My Beliefs Regarding Language Acquisition
I
am almost certain that my beliefs about language acquisition are distorted by
my own personal experiences, but I am also pretty sure that I am not the only
one. During my tenure at Ashford I was afforded many opportunities in the form
of resources. These resources have aiding my professional development as well
as my personal development with regards to my family. Starting with the
pragmatics of language, language attributes to the different theoretical perspectives
on language acquisition and the effects of environmental influences on such,
the knowledge I've learned as have had the pleasure to apply in my assistive
positions have made me an ideal facilitator and advocate of early learning and
language development. I have learned from my many afforded literature resources
that opinions on this matter come a dime a dozen so I seek to offer a different
theoretical perspective, one based on my personal experiences and observations;
every child is different and learn or develop in different ways. Oddly it
seems simple enough and I am sure I have heard it somewhere before, but it
isn't often enough applied. Sure we can say that the child with a speech
impairment will grow out of it and doesn't need professional help/ coaching,
while another does because of their 'impoverished environment'. During the
history of man stereotyping has never gotten us anywhere so why continually
apply it to those too young and are incapable of defending themselves?
What
we know for certain is that children are born with the innate capacity to learn language
and that the main requirement for doing so is exposure to language and
opportunities to use it; we also know that although they are able to overcome
physical and environmental challenges to learn language, there appears to
be a critical period during which language learning is optimal (Piper,2012). It
is certainly time we apply this mantra to every learner and recognize that
speech and language disorders will continue to exist regardless of cultural
disparities or environmental influences.
References
Piper, T. (2012). Making
meaning, making sense: Children’s early language learning. San Diego, CA:
Bridgepoint Education.
