Discuss environmental factors as they may affect a young child's language development

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER: Early language development is often a progressive interplay between the baby and his or
her environment. Babies begin to babble at about three to six months of age, which
involves making some consonant and vowel sounds. At this point, babies often make
sounds repeatedly when they are alone, seemingly experimenting with their sound
making and not necessarily trying to communicate with anyone. They may also babble
when their parents or others are with them, playing or otherwise handling them.
A baby's first word is always a momentous event, and parents often attach words to
sounds that stretch the imagination of more objective observers and likely have no
meaning to the child. What usually happens is that the baby begins to string together
sounds that resemble words. To the delight of the parents, these sounds frequently
include such utterances as “Da-Da” and “Ma-Ma” which, of course, are echoed,
repeated, and reinforced greatly by Father and Mother. As the baby begins to actually
listen to the speech of adults, exchanges or “conversations” seem to occur, where the
youngster responds by saying “DaDa” when a parent says that sound. While this type of
interchange sounds like a conversation, the child's vocal productions may only be
understood by those close to him or her (e.g., parents or siblings)? people other than
immediate family members may not be able to interpret meaning at all. The baby also
begins to use different tones and vocal intensity, which makes the vocalization vaguely
resemble adult speech. The interactions between babies and their parents can do much
to enhance their developing language at this time. Parents often provide a great deal of
reinforcement for word approximations, like praise in excited tones, or hugs. They also
provide stimulus sounds and words for the baby to mimic, giving the youngster
considerable directed practice.
Although the timing of a baby's actual first word production is open to interpretation, it
usually happens between nine and fourteen months. Often, these words continue to
involve echoing (repeating what has been heard) or mimic responses based on
verbalizations by those around him or her. Initially, the words may have little or no
meaning, although they soon become attached to people or objects in the child's
immediate environment, such as Daddy, Mommy, or milk. It is not long before these
words begin to have more perceptible intent, as the child uses them for requests and an
apparent means of pleasing parents. Strings of two and three words that resemble
sentences typically begin between eighteen and twenty-four months. At this stage, there
is little question about meaning because the child can clearly indicate that he or she
wants something. The child uses fairly accurate syntax, usually with word order
involving subject-verb-object. Most children with normally developing language are able
to use all the basic syntactical structures by three to four years of age.