Blog Week6 Samantha Mickens

My journey through language and literacy development has been quite a learning experience. As an educator and a mother, I thought I knew most of the information that was available about language and literacy development. However, as I look back on my own children and various students I realize I still have much to learn. This research paper on a child’s journey through development has really enlightened how I thought of language development and how it pertains to speech and literacy delays. The child that I chose to follow through this journey is actually my own daughter, who struggles has been diagnosed with a speech disorder and has a speech IEP that addresses her many speech issues. As a mother, I often questioned my role in her speech issues and if I would have done this or said that. However, being able to go through this journey has allowed me to see areas that are just developmental delays.

Some specific questions for feedback would be:  

·         What areas could I delve more and provide more information?

·         Can I provide more information about her language development in her toddler years?

·         Should I give more information on how her being bilingual has affected her speech delay, if any?

·         What areas do you feel need more attention to details?

·         Any suggestions to improve my research/ paper?

Literacy Development Journey

            Language is a single dimension of human behavior (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012). For most of the history of language and its development, language has been linked to one’s cognitive abilities. It has been thought that one’s cognitive abilities are directly linked to how one understands language. However, how one acquires language has been debated over the centuries. One thing that is unequivocally known is that one’s world is never the same after one acquires language. Words can determine how we see and understand the world, altering our perspectives (Music, 2011). According to Pence Turnbull and Justice (2012), “Children reach many important milestones the first year on their journey through language development” (p. 168). Oftentimes, a child’s environment plays a bigger role in his or her language development than previously realized. The quality of a child’s interactions and not just the quantity he or she receives is what matters. In addition, the types of social interactions in which he or she engages form important early foundations for language development (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012). A child’s home life, family, environment, socioeconomic status, community, and culture play an important role in language development and literacy. Throughout this paper, we will discuss a child’s journey through language development from utero to age 8.                 

Home Life and Family

Caleigh is a healthy 5-year-old girl. She is a caring, loving, and friendly child who enjoys her family and friends. Caleigh attends a public elementary school and is in pre-k In the early years of life, language really begins to emerge, and children really start to understand language. Children develop language in different ways, such as body language and receptive language. Receptive language is the use of vocabulary to communicate. Body language refers to non-verbal communication and is expressed through physical behaviors, such as body movements, gestures, eye contact, and touching. She likes going to school and enjoys her teachers and friends. She comes from a middle-class home, her mother is an elementary school teacher, and her father is a disabled veteran. She is part of a family of four and is the younger of two children; her brother is six years older. Her parents have been married for 13 years and live together in the home, sharing the parenting responsibilities. Her family consists of herself; her mother, who is 35 years old; her father, who is 36 years old; and a brother who is 11 years of age. Also, Caleigh’s mother is bi-racial; she is Korean and Black. The family has two pets, a miniature schnauzer and a hermit crab. Caleigh does have the responsibility of helping to care for both pets in the home. She enjoys spending time with her family, and her favorite game to play with her family is UNO. The family takes many trips, enjoying places such as Disney World, museums, the aquarium, and the Caribbean. Mainly, they enjoy simply spending quality time together, whether it is going to the movies or just relaxing at home. Until recently, the primary caregiver for Caleigh was her father. He was honorably discharged from the military and is now a disabled veteran after receiving a heart transplant. He stayed at home and cared for her before she began pre-kindergarten this year. However, she has a stronger and closer relationship with her mother.

            Caleigh’s mother had a normal pregnancy with her with the exception of extreme nausea and vomiting. She was born by caesarean section at 38 weeks. However, her mother had a difficult pregnancy. She was unable to take pre-natal vitamins or hold down much food, as she suffered from morning sickness every day and suffered from daily nausea and vomiting, which caused her to lose 40 pounds. Three months into her pregnancy, Caleigh’s mother had to have a feeding tube inserted into her stomach due to her extreme nausea and inability hold down any food. Understanding Caleigh’s experience during utero is very important because it may explain any speech or language delays. As noted in Pence Turnbull and Justice, (2012), “Infants are learning about language even before birth, and are able to recognize voices and words from their time in the womb” (p. 103).

Community and Culture

Caleigh lives in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia. Her mother is half-Korean. She is provided with rich experiences from the Korean heritage she shares with her brother. They also live near a Korean community, where Caleigh is exposed to her Korean heritage often while shopping and visiting. As noted in Cho (2015), “Knowing multiple languages broadens the number of people with whom one can communicate, grants access to supportive networks in the community” (p.31). The primary language spoken at her home is English, but Korean is also spoken in the home. She mostly interacts with her mother, who speaks English and Korean, and with her grandmother, who is Korean. Her grandmother speaks English and Korean but prefers to communicate with Caleigh in Korean. Caleigh’s mother believes it is very important that she learn English because they live in a country whose primary language is English, but believes that learning her mother’s native language is equally important. According to Cho (2015), “Their study showed that bilingual children have greater cognitive flexibility than do monolingual children and that bilingualism promotes academic achievement, which, in turn, fosters higher academic expectations” (p. 30).

