Speech

Development in
the Young Child
Kelly Simmons
June 10, 2013
CFS 235

Introduction
Newborns know more than most give them
credit for. They have the ability to recognize
faces, smells, and voices within a few days of
being born. Scientists, like Alison Gopnik, learn
as much about the development of a child by
looking in the crib and the nursery as by
looking in the petri dish or the telescope.
(Gopnik, 2001) Alison Gopnik and her colleagues
discovered new theories about speech
development among other ground breaking
ideas in the development of the young child.

Definition of Speech

Speech is how we communicate verbally.

Babies already know a lot about
language when they are born.
Speech begins at birth, not when a child
says its first word.

("Top Ten Newborn Questions , 2013)

Speech Development
3 months
cooing
6-12 months
babbling, organized
sounds
12 months
sounds to words
18-24 months putting words together
(Robinson, 2008)

Historical Background
Vygotsky believed language was the most significant
cognitive tool passed down through the generations
and without language a child can not develop selfawareness. (Miller, 2013)
Chomsky described how we combine words to make
sentences, known as modern linguistics, as an implicit
set of rules that allows us to transform the sequence of
sounds we hear into sequences of ideas. (Gopnik,
2001)
Gopnik said understanding language is like cracking a
deeply encrypted code. We crack this code effortlessly,
at an age we cant even remember, and we use it
effortlessly as adults.(Gopnik, 2001)

Alison Gopnik

(Gopnik, n.d.)

Alison Gopnik is a
Professor of Psychology
and an affiliate Professor of
Philosophy at the
University of California
Berkley. Alison received her
BA from McGill University
and her PhD from Oxford
University. She has
authored over 100 journal
articles and several books.
Alison has three sons and
lives with her husband in
Berkley, California.

From the time I was very young I knew

that I wanted to be a philosopher. I wanted
to actually answer, or at least ask, big,
deep questions about the world, and I
wanted to spend my life talking and
arguing.
(Amazing Babies: A Talk With Alison Gopnik, 2009)

(Gopnik, n.d.

Current Studies on Speech

Development
Alison Gopnik, Andrew Meltzoff, and Patricia Kuhl, three
renown cognitive scientists, conducted extensive
research on language development. Some of their studies
included:
The way we perceive speech is unique to each language.
Very young babies discriminate the sounds of every language,
even those they have never heard.
Cooing is the first sound and form of communication.
Babbling is a string of consonant vowel syllables. Cooing and
babbling is universal.
What are a babies first words and what they really mean.
When a child begins putting words together.
The importance of Motherese.

Relevance and Significance

The Way We Perceive Speech
People who speak different languages
hear and distinguish sounds differently.
Exposure to a particular language has
altered our brains and shapes our minds,
so that we perceive sounds differently.
(Gopnik, 2001)

(clipart)

(Narang, 2007)

Discriminating Sounds
Very young babies are able to discriminate
the sounds of every language. This includes
languages they had never heard before. The
gender or tone of the voice doesnt matter,
they did just as well. By one year of age this
changes. The babies speech categories
begin to resemble those of the adults in
their culture. (Gopnik, 2001)

A Babies First Sounds

Coo - All babies, regardless of nationality,

start to coo around three months old.
Babies already know how a dialog works.
These are our first conversations with our
children.
http://www.flipbooth.com/yt/5bQTATGdy9Y/My
-Blasian-Baby-Boy---Singha-1

A Babies First Sounds

Babble About seven or eight months of

age babies begin to babble. They start
producing strings of consonant-vowel
syllables, dadada or bababa. (Gopnik,
2001) Babies of all cultures begin babbling
the same way, using b, d, m, and g
consonants with the vowel ah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UCK4XCrvoc

A Babies First Sounds

Babies start to make sounds from their own
language between one and one and a half
years old. This is the time the universal
phase of language production ends.
(Gopnik, 2001)

(Boost your babys confidence,

2013)

(Liautaud, 2013)
(Baby Club,
n.d.)

First Words
A babies first words are produced from the
consonant-vowel combinations when a baby
babbles, mama and dada. It isnt clear if
babies are saying this referring to their mom
or dad or if this is just a natural progression
from babbling. Researchers watching video
tapes of babies talking discovered they said
many words their parents hadnt noticed, like
gone, there, uh-oh, more, and
whats that?. (Gopnik, 2001)

Alison Gopniks findings

During Gopniks observations of babies while
at Oxford University, she discovered gone
was one of the most common first words. She
learned that gone didnt refer to food as
parents thought, but to something completely
different. Babies were using gone to describe
how things disappear from sight. The babies
knew the objects were somewhere, but just
couldnt see them. Gopnik also discovered
that there and uh-oh described success and
failure.

