StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

What factors contribute to the production of an infant's first words - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
That there are different factors that all collectively contribute to the abilities of infants in developing speech and uttering words. These factors vary from social to psychological, syntactic, neurological and environmental…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER94.3% of users find it useful
What factors contribute to the production of an infants first words
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "What factors contribute to the production of an infant's first words"

? Factors Contributing to the Production of an Infant’s First Words Factors Contributing to the Production of an Infant’s First Words Introduction Whereas the ability of infants to speak their first words might seem general, there are fascinating important things about children’s speech. It is without denial that infants are totally unaware of their environment and speech and this nature of mental blankness creates the first difficulty for language acquisition. Secondly, the complexity of the concept of language acquisition by infants leads to an immense interest in how children develop their speech abilities. This continued interest has raised the number of research participation into child development speech. In this paper, the same concept of reviewing of available literature on the same issue is made, aimed at understanding the different factors that contribute to child speech development. In this light, different domains shall be examined such as the social context, psychological aspect, phonetics or word usage through syntax, neurological and normal comprehension. Social context The immediate social environment plays a crucial role in the abilities of infants being able to speak the first words. The ways in which this influence arises have been highly debated and partial consensus points towards word production environment (Oates, Wood, & Grayson, 2005). This narrows it down to the home environment. It is obvious that the home environment is highly challenging to infant development and has a great consequent effect on children or infant learning abilities. This learning is facilitated by occurrence of activities and therefore infants are most likely to make more meaning of words through associations of objects, activities or events happening around the home environment. Infants socialize within the home environment and are thus, highly likely to associate everything within it to some specific words. For instance, when infants start first by blubbing some words, they become challenged to either express their needs. Need theories point out that naturally, every instinct is a reaction to a need and expression of that need and is done through communication (Oates & Grayson, 2006). Thus, when babies or infants first learn a language, they do so in expression of their internal needs. In most of the times, the needs include hunger, pain, love for beautiful things and thirst among others. Thus, when a mother provides these things to an infant during the developmental stages, it is highly likely that the infant will fist blubber the word ‘mummy’, in its first attempt to speak. Need fulfillment and associated people highly motivate infants to learn and utter their first words (Oates & Grayson, 2006). Secondly, infants associate words either with events, objects, places and other things. Although this is true, this concept does not hold uniform. For instance, studies of various infants indicated differences of those infants uttering their first words. In one observation, an infant notes a picture on the wall and points towards the same, while uttering ‘there’ while the other one uttered something different. Maternal influence has also been identified as one of the strongest social context forces which influence the abilities of infants learning and speaking their first words. For instance, in one study carried out on word usage in mothers and infants, evidence pointed out that infant word usage was largely similar to those of their mothers (Oates & Grayson, 2006). This factor points out that those mothers are one of the greatest factors contributing to infants’ utterance of first speech. Comprehension Children start to learn the meaning of words through identification and association. Identification means that infants are able to identify a particular word and become familiar with that word or syllable (Derrington, 2008). The abilities for infants to comprehend specific words largely depend of the occurrence of either objects, situations or other circumstances that facilitate this. Therefore, the natural abilities of infants in word-comprehension are of paramount importance in word development. These abilities of word-comprehension by infants which are natural, play a very important and critical role when it comes to word development. Word development basically is very crucial to an infant who is in the process of learning how to pronounce things in his/her environment. The learning process in children is very critical, and requires serious attention and consideration by parents or guardians. Word boundaries and speech stream There is an interesting phenomenon in communication that is involved in syntactic use of words. Word usage is very vital in language learning and development. Correct word usage has a very powerful influence on speech development and recognition (Oates, Wood, & Grayson, 2005). Syntax experts have stressed on the important of word pronunciation, indicating stressing points in every word and therefore highlighting meaning to usage and understanding. For every word spoken, there are effects that arise from the mode of pronunciation. Different syllables are pronounced differently, with varying effects of stress on each, to clearly distinguish them and create appropriate meaning of the word. Given the nature of word-emptiness of children, creation of appropriate sounds is imperative in differentiating words as children develop (Derrington, 2008). This effect is highly crucial in child language development and consequently has great meanings in language development. Therefore, children associate words or understand words by distinguishing them from other words from a given speech stream by the effect of this influence. Correct and proper utterances of words create a favorable environment for child language development. Once children identify words through correct and proper pronunciation, then remembrance of the same is achieved and consequently that word becomes easily identifiable. At this state, word is fully comprehended (Hathaway, 2007). Recurrence of the word is further linked to consistence in events, actions or objects and when the word becomes repeated in future