A longitudinal study of the relationship between early language development and play development

1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamiko Ogura

ABSTRACTTemporal correspondences between the attainment of specific milestones in play and language were examined through a longitudinal study of four Japanese children (aged 0;7 to 0;11 at the beginning of the study). There were developmental correspondences between the onset of six language landmarks (the emergence of first words, naming words, vocabulary spurts, word-chains, nonproductive two-word utterances, productive two-word utterances) and the onset of subcategories of play. Language and play both reflected the development of underlying symbolic ability, and both developed in a parallel manner at the single-word stage. After the emergence of word-chains, language and play developed interdependently. All the children proceeded through the same sequence of stages, but the rate of development was different depending on their environment.

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (9) ◽  
pp. 2235-2245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Murillo ◽  
Carlota Ortega ◽  
Alicia Otones ◽  
Irene Rujas ◽  
Marta Casla

Purpose The aim of this study is to analyze the changes in temporal synchrony between gesture and speech of multimodal communicative behaviors in the transition from babbling to two-word productions. Method Ten Spanish-speaking children were observed at 9, 12, 15, and 18 months of age in a semistructured play situation. We longitudinally analyzed the synchrony between gestures and vocal productions and between their prominent parts. We also explored the relationship between gestural–vocal synchrony and independent measures of language development. Results Results showed that multimodal communicative behaviors tend to be shorter with age, with an increasing overlap of its constituting elements. The same pattern is found when considering the synchrony between the prominent parts. The proportion of overlap between gestural and vocal elements at 15 months of age as well as the proportion of the stroke overlapped with vocalization appear to be related to lexical development 3 months later. Conclusions These results suggest that children produce gestures and vocalizations as coordinated elements of a single communication system before the transition to the two-word stage. This coordination is related to subsequent lexical development in this period. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.6912242


2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roma Wieczorek

Using MLU to study early language development in English The study examines the parameter of Mean Length of Utterance (MLU), measured both in morphemes (MLUm) and words (MLUw), in early language development in the case of two English children matched for age. The MLU scores of a normally developing child were compared to the MLU results of a language-impaired child in a longitudinal study. Moreover, the reliability of the MLU index measured in words was also tested in both children. The MLU analysis was based on the CHILDES database and CLAN programme, where the transcripts of spontaneous speech samples are used to calculate basic language parameters at different age-points. The findings of this study indicate that despite the expected delay, the language-impaired child followed a similar route of language development as the control child. However, significant differences between MLUw and MLUm confirmed that the parameters performed two different linguistic analyses.


2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1651) ◽  
pp. 20130299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Padraic Monaghan ◽  
Richard C. Shillcock ◽  
Morten H. Christiansen ◽  
Simon Kirby

It is a long established convention that the relationship between sounds and meanings of words is essentially arbitrary—typically the sound of a word gives no hint of its meaning. However, there are numerous reported instances of systematic sound–meaning mappings in language, and this systematicity has been claimed to be important for early language development. In a large-scale corpus analysis of English, we show that sound–meaning mappings are more systematic than would be expected by chance. Furthermore, this systematicity is more pronounced for words involved in the early stages of language acquisition and reduces in later vocabulary development. We propose that the vocabulary is structured to enable systematicity in early language learning to promote language acquisition, while also incorporating arbitrariness for later language in order to facilitate communicative expressivity and efficiency.


1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 625-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian M. Pine ◽  
Elena V. M. Lieven

ABSTRACTThis study examines the relationship between cross-sectional measures of referential style taken at 1;1 and measures based on the first 50 words in 12 first-born children. Since no significant relationship is found it is argued that age-defined cross-sectional measures are inappropriate for the study of strategy differences in early language development because they confound such differences with variation due to differences in development level.


2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAN EDWARDS ◽  
BENJAMIN MUNSON ◽  
MARY E. BECKMAN

We applaud Stoel-Gammon's (this issue) call for a more comprehensive account of the relationship between lexicon and phonology, and we strongly endorse her suggestions for future research. However, we think that it will not be enough simply to integrate findings and methods from the adult-centered and child-centered literatures. Both of these literatures suggest that we need to rethink standard assumptions about what phonological representations are and how they emerge to support the very large vocabularies that speakers develop over the course of a lifetime. Our commentary focuses on three themes relevant to this reconceptualization.


ASHA Leader ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 16-17
Author(s):  
Julie Wolter

Julie Wolter, an expert in early language development, recently led an online chat about the contribution of morphological awareness to semantic understanding and literacy development. Here's what the Leader overheard ...


Author(s):  
Yue Ma ◽  
Laura Jonsson ◽  
Tianli Feng ◽  
Tyler Weisberg ◽  
Teresa Shao ◽  
...  

The home language environment is critical to early language development and subsequent skills. However, few studies have quantitatively measured the home language environment in low-income, developing settings. This study explores variations in the home language environment and child language skills among households in poor rural villages in northwestern China. Audio recordings were collected for 38 children aged 20–28 months and analyzed using Language Environment Analysis (LENA) software; language skills were measured using the MacArthur–Bates Mandarin Communicative Developmental Inventories expressive vocabulary scale. The results revealed large variability in both child language skills and home language environment measures (adult words, conversational turns, and child vocalizations) with 5- to 6-fold differences between the highest and lowest scores. Despite variation, however, the average number of adult words and conversational turns were lower than found among urban Chinese children. Correlation analyses did not identify significant correlations between demographic characteristics and the home language environment. However, the results do indicate significant correlations between the home language environment and child language skills, with conversational turns showing the strongest correlation. The results point to a need for further research on language engagement and ways to increase parent–child interactions to improve early language development among young children in rural China.


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