            Caleigh is offered many literacy-rich experiences both inside and outside of the home. Her mother works with her daily on sight words, numbers, and letter recognition and sounds. She also receives many language and literacy experiences from her school environment. Her mother has additionally made connections between English and Korean words for her to help her understanding, intentionally connecting new English words to words they understand in Korean to help her to build  In the early years of life, language really begins to emerge, and children really start to understand language. Children develop language in different ways, such as body language and receptive language. Receptive language is the use of vocabulary to communicate. Body language refers to non-verbal communication and is expressed through physical behaviors, such as body movements, gestures, eye contact, and touching. Her English vocabulary (Colker, n.d.). Currently, she receives 30-minute speech therapy sessions through her school twice a week. Often, when out in the community, her mother reads signs to her and asks her questions about what she sees. Also, her local library provides monthly preschool reading activities and programs in which she participates.

            Caleigh’s mother said she did notice early on that her daughter had an extensive vocabulary, but her daughter had trouble making letter sounds and saying certain words outside of what was considered appropriate development. Her extensive vocabulary can be attributed to her socio-economic status. A child’s economic background can play a role in his or her vocabulary development. By 3 years of age, there is a 30-million-word gap between children from the wealthiest families and the poorest families (Colker, n.d.).  Caleigh’s mother immediately became concerned about her daughter’s speech development and tried to work with her at home, trying to correct her speech delays. As Caleigh grew older, it became apparent that her speech delays were growing and becoming more of an issue in her communication with others. However, her mother did not notice those same delays when she communicated using the Korean language. According to Pence Turnbull and Justice, (2012), “In the first years, infants can distinguish among the sounds of all world languages, an ability that older children and adults lack” (p.158). The phonetic differences can explain why she had speech and language delays in English but not in Korean. Eventually, the delays began to affect her relationships with her family and peers. A once-happy child began to be shy and withdrawn when she needed to communicate and was not understood immediately. Her mother also noted that as her frustration grew, Caleigh would often look to her to translate for her to others. Her mother said that since her daughter has begun to receive speech therapy, she has noticed that her daughter’s confidence is growing and her bubbly personality is returning.  

Prenatal and Infancy

            Children are constantly growing and changing. It is important to understand where they fit on the continuum of development at each stage. During the prenatal stages, there are certain milestones that a child should reach before birth and then in infancy. Language development begins in utero, since children will begin to hear sounds while in the womb. According to Pence Turnbull and Justice (2012), “Before infants are ready to speak their first words, they listen attentively to the sounds around them” (p. 156). The prenatal stages are extremely important to a baby’s language development. Mothers should be talking to their babies and allowing them to listen to sounds that they may need to become familiar with after birth, such as the family pet and how it sounds, a sibling’s voice, daddy’s voice, and so on. This is an important experience for babies in utero because they will recognize those sounds once they are born. It is important to understand that infants develop language before birth, are learning language in the womb, and are able to recognize sounds and voices from their time in the womb (Music, 2011). Therefore, it is extremely important that a mother ensures that her baby meets this milestone.

Also, a mother should receive proper nutrition and prenatal care while pregnant, making sure that a child has a pregnancy free from the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. According to Lewis et al. (2013), “A mother who uses drugs may not provide adequate language stimulation to her child, in part due to a chaotic, drug-seeking lifestyle” (p. 1663). Caleigh’s mother indicated that she did not use drugs, tobacco, or drink alcohol during her pregnancy. However, due to her illness during pregnancy, she was unable to take prenatal vitamins, which may have been vital to proper brain development and growth. According to her mother, Caleigh met milestones during the prenatal stage. Her mother talked to her frequently and also allowed her family members to talk to her as well. She frequently read to Caleigh, exposing her to a variety of vocabularies during her pregnancy. Exposing her to language prior to birth allowed her to recognize sounds in early infancy and respond to certain sounds and stimuli.

There needs to be more research to confirm that babies who are exposed to auditory stimuli in utero are more reactive to auditory stimuli after birth compared to babies who were not exposed to language in utero (Lewis et al., 2013). Caleigh experienced a very loving and nurturing prenatal environment, which prepared her for her infancy stage of language development. Although it is important to hear sounds in the womb, babies’ ability to distinguish between sounds greatly diminishes during the first year of life. Therefore, the transition to reaching the milestones of the infancy stage of language development is crucial to avoid developmental language delays. Meeting the milestones in the prenatal stage helped Caleigh transition to proper language development during the infancy stage.