speech, then appropriate context is identified and then a word is produced. Genetic readiness and development of brain functions Brain studies in human brain have indicated that there are significant influences of the brain on human speech. At birth, it is speculated that both the right and the left hemispheres of the brain hold the same influence on speech development and cognitive abilities. The concept of equal potentiality has played a huge part in explanations of the ways human develop speech and consequently, has had huge influence in speech development for many years (PR Newswire, 2007). However, newer research aimed at differentiating them implies that the right side of the human brain, which is the right hemisphere, has faster speed of processing and storing words. Although the same studies have not drawn out distinction on the superiority or inferiority of the left hemisphere, it can be deductively concluded that it has a stronger impact and thus influence on speech development than the left (Hathaway, 2007). This implication only creates another belief that without proper function or normal right hemisphere, speech development will be impaired. This impairment will only lead to delayed utterances of the first word and thus negatively hinder speech development. Evidence of brain hemispherical influence on speech was attained through neurological studies. Studies of infants and children were carried out. Basically, children with lesion effects on either side of the brain were tested as well as children with healthy brains (Derrington, 2008). The results attested that children with lesion effects on either side of the brain had delayed language development and consequently led to the conclusion that brain hemispheres largely affect speech. In compliment, the studies found out that children with lesions on the right side were more negatively affected than those with lesions on the right. In adults, the studies indicated that a reverse of the situation would be evident. Further research has clarified that the two hemispheres are different in function (Derrington, 2008). Whereas the left handles information processing, the right largely deals with recognition and detection. Any effect on either would thus contribute to delayed utterances of first words. Individual variations or differences Psychologically, many developmental theories have empathized on the significance of individual differences on human aspects such as character or trait. These theories can be extended to the levels of infantry. Various research evidences have indicated that infants depict high levels of variations in their abilities of understanding and producing words. Most infants are thought to have developed a sense of understanding of some words at the age of at least 16 months since the day that the infants are born. The number of words that can be understood at this age depends on the individual differences mentioned above. For instance, in one such study, a number of infants were tested on their understanding and production of words. The results indicated that the natural ability for understanding words ranges from 100 to 300 words, while that of production at the same age ranges from 0 to 130 words (Oates, Wood, & Grayson, 2005). The lower limit indicates that even at that age, some infants may not be able to produce any word, despite their high understanding levels due to differences, which can either be attributed to the environment or simply the individual differences existing within them. Another difference indicated that different children have different abilities or interest and thus have differences in their vocabularies. While some children may naturally develop an interest in objects, other simply develop an interest in people. In the former case, a child may have numerous object names than the latter while the second child has more words associated with people than the first one. Other studies have indicated that it is only natural that girls develop more vocabularies in objects than boys at those tender ages (Hathaway, 2007). Conclusion From the discussion, it is evident that there are different factors that all collectively contribute to the abilities of infants in developing speech and uttering words. These factors vary from social to psychological, syntactic, neurological and environmental. Therefore, different children or infants face different influences from these factors. Psychologically, many developmental theories have empathized on the significance of individual differences on human aspects such as character or trait. In individual differences, most infants are thought to have developed a sense of understanding of some words at the age of at least 16 months. Phonetically, correct word usage has a very powerful influence on speech development and recognition. Syntax experts have stressed on the importance of word pronunciation, indicating stressing points in every word and therefore highlighting meaning to usage and understanding because for every word spoken, there are effects that arise from the mode of pronunciation. Neurologically, brain studies in human brain have indicated that there are significant influences of the brain on human speech. Evidence indicates that children with lesion effects on either side of the brain had delayed language development, and consequently led to the conclusion that brain hemispheres largely affect speech. References Derrington, A. (2008). When baby keeps mum: The nature of things: Genes may be responsible for a child's impaired speech development, says Andrew Derrington. Financial Times. Hathaway, S. (1997). Does my child have a speech problem? Library Journal, 122 (12), 117. Oates, J., & Grayson, A. (2006). Cognitive and language development in children. New York: Blackwell. Oates, J., Wood, C., & Grayson, A. (2005). Psychological development and early childhood. New York: Blackwell. PR Newswire. (2007). Speech, language and the brain: Neurodevelopment experts discuss critical links to child development. PR Newswire. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/444567087?accountid=45049. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“What factors contribute to the production of an infant's first words Essay”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/psychology/1482845-what-factors-contribute-to-the-production-of-an
(What Factors Contribute to the Production of an infant'S First Words Essay)
https://studentshare.org/psychology/1482845-what-factors-contribute-to-the-production-of-an.
“What Factors Contribute to the Production of an infant'S First Words Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/psychology/1482845-what-factors-contribute-to-the-production-of-an.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF What factors contribute to the production of an infant's first words

