This document discusses theories of language acquisition in children. It explores the debate between innate vs learned language abilities. There are two main schools of thought - nativists propose language learning is innate while empiricists believe it is entirely learned through environment and experience. The document also examines theories such as behaviorism, constructivism, and information processing models of how children develop language skills over time through listening, practicing, and constructing their own understanding of language rules.

1. The cognitive basis of language: how
children learn language.
The nature vs. nurture debate: behaviorism or
an innate capacity for acquisition?

2. How do children develop?
What is Language?
How do children acquire Language?

4.  3 domains occurs in development

5.  Language is code that we learn to use in
order to communicate ideas and express our
wants and needs. Reading, writing, speaking,
and some gesture system are all forms of
language
 Language is the systematic and conventional
use of sounds (or signs or written symbols)
for the purpose of communication or self-
expression

6. Speech is the spoken form of
language

7.  Children learn language and speech by
listening to the language around them and
practicing what they hear. In this way, they
figure out the rules of the language code. It is
not learned all at once but in stages over
time.

8. Harvey Daniels in “Nine Ideas About
Language” says:
“ Children learn their native
language swiftly, efficiently, and
largely without instruction

9. There are numerous theories about language acquisition,
and they include 2 main schools of thought
These theorists propose that
These theorists propose
we are pre-wired for
that language is an
language learning. It is part
entirely learned behavior
of our human “nature

10. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
INNATE LEARNED
NATIVIST EMPIRICIST

11.  Knowledge originates in human nature
 Plato and Kant
 Chomsky
 Language is innate, and that our brains contain a
dedicated special purpose learning device that has
evolved for language alone

12. Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
Receive primary linguistic input in the form of sentences
of the language heard by the child, and produces, as
output, grammatical sentences of the language
Children are not predisposed to learn any particular
language; all are born with the same facility and will
develop as native speakers of the language of the
community into which they are born. The child has
innate knowledge of universal principles that govern
the structure of language

13. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
Language is essentially the same experience for all
human beings, no matter what language they speak,
where they are or how they interact with their model
Some forms of languages is common to almost all
human beings.
Language is an ability human process, not by virtue of
specific learning or teaching, but by virtue of their
humaness

14.  Behaviorism & associationism
 Knowledge originates in the environment, and
comes in through the senses
 Children are ‘conditioned” to learn language by
a stimulus-response pattern
 Aristotle
 Skinner
 There are no limits to what a human being can
become, given time, opportunity and the application
of very general laws of learning

15.  Constructivist & Emergentist
 Recognizes that many factors influence
language development
 Outcomes can arise for reasons that are not
obvious or predictable from any of the
individual inputs to the problem

16. There are three well known theories:
1. Development cognitive theory (Jean Piaget)
2. Information processing model
3. Social interaction (Lev Vgotsky)

17.  Children construct their own knowledge in
response to their experiences
 Children learn many things on their own
without the intervention of older children or
adults
 Children are intrinsically motivated to learn
and do not need rewards from adults to
motivate learning

18.  Four major development stages in children
that describe how a child learns

19.  How the brain processes information and
draws comparisons between the brain and a
computer

20.  Social interaction plays an important role in
the learning process
 Zone of Proximal Development describes the
differences between what a child will do on
his/her own or with guidance