According to Tsao, Lui, and Kuhl (2004):

Language development is one of the major achievements of infancy and early childhood. The milestones of linguistic achievement have been documented across cultures and suggest that infants follow a set of universal stages both in speech production and speech perception. (p. 1067)

In the early years of life, language really begins to emerge, and children really start to understand language. Children develop language in different ways, such as body language and receptive language. Receptive language is the use of vocabulary to communicate. Body language refers to non-verbal communication and is expressed through physical behaviors, such as body movements, gestures, eye contact, and touching.

What are some major milestones that occur during the infancy stage? Infants experience a progression from cooing (one to four months), to babbling (five to ten months), to meaningful speech (10 to 18 months; Tsao et al., 2004). Throughout this stage, caregivers offer infant direct speech (IDS), also referred to as baby talk, which is the manner of speech outside linguistic information with high overall pitch, exaggerated pitch contours, and slower tempos (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012).

During the first months of life, from birth to about four months, babies will begin cooing. In this phase, babies value and need interpersonal interactions. They value more social interactions with caregivers and look to people’s faces to communicate. Caleigh cooed at the appropriate stage during infancy and often engaged in social interactions with her caregivers. She often responded to adult’s smiles and laughs and would respond by smiling or laughing. There is a connection between infants’ early speech-perception abilities and their later abilities to acquire language (Tsao et al., 2004). Social exchange is extremely important during this stage of development and as they move to the next phase (i.e., babbling), as they look to caregivers for appropriate engagements and responses. Babies use social interactions to understand and begin to acquire language and begin to attempt to communicate with other people (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012).

As babies move into the next phase, five months to one year after birth, their language development expands and grows tremendously. During these stages, babies begin to babble, form meaningful speech—such as “dada” and “mama”—make connections, and manipulate objects around them. Caleigh started to babble at around five months. She often babbled for long periods of time, when people were present in the room, or when she was alone in her crib. Her mother often engaged in caregiver responsiveness, which is how a caregiver responds and gives attention during babies’ communicative attempts. Caregiver responsiveness plays a large role in early language development (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012). As noted in Pence Turnbull and Justice, (2012), “More responsiveness maternal language input is linked—even more so than infants’ own communicative behaviors, such as vocalization—to the time at which infants reach important milestones” (p. 175). Caleigh’s mother often engaged in face-to-face engagement when talking to Caleigh. She also used a technique called expanding and extending, which is when a parent expands by repeating their children’s words and using correct grammar or adds another idea (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012). As Caleigh began to utter “mama,” her mother would repeat it and say, “Mommy.” She often read to Caleigh during this time as well, which is called joint attention. Joint attention is when a caregiver gives mental focus to a single external object (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012). By reading to Caleigh, not only did it allow her to make the connection between a word and an object but also allowed for expanded vocabulary.

As early educators or caregivers, our interactions with children are vital to their development and growth, especially in the early stages of life. The first year of an infant’s life is a critical time for laying the foundation for the child’s future development (Parfitt, Pike, & Ayers, 2014). As they grow and discover the world, we are there to help to guide them through the new world and encourage positive interactions. Parents and caregivers can help children to get off to a good start and establish healthy patterns for lifelong learning (Zero to Three, 2014). It is important that children are meeting milestones in all areas—physical, social, emotional, and/or cognitive development—and not just language acquisition.

Children reach various developmental milestones across multiple domains starting from infancy. It is important to understand that the domains interact in an important way so that achievement in one area results in a growth in another area (Shulman, 2010). Caleigh was not a very social baby and often wanted her mother’s attention and care. She rarely interacted with other adults and would cry when not near her mother. This could have impacted her language development by not allowing her to receive social interactions from other adults. However, she did interact with other infants and often played well with them. She met all of her physical milestones and had no issues with growth. Her mother did begin to notice that her speech development was not aligned with her peers’; even after corrections, she still made errors. Although her social development is beginning to emerge, it is not overlapping with her language development.