Communication Assignemnt

Some activities that children and their parents may engage in that might help foster language and communication development will be discussed along with other factors that may contribute to development.... Common mistakes shared by children as they learn how to communicate for the first time provide clues as to how language development progresses and contribute to a discussion of the average stages of language development exhibited among young children.... This type of communication is necessarily based on physical actions and tone of cry when the… ild is very small, but as they grow older, children begin to demonstrate that they understand gestures and the words of others even before they have voiced their first word....
11 Pages (2750 words) Essay

What strategies are effective in prolonging breastfeeding

1999) has been exposed with may affect the production of breast milk among the newly mothers.... first, breast milk is more nutritious aside from the fact that it promotes the relationship between the mother and the baby.... 2001) For this reason, the World Health Organization (WHO) strongly recommends mothers to breastfeed their baby up to the first 6th month of age (WHO, 2007) while others recommend that breastfeeding should last up to the 12th month of age (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2003)....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Kangaroo Care: the Use of Improved Technology and Methods

KC may best be started soon after birth, without any delay for the baby to first achieve stabilisation.... During the skin-to-skin period, the infant's oxygen saturation level is increased, its requirement for oxygen declines and the process of respiration gets stabilised (Hunt 2008; Dodd 2002)....
15 Pages (3750 words) Research Paper

The Marketing Strategy by Nestle

ow did this situation occur in the first place?... The problem faced by nestle can be defined articulately as a problem of contamination and be addressed by handling all activities from production to consumption which are not addressed in the activism approach.... From research it was realized that other factors contributed to the situation by increasing contamination of the infant food.... However, these factors were not exhaustively handled because of the activism associated with the issues (Ghillyer 78)....
2 Pages (500 words) Assignment

Native Arabic Speakers and English Speakers

lthough the left hemisphere is active most during speech processing, a right anterior temporal area and right mid-temporal region are also involved and contribute to speech processing, especially when there are “tasks that tap voice relative to verbal content” (Price et al, 2005)....
14 Pages (3500 words) Dissertation

Global Media and the Nestle Boycott

Confusions resulting come because the majority of people are not able to understand what the boycott is all about and to what extent the boycott is still valid (Machin, David, and Theo 88).... It is therefore difficult to choose what to believe with the contradicting information witnessed hence quite difficult to differentiate what is truth and what propaganda is....
9 Pages (2250 words) Case Study

Factors Contributing to the Production of an Infants First Words

The paper "Factors Contributing to the production of an infant's first words" states that there are different factors that all collectively contribute to the abilities of infants in developing speech and uttering words.... he immediate social environment plays a crucial role in the abilities of infants being able to speak the first words.... In the paper, the same concept of reviewing available literature on the same issue is made, aimed at understanding the different factors that contribute to child speech development....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Language-Specific Phonetic Perception in Infants

nbsp; Very young infants cannot speak, for example, and so the production of particular sounds cannot be used as evidence to use in working out what sounds are perceived.... Despite this methodological challenge, considerable progress has been made in recent years in working out how the speech perception of infants develops over the first year of life.... n order to explore these related questions in more detail, Houston (2011) breaks down the speech perception skill into smaller parts, starting first of all the kind of perception that a fetus has in the womb....
16 Pages (4000 words) Literature review
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us