Atik umamah Athika diena Wuliatmi srihandayani HOW CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE Speaking with language is not a humans

automatic ability. At birth, people cannot speak nor understand speech. They have language the means of communication through the process of learning the language spoken by people surroundings. After birth, children automatically learn language from parents and their environment. Learning language involves the psychological processes, they are speech production and speech understanding. Speech production relies on the several development stages, they are vocalization and babbling (before one-word utterance), two and three word utterances, function words and inflections, and complex sentences. 1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPEECH PRODUCTION A. BEFORE ONE-WORD UTTERANCE a. Vocalization A few months old babies do not speak yet, but they produce variety of indescribable sounds through their mouths. Usually the sounds are in the form of vowels. Even though these are not speech sounds, their production gives the babies exercise in articulation and control. The babies get practice in coordinating breathing with the making sounds. The vocalization development is explained in detail in the following table. Approximate Age at Onset of Motor Development Vocalizations and Language Behavior 3 months Supports head when in prone Markedly less crying than at position, weights on elbows, 8 weeks, when talked to and hands mostly open, no grasp nodded at, smiles, followed reflex. by squelling-gurgling sounds usually called cooing for 1520 sounds, produced vaguely palatal sounds like /j/ and / /. 4 months Play with rattle when placed Responds to human sounds in hands by shaking it and more definitely, turns head, starring at it, head selfeyes seem to search for supported, tonic neck reflex speaker, occasionally some subsiding. chuckling sounds, can distinguish between vowels /i/ and /a/ and the corresponding adult mouth producing these sounds. 5 months Sits with props. The vowels-like cooing sounds begin to be interested with more

consonantal sounds.

b. Babbling Babbling is a type of vocalization where the child uses speech sounds, mainly vowels and consonant-vowel syllables such as ma, pa, gi etc. Children of 10-11 months will often babble in pseudo non-word sentence using declarative, question, and exclamatory intonation patterns. However, before producing any words, children acquire intonation patterns (rhythm, pitch, and stress) first. A phenomenon occurs in a deaf child. A deaf child experiences vocalization, but it cannot progress to babbling. The language development in babbling stage is seen as follows. Approximate Age at Onset of Motor Development Babbling and Language Behavior 6 months Sitting: bends forward and Cooing and changing into uses hands for support, can babbling resembling onebear weight when put into a syllable utterances, neither standing position, but can yet vowels nor consonants have stand without holding on. very fixed recurrences, most Reaching: unilateral. common utterances sound Grasp: no thumb opposition somewhat like /ma/, /mu/, yet, releases block when /da/, or /di/. given another. 8 months Stands holding on, grasp with Reduplication (or more thumb opposition, picks uo continuous repetitions) pellet with thumb and becomes frequent, fingertips. intonation paterns become distinct, utterances can signal emphasis and emotion. 10 months Creeps efficiently, takes side- Vocalizations are mixed with steps, holding on, pulls to sound-play such as gurgling standing position. or bubble-blowing, appears to wish to imitate sounds, but the imitations are never quite successful, beginning to differentiate between sounds heard by making differential adjustment. 12 months Walks when held by one Identical sound sequences hands, walks on feet and are replicated with higher hands knees in the air, relative frequency of

mouthing of objects almost stopped, seats self on floor.

occurrence, and words (mamma or dadda) are emerging, definite signs of understanding some words and simple commands (Show me your eyes).

B. THE ONE-WORD UTTERANCE There is no exact answer to the question when the children start to say their first word because there is a very wide range of individual differences and the precise determination of just when a word has been learned is not easy to make. However, normally children say their first word as young as 4 months to as old as 18 months, or around the age of 10 months. Even though only single word has some functions: to name an object, to request something, to emphasize action (mostly with gesture) e.g saying Hi by waving hand, and to express complex situations. The single word of children is also used to express a whole sentence (holophrastic). If the child says banana, or some approximation of those sounds, and does so only when seeing and touching that object (and not other objects such as people or cars), then the parents might consider that the child knows that word. The utterance banana can mean that the child want to show the parents about the name of the thing, This is banana or the request I want this banana, or to express a complex situation, Mom is taking the banana for me. C. TWO-THREE WORD UTTERANCES At 18 months or so, many children start to produce two-three word utterances. At only a year and a half, children use language to request, warn, refuse, brag, question, answer, and inform. The language development in two-three word stage is seen in the following table. Approximate Age at Onset of Motor Development Behavior 1.5 years Grasp, prehension, and release fully developed, gait stiff, propulsive and precipitated, sits on childs chair with only fair aim, creeps downstairs backward, has difficulty building tower of three blocks. Two-three Language Has definite repertoire of words more than three, but less than fifty still much babbling but now several syllables, with intricate intonation pattern, no attempt at communicating information and no frustration at not being understood, words many include items such as thank you or come here, but there is little ability to join any of the lexical items into spontaneous two-item phrases, understanding

2 years

Runs, but fails in sudden turns, can quickly alternate between sitting and stance, walks stairs up or down, one foot forward only.

2.5 years

Jumps up into air with both feet, stands on one foot for about two seconds, takes a few steps on tiptoe, jumps from chair, good hand and finger coordination, can move digits independently, manipulation of objects much improved, builds tower of six blocks.

3 years

Tiptoes three yards, runs smoothly with acceleration and deceleration, negotiates sharp and fast curves without difficulty, walks stairs by alternating feet, jumps 12 inches, can operate tricycle. Jumps over rope, hops on right foot, catches ball in arms, walks line.

