Parents are always amazed at how easily children learn to speak. After a while, they seem to start doing it all by themselves. Of course, it's not quite that simple. Language acquisition is a highly complex process, even for the little ones. Even if it doesn't look like it: Your offspring are doing real hard work.
Linguists and educators research the language development of babies
Language forms the basis of our civilization. Without it, it would not be possible to pass on knowledge and wisdom, experience and insights from one person to another or from generation to generation. It is our language that makes our complex, self-reflective thought patterns possible in the first place. This is why language acquisition in early childhood is also a key topic for language researchersand educators. They are investigating how exactly language is learned.
What is certain is that babies learn language in a playful and almost incidental way, whereas we adults have to laboriously cram vocabulary and grammar.Anyone who has ever learned a foreign languageas an adult will be able to confirm this. Our children, on the other hand, seemto be born with language acquisition.
Another key finding is that a child's language acquisition depends to a large extent on how many words they hear per day - regardless of their parents' social status. The more you talk to your child, the faster and better they learn to speak.
Evaluation of conversations between parents and their children
To find out that language acquisition is closely linked to how many words a child hears, scientists analyzed the extent to which parents talked to their childrenat home. The more this took place, the more the child's brain was able to benefit from it. The most important prerequisite: the parents had to use child-friendly language and notcommunicate with the child inadult language.However, almost all parents do this automaticallyanyway . Even though it might seem reasonable to assume that speaking to your child in the normal way could help them to learn the language "properly", nobody actually thinks this. Probably every adult automatically adapts their language when dealing with a baby or toddler. This applies not only to the words used, but also and especially to the intonation, i.e. the speech melody. Often the highs and lows areemphasized particularly clearly. This helps the childto remain attentive. This is quite normal and obviously a good thing .
However, this does not mean that the child should be spoken to exclusively and constantly in baby talk. Abbreviated and therefore grammatically incorrect sentences, for example, are rather harmful, if the child is to be encouraged to speak correctly. Simple, correct sentences, it seems, are the most helpful here .
Dialogs are beneficial forlanguage development
Scientists have also investigated the effects of dialogs between parents and children, but also between peers or between siblings.
The conclusion: children learn better and faster when parents do not just talk at them, but when a dialog takes place. Of course, this only works when the childisalready able to speak a few sentences .
Broca'sareain the child 's brain
Broca's area is an important part of the speech center in the human brain. It not only controls speech motor skills, but is also responsible for sound analysis. It works closely withWernicke 's area, which in turn is responsible for semantic language comprehension. The studies showed that children who often talked to their parents had a better developed Broca's area.
Declarative and procedural memory
When we learn a language, we use two different areas of our memory:declarative memory and procedural memory. There is a clear division of tasks between the two:
Declarative memory functions like a data store. We store factual knowledge and memories in it.
In the procedural memory, on the other hand, we store skills and processes that we can perform automatically without having to think about them, e.g. riding a bike, playing the piano or swimming.
When learning a language, both forms of memory are required. Individualwordsare learnedusing declarativememory. However, grammar moves from declarative to procedural memory over time.
Anyone learning a language as an adult, initially only uses declarative memory forgrammar. Only when the language has been mastered to a certain extent does the proceduralmemory comeinto playas a "feeling for the language" . The learning of the vocabulary remains the task of the declarativememory .
It is true: Children learn language all by themselves. However, as parents, you can support your child in this process. After all, good language skills are never a disadvantage in later life.
Many parents eagerly await their child's first words. It is a wonderful experience when a child says "mom" and "dad" for the very first time.
Source:
baby-und-familie.de: How learning to speak works
