Language Development in Children: Speech, Comprehension and Disorders

Language Acquisition and Cognitive Linguistics

TMA 18, 4th part: Briefly state the synthesis of the effect and the cognitive linguistic impact. Language acquisition does not isolate the cognitive process; its development is embedded in cultural phenomena, and the social context is an integral part of language. It is important to explain what language is, how oral language passes from prelinguistic to linguistic communication, and how the stages of prelinguistic communication precede language acquisition, which in turn precedes the later oral language of the present.

Summary: Language acquisition fits the current pragmatic approach, which explains acquisition functionally: communication need drives it. Before the child produces linguistic communication, there is prelinguistic communication between child and mother, and it is proposed to study grammar, semantics and the pragmatic situation of the first years.

Therefore, language should be considered as an instrument of representation and communication, and never merely as an instrument that allows independent oral exchange. Language information is transmitted through a specific coding system, which is not unique, as we see in children's adaptation. From early childhood, children perceive the model, try to imitate it and reproduce it; they imitate words and morphosyntactic structures differently until they achieve correct usage.

Child language development depends largely on the family and the sociocultural environment, which mostly gives verbal communication its affective meaning, predominantly during early childhood. Language, in its dual expressive and receptive dimension, is one of the first established competencies.

Expressive Stages

In the expressive plane, different levels can be distinguished:

• The joint, isolated emission of sounds (phonemes) or syllables, corresponding to the praxic level.
• The association of syllables into words (phonetic level), and the continued emission of these in a defined order.
• The association of words into phrases (syntactic level), and then into complex phrases and sentences (linguistic level).

Receptive Stages

In the receptive plane, comprehension passes through several stages: hearing (peripheral level), auditory perception (cortical level), decoding of the message, and verbal comprehension.

At the linguistic level, both expressive and receptive dimensions share the possibility of inner language: the possibility of evoking (representing an absent object or past action), and memorization (immediate and long term).

Evolution of Comprehension

Comprehension of language precedes the elaboration of verbal language. Before children are capable of producing it, they understand many linguistic elements.

Frequent Problems in Child Language: Oral Language Disorders

1. Simple developmental delay in speech
2. Auditory-perceptual alteration (functional auditory dyslalia)
3. Motor-praxic alteration (functional praxic dyslalia)
4. Organic articulatory alteration (dyglossia)
5. Neuromotor speech alteration (dysarthria)
6. Alteration of speech fluency (dysphemia, stuttering)

Alterations that affect phonation and voice:

1. Organic phonation alteration (organic dysphonia)
2. Functional phonation alteration (functional dysphonia)

Language Disorders Related to Communicative Integration (Logopathies)

1. Simple developmental language delay
2. Alteration in language elaboration (dysphasia)
3. Neuromotor language alteration (acquired childhood aphasia)
4. Communication alteration (selective mutism)
5. Global language alteration (intellectual disability)

Hearing Alterations Related to Hearing Loss (Audiopathies)

1. Mild hearing loss (audiogenic dyslalia)
2. Severe hearing loss (deafness)

Conclusions

Language development in children goes through simple stages: babbling, first words around the end of the first year, spectacular advances during the second and third year, and by ages 3 to 6 the child regularly uses language as an important instrument for planning and regulating their own conduct. Factors in language development fall into two main groups: organic or anatomical factors, and environmental factors.

Language development is distinguished in two stages:

• Prelinguistic or preverbal stage: characterized by communication via crying, gestures, babbling, and the emergence of the first words at the end of the first year.
• Linguistic stage: characterized by the emission of first words, the growing meaning of language, and the construction of sentences from the child's own words.

Regarding thought and language, the current position takes both as independent yet interrelated in important aspects. Similarly, nonverbal communication is analyzed, exposing its relevant modalities. Therefore, at this education stage, communication should be encouraged through various languages, moving from concrete to greater abstraction: gestural, symbolic, coded and conventional.

Finally, the principal difficulties in child language were described and analyzed.