Pace of early language development

Wed Aug 12 14:08:45 UTC 2009

Dear colleagues and friends,

I've been meaning to chime in on this exchange but have held back.  Now in response to Lorraine's contribution I want to add that her research exactly reflects what I found in the study reported in my 1973 SRCD Monograph.  The earliest achievement of 50 words (typically about 40 nominals) was 13-14 months, and the latest at 26-27 months among the 18 kids followed.  I have emphasized this variability many many times as it appeared within a basically middle-class group of Euro-American families.  Despite claims for very early word learning by some, and poor language learning by others, the picture seems to have remained the same in this aspect for at least 40 years.  Moreover, I compared it with the McCarthy norms (from the 1940's?) and found the same means and ranges.
Learning to talk is a multi-causal process emerging from characteristics of the child, the social context, the linguistic context and no doubt unspoken expectations and opportunities for expression. 

My most recent thinking on this may be found in "Young Minds in Social Worlds" Harvard U. Press 2007 (paperback 2009).

Katherine

From: info-childes at googlegroups.com [info-childes at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lorraine McCune [mccune at rci.rutgers.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 1:50 PM
To: "mailto:"@nbcs-av.rutgers.edu
Subject: Fwd: Re: Pace of early language development

This is certainly a rich and varied exchange of
ideas! Does it seem to anyone else to be a thought experiment?

The goal of my research over the past 30+ years
has been to devise observational approaches to
predicting (even by a few months) when a child
would shift into single word referential
language. In a longitudinal study of the first
three years, among 10 middle class normally
developing children the range of onset was 14
months to 27 months of age. I did find that a set
of measures including development of mental
representation measured in play, use of vocal
motor schemes (consonants used consistently
across several months) and (surprisingly)
communication by "grunts" together predicted this
transition. These results were published in bits
over the years and recently brought together in a
book from Oxford U. Press "How children learn to
learn language". In addition to differences in
rate of development, these children also differed
in breadth of skill at each phase.

Given this variability in a group from a fairly
coherent cultural group, I fail to see how we
could ever know whether children were developing
language "faster" over the decades. This also
recalls Piaget's comment regarding whether
cognition could be speeded up. He called this "the American question"!

Fun as a thought experiment, but hard to expect
an answer. We still do not really know how and
why language develops as it does.

Lorraine McCune

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>
>It's slightly more complicated than
>that.     You also have to consider whether
>more of today's kids attend daycare, which adds both a big peer group and an
>interestingly diverse (often first language
>non-English) set of adults for kids to
>interact with.     That could be a plus or a minus, but it can't be ignored.
>
>The age of the mother and whether a father is around could also be a
>factor.   Both have changed over time, and both vary across the US and
>across demographic groups.    It's easy to see how the child of a single
>16-year-old might get different input than the child of a married 30-year
>old, even if all else is the same.
>
>A quick glance at a map of US birth rates suggests that the lower numbers
>of siblings tend to be in the areas of the US with higher school test scores.
>This makes me wonder how help those extra siblings are really providing.
>
>Margaret Fleck
>
>--- On Thu, 8/6/09, Keith Nelson <k1n at psu.edu> wrote:
>
>From: Keith Nelson <k1n at psu.edu>
>Subject: Re: Pace of early language development
>To: info-childes at googlegroups.com
>Date: Thursday, August 6, 2009, 6:18 AM
>
>
>Hi all.   Have been on beach vacation and
>watching toddlers and older siblings and parents
>a little.
>
>     To the questions of has pace changed and
>does it vary by SES, a few thoughts:
>
>     1.  40 or 50 years ago there may have
>been on average some advantages for language
>learning in the first 3 years of life created by
>larger families and more older siblings fairly
>close in age to the learner's age (say 2 years
>ahead) and also more direct conversational time
>between the learner and an available total pool
>of parents, grandparents, siblings, and neighbors
>
>     2.  "Controlled" comparisons are
>difficult between now and then, but to the extent
>possible it would be excellent to have some
>comparisons where first language, SES,
>neighborhood, number and spacing of siblings,
>number of extended family members like
>grandparents and cousins and so on are highly
>similar
>
>     3.   There are many clues that John
>Bercow's observation holds even when the
>comparisons between lower and higher SES hold
>constant the first
>language/ethnic/immigrant-or-not status of the
>families--lower language levels, including
>clinical levels of language delay, are more
>probable for lower SES children
>
>     4.  High variability in acquisition rates
>have been observed again and again, even when
>many of the factors in #2 have been documented as
>similar across the children being compared, in
>modern studies.   Biological differences in what
>different children bring to the language learning
>"table" are no doubt contributing, but are poorly
>understood.   Patterns of interaction have been
>shown to matter greatly, and when the same
>biological child encounters newly favorable
>interaction patterns the pace of acquisition
>accelerates.   So, 50 or 100 years ago were the
>interaction patterns typically better or worse to
>support language acquisition ?   On that, I can
>see both sides--as noted in #1, earlier days
>could have been better in some respects, but
>modern times may pair the child language learner
>with adults and older siblings who have broader
>world knowledge, more influence of literacy on
>oral language sophistication and flexibility, and
>possibly more awareness of (and use of )
>strategies that are helpful when conversing with
>the child learner.
>
>     Keith
>
>
>
>
>
>At 11:28 AM +0100 8/3/09, Matthew Saxton wrote:
> >I think Brian¹s suggestion is ingenious.
> >However, to my knowledge, language change is
> >especially driven by young people in the teenage
> >years  with the introduction of new meanings,
> >terms and phrases  rather than by toddlers.
> >
> >The perception of a linguistic decline over
> >successive generations is sometimes driven by
> >political considerations. A recent U.K. example
> >is the Bercow Review (by the same John Bercow
> >who is now Speaker of the House of Commons).
> >Without citing any specific sources, his report
> >suggests that:
> >
> >Approximately 50% of children in some
> >socio-economically disadvantaged populations
> >have speech and language skills that are
> >significantly lower than those of other children
> >of the same age.
> >
> >The implication is that a steep decline is in
> >train within the U.K., ascribable to
> >socioeconomic factors. One such factor is
> >whether or not English is the child¹s first
> >language. It has become increasingly common for
> >very young children, who have had little
> >exposure to English, to be placed in
> >English-language Nursery settings. Such children
> >will naturally depress average scores on
> >standardised language tests, especially in the
> >early stages of their exposure to English. But
> >one could not argue from such data that the
> >language learning capacities of children had
> >declined in any way.
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >Matthew Saxton.
> >
> >
> >
> >***********************************************
> **********************************************************
> >
> >Department of Psychology and Human Development,
> >Institute of Education,
> >University of London,
> >25 Woburn Square,
> >London,
> >WC1H 0AA.
> >
> >Tel: 020-7612-6509
> >Fax: 020-7612-6304
> >
> ><<http://www.ioe.ac.uk/>http://www.ioe.ac.uk/>http://www.ioe.ac.uk
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>--
>
>
>
>Keith Nelson
>Professor of Psychology
>Penn State University
>423 Moore Building
>University Park, PA   16802
>
>
>keithnelsonart at psu.edu
>
>814 863 1747
>
>
>
>And what is mind
>and how is it recognized ?
>It is clearly drawn
>in Sumi  ink, the
>sound of breezes drifting through pine.
>
>--Ikkyu Sojun
>Japanese Zen Master    1394-1481
>
>
>
>
Lorraine McCune, EdD
Chair, Department of Educational Psychology
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers University
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Ph: 732-932-7496 ex. 8310
FAX: 732932-6829

Web Page: www.gse.rutgers.edu

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