Discuss the Ways in Which Children Develop Their Use of Grammar

637 Words3 Pages
Discuss the ways in which children develop their use of grammar. The Behaviourist language development theory is that language is developed by imitating the speech of others and reinforcement, children learn from positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement is damaging to them. Skinner has a nurture argument that language develops due to how the child is brought up. A criticism of this theory is that the investigation took place on pigeons, not humans. As humans and pigeons are not the same this could be inaccurate. The Nativist language development theory is that children learn to talk by copying others and learning rules through praise and correction and believe language is innate. Chomsky challenged Behaviourist model first as it’s believed that adults give children poor examples of speech to copy, ‘poverty of stimulus’. And no matter what the language all children go through the same stages of acquisition when the LAD is stimulated by human interaction. This theory can be questioned as children don’t hear adults making virtuous errors, so why do they? Burko and Brown, the Cognitive view contradict Piaget theory. It is said that language comes with understanding and wider development, children can’t talk about past tense as they can’t understand it. As investigated in 1960 cognitive development happens quicker than a child’s development so they can understand much more than they can say. Social Interactions view is the LASS supports and develops children’s language through interactions with others. An example of this view is Bruner and he encouraged child directive language. An explanation of language development emphasises the role of social interaction between the developing child and linguistically knowledgeable adults. Although a new born baby cannot speak, they know that by crying they will get attention. And by watching parents and other adults
Open Document