With the increase in the number of children having delayed speech and language development let us just explore early language acquisition . All living beings on earth can communicate. However, human beings are unique as they have speech.
Do human beings have ability to learn language at all ages?
In the domain of language, infants and young children are superior learners when compared to adults, in spite of adults’ cognitive superiority. Language is one of the classic examples of a “critical” or “sensitive” period in neurobiology .
How do infants learn language?
The world’s languages contain approximately 600 consonants and 200 vowels (Ladefoged, 2001). Each language uses a unique set of about 40 distinct elements, phonemes, which change the meaning of a word (e.g. from bat to pat in English). But phonemes are actually groups of non-identical sounds, phonetic units, which are functionally equivalent in the language.
Infants can discriminate among virtually all the phonetic units used in languages, whereas adults cannot.
What are prelinguistic skills?
The important skills that come around 9-12 months that predate the development of language skills . These include ability to share attention , direct attention like pointing , ability to imitate and ability to follow the gesturing of another person outside the immediate environment.
What is the importance of social interaction in learning language?
Many studies have been done and it has been proven that when infants had social interaction they are more likely to learn the language . However with screens or radio they do not learn anything. The presence of a human being interacting with the infant during language exposure is critical for learning complex natural language.
This has lead to the social gating hypothesis, social interaction vastly improves learning by increasing attention and/or arousal, improve processing information, gives a sense of relationship, and activates brain mechanisms linking perception and action.
What does all this mean for new parents?
All new parents need to interact with their child in their mother tongue or any other language they speak and all adults looking after the child should interact with the child . They should encourage the prelinguistic skills , and give opportunities for the child to imitate , encourage joint attention and play with the child.
They should NOT show any screen time including mobile phones, iPad , computer screens video games during the critical period of language acquisition which is until 3 years of age. They should use maximal interaction in the critical period of language development which is birth to 3 years of age , maximal in the first 3-12 months of age.
Connect with Dr. Rashmi Adiga: https://thrivingchildbrain.com
References
Kuhl PK. Early language acquisition: cracking the speech code. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2004 Nov;5(11):831-43. doi: 10.1038/nrn1533. PMID: 15496861.
Kuhl PK. Brain mechanisms in early language acquisition. Neuron. 2010 Sep 9;67(5):713-27. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.08.038. PMID: 20826304; PMCID: PMC2947444.
Conboy BT, Brooks R, Meltzoff AN, Kuhl PK. Social Interaction in Infants’ Learning of Second-Language Phonetics: An Exploration of Brain-Behavior Relations. Dev Neuropsychol. 2015;40(4):216-29. doi: 10.1080/87565641.2015.1014487. PMID: 26179488; PMCID: PMC4824050.
