Brain Development - Myth or Fact?
1. At birth the brain is fully developed, just like one's heart or stomach.
2. Most of the brain's cells are formed before birth, but most of the connections among cells are made during infancy and early childhood.
3. The brain's development depends entirely on the genes with which you are born.
4. Early experience and interaction with the environment are most critical in a child's brain development.
5. A toddler's brain is less active than the brain of a college student.
6. A 3-year-old toddler's brain is twice as active as an adult's brain.
7. Talking to a baby is not important because he or she can't understand what you are saying.
8. Talking to young children establishes foundations for learning language during early critical periods when learning is easiest for a child.
9. Children need special help and specific educational toys to develop their brainpower.
Brain Development - Myth or Fact?
Myth At birth the brain is fully developed, just like one's heart or stomach.
Fact - Most of the brain's cells are formed before birth, but most of the connections among cells are made during infancy and early childhood.
Myth The brain's development depends entirely on the genes with which you are born.
Fact - Early experience and interaction with the environment are most critical in a child's brain development.
Myth A toddler's brain is less active than the brain of a college student. Fact - A 3-year-old toddler's brain is twice as active as an adult's brain.
Myth Talking to a baby is not important because he or she can't understand what you are saying.
Fact - Talking to young children establishes foundations for learning language during early critical periods when learning is easiest for a child.
Myth Children need special help and specific educational toys to develop their brainpower.
Language
The Structure of Language
▪ Language: the communication of ideas through
symbols and sounds that are arranged according to rules
▪ We communicate, problem solve and make decisions based on learning that has been transmitted through language
▪ Language consists of 3 Elements
▪ Phonemes
▪ Morphemes
▪ Syntax
Phonemes
▪ The smallest units of sound
▪ Phonemes can be represented by a single letter
▪ Example: consonants, vowels or combinations of letters ( t/e/sh)
▪ There are about 100 different recognizable sounds but not all are used in all languages
Morphemes
▪ The smallest unit of meaning in a given language
▪ Made up of one or more phonemes
▪ Morphemes can be a word, a letter (s), a prefix
Syntax
▪ Language rules that govern how words can be combined to form meaningful phrases and
sentences
▪ Every language has its own grammatical rules
▪ For example in English we place adjectives in front of nouns
Semantics
▪ The study of meaning in language
▪ Some words have multiple meanings, which require us to use context and our knowledge of grammar to make sense of the meaning
Language Development
▪ From what you know about each of the theories,
what do you think the following psychologists would say about how language is learned?
▪ B.F. Skinner (Behaviorists)?
▪ Social Learning Theorists?
Language Development
▪ Psychologists largely disagree on how language is acquired and developed by children
▪ B.F. Skinner believed that children learn language as a result of operant conditioning
▪ When children utter sounds that are similar to
adult speech patterns, their behavior is reinforced through smiles and extra attention.
▪ Children therefore repeat the behavior, eventually learning to produce speech
▪ Critics of Skinner argue that children understand language before they can speak or receive
Language Development
▪ Social Learning Theorists argue that children learn language through observation, exploration, and
imitation
▪ Social Learning advocates state that children use language to get attention, ask for help or gain
other forms of social contact
▪ By responding to the children, parents (and other adults) stimulate language acquisition and
development
How Language Develops
▪ Beginning at birth, infants can cry and produce other sounds
that indicate distress
▪ At about 2 months, infants begin to coo (long, drawn-out
sounds such as ooh, eeh)
▪ Infants go through four stages of language development
▪ 1. At about 4 months, infants reach the first stage of language development – babbling (dadada, bababa)
▪ When babbling infants learn to control their vocal cords and to make, change, repeat, and imitate the sounds of their parents
▪ At about 9 months, infants refine their babbling to
How Language Develops
▪ Infants go through four stages of language development
▪ 2. At around 12 months, infants begin to utter single words
▪ These words are used to describe familiar objects and
people.
▪ 3. By the end of their 2nd year, children can place a couple words together to express an idea.
▪ A child’s vocabulary has expanded to about 50-100
words
▪ 4. At ages 2-3, children form sentences of several words.
▪ These sentences follow a pattern of telegraphic
speech (children leave out articles, prepositions, and parts of verbs) i.e. “I go park”
▪ By age 5, language development is largely complete.
Animals and Language
▪ Animals communicate with each other, but animals do not possess the ability to use language
Cultural Differences
▪ People use language to communicate their culture and express their ideas
▪ Do people who speak different languages think differently?
▪ Whorf argued that language affects our basic perceptions of the physical world
▪ Linguistic Relativity: refers to the idea that language influences thoughts
▪ EX. Snow
▪ Whorf stated the Inuit have many different
Gender Differences
▪ Some people argue that certain words in language create stereotypes
▪ The use of pronouns also affects our thinking
▪ Secretaries and nurses are usually referred to as
Language Development Video
▪ “The development of language has many facets to explore. This program looks at how developmental psychologists investigate the human mind, society, and culture by studying children’s use of language in social communication”
▪ Funding & interest in the case ceased in 1995
▪ Genie now lives in a sheltered accommodation in an undisclosed location in Southern California; it is at least her fifth adult foster home. Her mother died in 2003.[1]
▪ An independent film titled Mockingbird Don't Sing is based on Genie's life.
▪ http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/nati
onal_world&id=6130233