Toddlers

            Toddlerhood, or the period between about ages one and three years, is a time of exploration for children (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012). During this stage, toddlers begin to gain more mobility and develop more language. They begin to understand language and identify letters and letter sounds during this stage of development. During this period, children begin to increase their vocabularies by 200 words a month (Schwartz, 2014). This is a time in children’s lives in which they transition from nonverbal language to more formal verbal language. Caleigh did not meet all of her language milestones as a toddler. According to Pence Turnbull and Justice (2012), “at 28 months of age children should pronounce about 70% of all words intelligibly and demonstrate phonological processes (e.g., final consonant omission, and substitution of consonants)” (p. x). At this stage, Caleigh was pronouncing 60% of her words incorrectly. She would often leave off letter sounds or use incorrect sounds. However, she did use referential gestures, such as waving to say bye-bye. Toddlers use gestures to fill in gaps before they develop the competence to combine words, but they later allow their words to dominate when they can combine them successfully (Pence Turnbull & Justice, 2012).

Caleigh’s physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development were age appropriate. During this stage, toddlers begin to understand how to form social relationships with peers and adults. In the toddler years, children begin to develop an understanding of the responses, communication, emotional expressions, and actions of other people (California Department of Education, 2015b). Caleigh was able form good relationships with her mother and siblings and had no problem building these healthy relationships. Physical development is also known as motor behavior, which describes all movements of the body, including those of the eyes (as in the gaze) and the infant’s control of the head (California Department of Education, 2015a). There are two types of physical development: gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Fine motor development is attained through touching, grasping, and manual manipulation, which allow infants to experience a sense of agency and learn about the features of people, objects, and the environment (California Department of Education, 2015a).

Caleigh had met her milestones in terms of physical development and was able to walk, grab, touch, crawl, and stand. It is important that these domains of development are met because they affect other areas of development, such as language acquisition. One domain depends on the other domains to develop properly. In order for a Caleigh to write her name, she must first understand how to form letters and then hold a pen to form the letters on paper. As toddlers grow, they begin to understand not just spoken and nonverbal language, but written language as well. For example, it is important to build upon toddlers’ language development. They can make connections by not only writing the letters down but also identifying and forming them. Toddlers reach various developmental milestones across multiple domains, starting from birth. It is important to understand that the domains interact in important ways so that achievement in one area results in growth in another area (Shulman, 2010). Children do not develop skills in isolation; rather, they learn things simultaneously.

Family and the environments that children grow up in help to shape their language development and how they learn to communicate verbally at this stage. According to Fox (1999),    

“Language is deeply rooted in family and cultural identity. Even at a very early age the child needs to identify with his family and have a sense of belonging within a family and cultural group. Language helps to fill that need” (p. 4).

Again, because Caleigh’s mother and grandmother are bilingual, she was often exposed to two different languages on a daily basis. Her mother believed that this exposure to Korean and English affected Caleigh’s language acquisition and development. Caleigh’s mother noticed that she was having issues with pronouncing certain words in both languages, and this did not improve even after correction. Her mother believed that the phonological differences in the languages were confusing her and thus affected her speech development. Also, Caleigh’s Korean speaking grandmother was her caregiver at this time. Also, her mother does not speak English fluently and often confuses words herself, which may have contributed to Caleigh’s delays. While in her grandmother’s care, Caleigh often watched Korean cartoons and listened to Korean TV shows that her grandmother was watching. Her grandmother often spoke to her in Korean and would mix English in from time to time. Although her primary language spoken in the home was English, the different languages being spoken daily may have influenced her current speech issues. Caleigh was in her grandmother’s care for the first two years of her life. At two and a half years of age, Caleigh entered into a half-day preschool. The preschool period appears to be frequently associated with the onset of children’s education experience (Schwartz, 2014).

Preschool is the first time many children are exposed to language and vocabulary in a formal education setting in new and enriching ways. According to Schwartz (2014), “Language development instruction enhances content learning because students learn ways to express ideas, have language support to participate in discussion, negotiate conceptual meanings, and build confidence to be part of a community of learners” (p. 710). Caleigh’s teacher became immediately concerned about her speech issues. The teacher was not always able to understand what she was saying. Caleigh’s mother took her to their pediatrician, and he attributed it to her maybe having a speech delay, though she was too young for him to say for certain.

Caleigh had excellent relationships with her caregivers, and they can use various strategies to help with her speech issues. For example, parents can use a technique called “Respond and Take Turns—Be an Interactive Language Partner.” Through their interactions with infants or toddlers, parents help their children learn to use language to communicate (Strategies to Encourage Language Learning, n.d.). Using this strategy can be effective because it allows children to take turns and caregivers to model appropriate responses. Another strategy is to talk often with the child using a rich and varied vocabulary (Strategies to Encourage Language Learning, n.d.). Parents can use simple things to help encourage language development, such as watching Mommy getting a snack. The mother can grab the snack, show it to the child, and repeat the word snack. Research shows that the number and quality of the conversations that adults have with infants and toddlers directly affects how they learn to talk (Strategies to Encourage Language Learning, n.d.).