Session 6: The shape of development

Introduction

Language acquisition is in full swing now with new words acquired on an hour-by-hour basis, with utterances getting longer and more complex as children want to communicate more complex ideas. In response, adults talk with children in more complex ways which further accelerates their earning. Morphology is being used flexibly, the phonology of children’s speech is sounding ever more adult-like, and the communicative functions of different constructions are being refined with every use. As children are producing more and more language between 3 and 5 years of age, they have also created for themselves the opportunity to make more mistakes. In this session you’ll look at the overall shape of development, some of the factors that might be causing speech errors, and how children ultimately overcome them.

By the end of this session, you should be able to:

• describe the U-shaped learning curve
• understand children’s grammatical and phonological errors
• explain how children overcome overgeneralising language
• consider how grammar enables sharing, informing and requesting.