Introduction on early childhood language development Essay

Language and speech are the most important substantive and structural components of the human psyche. Numerous research made by psychologists and physiologists have shown that the word is associated with all manifestations of the human psyche. The structure of language affects the structure of perception. In connection with the question of the language and the role of communicative speech in cognitive development can be considered works of Bruner, Bernstein, Furth and Piaget. (Otto 2009)
According to scientists, language and speech development is one of the key elements in growth and development of the child. According to many researchers, it is language that affects all the of thinking and emotional spheres. According to researchers, the development of speech in the child begins to actively develop at the age of three. From two and to six years the child is undergoing a period of development of speech, which is called the period of language development in the practice of speech, that goes in the process of communicating with others. (Otto 2009)
It is possible to point three stages of language development: The first stage of speech development is linked with practical generalization of the linguistic facts, it takes from 2,5 to 4,5 years and represents the architecture of a speech on the model, that is, playing the familiar words. The child is actively using the words he hears from adults. The second stage involves the formation of logical thinking from simple to complex sentences. This occurs at the age of 4 -5 years. The third stage is the development of speech in connection with the study of language, which begins in the late preschool age and is connected with the study of native language at school. (Gleason 2001)
One of the most influential among theories of thinking development today is the theory of Piaget. Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was Swiss and French psychologist, author of 52 books and 458 scientific articles, the most prominent representatives of the Geneva School of genetic psychology. Studies by Piaget was a whole era in the development of the doctrine of the child’s speech and thinking, about his logic and worldview. The most significant is that Piaget rejected the position that a child is more “stupid” than adult, and the child’s thinking is undeveloped in compared to the adult intelligence; he first set the task to study the qualitative peculiarities of the child’s thinking.
Piaget studied the cognitive mechanisms of the child development. Formation of intelligence Piaget regarded as a main line of child’s mental development, on which depend all other mental processes. The main issues raised by Piaget: characteristics of the child’s logic, the origin and development of intelligence in children; methods and ways of forming the fundamental physical and mathematical ideas and concepts (such as an object, space, time, causality, randomness); the development of perception, memory, imagination, play, imitation, speech and their functions in cognition.
Piaget studied the speech development of children in kindergarten, his observations helped to make the finding that children’s language can be divided into two groups:
1. Socialized speech – is characterized by interest in a reactive partner in communication, its function – effects on the interlocutor. Categories socialized speech – information, criticism, order, request, threat, a question.
2. Egocentric speech. The shape of these statements may differ: repetition (echolalia), a monologue, collective monologue, but the total that the child tells what he thinks at the moment. Egocentric speech, according to Piaget, is gradually replaced by socialized speech, which takes into account the point of view of listeners and made ​​possible a real dialogue.
Piaget’s works provide a strong reason to believe that the language often reflects, rather than determines the development of cognitive processes. Piaget and his colleagues have attempted to scrutinize the process of solving problems of the child, teaching him to speak in new ways about specific tasks and concepts (Greenfield P. M. et al. 1966). The overall result of these studies suggests that the special language training will give nothing to the child if his development has not yet reached a level that enables him to master the relevant concepts expressed by these words. The results of applying the system of language training in solving specific problems led Piaget and his staff for such a cautious and highly plausible conclusion: “We have come to the right conclusions about the role of language. Firstly, language training, as well as other types of exercise, gives a certain direction the child’s interactions with the environment and thus “focusing” the relevant parameters of a problem situation. Second, the language is involved in storing and retrieving information. Nevertheless, we have little reason, rather, do not even have grounds to assert that language acquisition itself promotes integration and coordination of “information units” , which are necessary to master the concepts of conservation… In addition, we do not exclude the possibility of feedback – the influence of the language itself at operational structures, especially at an operational level, logical thinking, when the process of reasoning in many cases very closely associated with the language …”.
The magnitude of this effect (of the language and cognitive processes) depends obviously on the perceptual components of the problem, the level of development of the child and the type of mental operations needed to solve this problem “( Greenfield 1996)
Experiments of the Piaget school raised many important issues. First, scientists noted the special role that the internalization of action and education on this basis of “operational entities”. Simply put, a child affects the world and builds internal models of the nature of the real world on the basis of these actions and their results. Such interaction with the environment, of course, need not be only verbal (language).