Child Growth and Development

Solution Preview

Let's take a closer look at each question, which you can draw on for your final response.

RESPONSE:

Q1. Explain what object permanence is, how it is tested in infancy, and when it develops.

Coined by Piaget, Object Permanence is a developmental milestone when the child realizes that the object exists even when it can't be seen. According to Piaget, most children develop object permanence at about eight or nine months old. However, children vary, so some may reach this stage earlier or later than others.

It is tested with simple tasks. For example, Piaget studied the concept of object permanence by conducting relatively simple
tests on infants. He would show an infant, or young baby a toy and then cover it with a blanket. A child who had a clear concept of object permanence might reach for the toy or try to grab the blanket off the toy. A child who had not yet developed object permanence might appear distressed that the toy had disappeared. This is how it is tested in infancy.

Again, on average, object permanence develops at about 8 or 9 months.

Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-object-permanence.htm.

Q2. Differentiate three theories of language learning, and explain current views on language learning.

(1) Behaviorism - Nature View

? In the 1950's and 1960's, the techniques of language teaching were based on a behaviorist view of learning language.
? Language under this view is essentially a system of habits; learning proceeds by producing a response to a stimulus and receiving either positive or negative reinforcement (e.g., positive if your intended meaning was understood). If you receive enough positive reinforcement for a certain response it will become a habit.
? Under Behaviorism, it was argued that language may be learned through a form of operant conditioning.
? The Learning perspective argues that children imitate what they see and hear,and that children learn from punishment and reinforcement.(Shaffer,Wood,& Willoughby,2002).
? The main theorist associated with the learning perspective is B.F. Skinner. Skinner argued that adults shape the speech of children by reinforcing the babbling of infants that sound most like words (Skinner,1957,as cited in Shaffer,et.al,2002).
? In B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behaviour (1957), for sample, he suggested that the successful use of a sign such as a word or lexical unit, given a certain stimulus, reinforces its "momentary" or contextual probability.
? If this is the way language works, it should be clear that to teach language should involve a lot of pattern repetitions, to instill proper habits in the learner (akin to learning skills, such as driving a car).
? For second language learning, there is also the matter of interfering habits from the L1; certain things habits would need to be "unlearned" in the context of the TL. (http://www.bu.edu/linguistics/UG/course/lx400/handouts/lx400-2a-history.pdf)

(2) Chomsky - Nativist View

The nativist ...