4 years

progressing rapidly. Vocabulary of more than fifty items (some children seem to be able to name everything in environment), begins spontaneously to join vocabulary items into twoword phrases, all phrases appear to be own creations, definite increase in communicative behavior and interest in language. Fastest increase in vocabulary, with many new additions every day, no babbling at all, frustrated if not understood by adults, utterances consist of at leats two words-many have three or even five words, sentences and phrases have characteristics child grammar that is, are rarely verbatim repetitions, of an adult utterance, intelligibility not yet very good, though there is great varlation among children, seem to understand everything within hearing and directed to self. Vocabulary of some one thousand words, about 80 percent of utterances intelligible even to strangers, grammatical complexity of utterances roughly that of colloquial adult language although mistakes still occur. Language well established, deviations from the adult tend to be more in style than in grammar.

The utterances that the children use express such ideas as quantity (more), possession (my), negation (no sleep), location (banana table) and attributive (big, red). Grammatical characteristics of two-word utterances are: (1) The infrequent appearance of function words

such as article, preposition, and auxiliary. (2) Usually the words used by the children are nouns, verbs, and adjectives which carry the most information (content classes). (3) The lack of inflections such as plural and tenses markings. This stage is called as telegraphic stage (short utterance with content words predominating). These are some two-word utterances and their purposes.

Childs utterance Want cookie More milk My cup Mommy chair Mommy chair Big boy Red car No sleep Where doll? Daddy bring Give candy Banana table

Mature speakers equivalent I want a cookie I want some more milk This cup is mine This chair belongs to mommy Mommy is sitting in the chair I am a big boy The car is red I dont want to go to sleep Where is the doll? Daddy will bring pizza Give me some candy The banana is on the table

Purpose Request Request Warning Warning Answer (to question) Bragging Inform Refusal Question Inform Request Inform / answer

D. FUNCTION WORD AND INFLECTIONS (grammatical morpheme) After one and two-three word utterances have been acquired, the child has something on which elaborate. Function words like prepositions, the articles, and auxiliaries are then acquired, as are inflections like the plural and tense markings. A morpheme is a root word or a part of a word that carries a meaning. For example, the word cats consists of two morphemes, cat and the plural S, as does the word came consisting of come and Past. The table below shows the morpheme acquisition order and explanatory variables. No. Morpheme Examples Environmental Sound observability change difference 1. Present progressive Girl playing High High 2. Prepositions Ball on table High High 3. Plural Dogs, cats, cars High Low 4. Past irregular Came, went, spoke Medium High 5 Possessive Jokos, Adis, Santis High Low 6. Articles A dog, the cat Medium High 7. Past regular Jumped, washed, Medium Low cleaned 8. Third person: Regular Talks, sings, dances Low Low Irregular Does, has Low High 9. Auxiliary be regular I am playing, she is Low High

10.

Auxiliary be contracted

singing Im, youre, shes

Low

Low

From the table, it can be concluded that children only focus on the concept. In this stage, common order is found in the development process as follows. 1. Plural and Possessive before third person Plural and Possessive acquired first because they are more involved meaning and information including physical situations and objects that are already observed by the children in the environment. On the other hand, Third Person requires grammar, and it is rarely used in daily communication. The same is true for the Auxiliary as well. 2. Present before Past Present tense will come together with the objects, events, and situations in the world are experienced. For example, the dog is barking (at the same time the children is listening to the dog which is barking). In contrast, past tense indicates events, objects, or situation which is not experienced directly (at the same time of speaking) by the children. For example, the dog barked. The children cant see the real object/situation because it happened in the past. 3. Past Irregular before Past Regular The sound of Past Irregular changes differently from the Present, and it is more noticeable than Past Regular. Children notice the different sounds of come /kam/ came /keim/ - come /kam/ easily than the sounds of jump /jam/ - jumped /jampd/. Besides, Irregular Past is often used in childrens daily conversation. 4. Auxiliary be Regular Uncontracted before Contracted Regular be forms complete syllable and words, and it also gives degree of stress and pitch. Therefore, it makes the children find it easier to hear then to imitate. E. DEVELOPING COMPLEX SENTENCE With longer utterances, simple structures typically develop into more complex ones. Children start to make negatives, questions, relative clauses, and other complex structures. The acquisition of negation develops in three main periods as follows. The first period In this period, children start to use negative marker with utterance (Neg + U) e.g. no money. The second period Negative marker tends to appear internally within utterance, and the auxiliary do begins to appear e.g. I dont want it. The third period The children have good idea of when do must be inserted e.g. you didnt caught me.

2. SPEECH UNDERSTANDING AND ITS IMPORTANCE A. SPEECH UNDERSTANDING, THE BASIS OF SPEECH PRODUCTION Since children are not born with the knowledge of any particular language, it is necessary to expose them to the language in order to learn it. It is further necessary that the speech to which children are exposed be related to objects, events and situations in the environment and to experiences in their minds. It is because children focus on the concept. Therefore, before producing speech, children need to understand the speech first. Speech production is dependent on speech understanding and its development follows that of speech understanding. B. LEARNING ABSTRACT WORDS Abstract words usually relate to the feeling such as hungry or hurt. Children learn the abstract words by observing speech along with situations and events in the physical environment and then relate them to experiences and processes in the mind. C. MEMORY AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Without a good memory, language learning would not be possible. Even the children have memory to store word, phrase, and sentence. D. PARANTESE AND BABY TALK a. Parantese b. Baby talk E. IMITATION AND CORRECTION a. Imitation b. Correction