelligence.

Who founded the Cognitive development theory?

Cognitive development theory originated from Jean Piaget. Within Piaget’s theory of cognitive development there are three major and vital components which are schemas, assimilation and accommodations, as well as the stages of development.

Something very interesting is that before Piaget’s theory of cognitive development psychologists just assumed that children were less capable thinkers in comparison to adults. In accordance with Piaget’s theory he believed children were born with basic mental structure that they inherit through genetics, that enables them to learn and grow to be knowledgeable.

Three Key Components of Cognitive Development

Schemas

Schemas as stated by Piaget himself, “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning.” In simpler terms, schemas are basic building blocks that allow us to have a mental representation of the world around us, or building blocks of intelligent behavior.

Assimilation & Accommodations

Throughout this component of assimilation and accommodations. Piaget viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation or adjustments, this occurs through assimilation and an accommodation. Assimilation is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation. Whereas, accommodation is what happens when the existing knowledge does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.

STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

The stages of development which include: the sensorimotor (birth-2 yrs.), preoperational (2-7 yrs.), concrete operational (7-11 yrs.) and formal operational period (11yrs-older). The sensorimotor stage of the cognitive development theory deals with object performance, which is knowing that an object still exists even if it is hidden. The next stage is the preoperational stage children learn about things symbolically. For example, making an object or word stand for something other than itself. The third stage of this theory is the concrete operational stage is a major turning point, in the sense that it’s where the child starts logical thinking. Basically, this means that the children can deal with problem internally. Finally, the last stage in the development theory is the formal operational stage. Throughout this stage people over the age of eleven are able to start thinking in abstract forms and concepts.