Alison Gopniks Finding Cont.

Gopnik knew that the
same time a child is
learning words they are
also learning how an
object appears and
disappears and suspected
this was connected. Her
experiments proved this
to be true. She discovered
that early words appear
at the same time children
are solving relevant new
problems. (Gopnik, 2001)

(Playin
g
Chang with a Baby
e a Dia
a
per, 20 nd not Havin
09)
g to

Putting Words Together

Between 1824 months babies begin to put
two words together. These first two word
sentences follow certain invented
grammatical rules. Young children leave out
word endings, like plural s, or past tense ed,
and they also omit words. As children get
older they begin to learn general grammar
rules and often make mistakes. Preschool
age children often invent words like womans
and childs. (Gopnik, 2001)

Motherese
Motherese refers to the manner in which a
person talks to babies. It is also called
Infant Directed Speech. People talk to
babies in a higher pitch, use exaggerated
vowels, and short repetitious phrases.
Babies love Motherese and prefer to listen
to it over a normal adult speaking, even if
they are talking in a different language than
their own. (Robinson, 2008)

(You ,Think You

Know 2009)

Recommendations from
Study
Gopniks studies brought to light how
infants know more than ever thought
before. Research with newborn infants can
help scientist learn more about the
developing child and how the brain adapts
to sounds it hears. Gopniks studies show a
need for more research with infants in other
areas of development.

Application of the Research

Much was learned from
Gopniks studies of
early speech
development. Her
book, The Scientist in
the Crib, is a wonderful
resource for parents
and caregivers alike.
The book gives new
insight into a childs
cognitive development.

(Gopnik, n.d.)

Limitations from Study

Gopniks work concentrated on infants and
young children. Language development
changes as a person grows older as well.
This study only touched on how speech is
effected when a person has alzheimers.
More research on the changes of the brain
of the elderly and its effects on speech is
needed.

Conclusion
Speech development begins at birth. Infants
learn how to make sounds by watching the
faces and mouths of adults and listening to
them speak. Speech development is an
amazing process which begins before most
parents and scientists realized. Alison
Gopnik has made significant contributions in
her studies of cognitive development in the
infant and young child.

Bibliography

Alison Gopnik. (n.d.).Alison Gopnik. Retrieved June 8, 2013, from www.alisongopnik.com.alison_gopnik_bio.htm

http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/la nguage_speech.htm

Amazing Babies: A Talk With Alison Gopnik. (2009, August 11).Edge. Retrieved June 9, 2013, from
edge.org/conversation/amazing_babies

Baby Club. (n.d.).Price Chopper. Retrieved June 9, 2013, from www2.pricwchopper.com/babyclub/cake.shtml

Boost your babys confidence by ditching the pram - Yahoo! Lifestyle UK. (2007, December 1).Yahoo! UK &
Ireland Lifestyle - Fashion, Beauty, Health, Food. Retrieved June 13, 2013, from
http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/carry-babies-for-confidence-more-confident-children-baby-carriers-slings-prams130821106.html

Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. N., & Kuhl, P. K. (2001).The scientist in the crib: what early learning tells us about the
mind. New York: HarperPerennial.

Liautaud, M. (2013, January 9). church worldwide | thereformedmind.thereformedmind | A blog by a professor

focusing on politics and religion in America. Retrieved June 13, 2013, from
http://thereformedmind.wordpress.com/category/church-worldwide/

Miller, D. F. (2013).Positive child guidance(7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Narang, Sonia. (2007, December 1). The India Reporting Project Kerala Brides.Home-Berkeley Graduate
School of Journalism. Retrieved June 13, 2013, from
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/indiareport/2007/12/kerala-brides

Playing with a Baby and not Having to Change a Diaper. (2009, January 5). Retrieved June 9, 2013, from
www.1000awesomethings.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/peek-a-boo.jpg

Robinson, M. (2008).Child development 0-8 a journey through the early years. Maidenhead: Open University
Press, McGraw Hill.

Top Ten Newborn Questions, and Answers | Survivor: Pediatrics. (2012, May 16).Survivor: Pediatrics |
Pediatricians with a voice. Retrieved June 13, 2013, from
http://survivorpediatrics.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/top-ten-newborn-questions-and-answers/

You Think You Know. (2012, December 7).Madame Noire. Retrieved June 9, 2013, from
madamenoire.com/242793/you-think-you-know-but-you-have-no-idea-why-you-can-wait-to-have-a- baby/