Theories Flashcards
Who formed the behaviourist theory?
Skinner
What does the behaviourist theory discuss?
Children learn by:
- trial and error
- imitating adults
- operant conditioning
What does Paul and Norbery’s theory discuss?
They have said that caregivers add information on to children’s speech and writing via expansion and recasting.
Who formed the Nativist Theory?
Noam Chomsky
What does the Nativist Theory discuss?
Children have the innate ability to acquire language. It suggests that as children learn language, they create unique utterances.
Who created the Social Interactionist Theory?
Bruner
What does the Social Interactionist Theory by Bruner stress?
The fundamental role of social interaction in the development of a child’s language.
What term did Bruner coin to connect with Chomsky’s nativist theory?
LASS (Language Acquisition Support System), which is all about the child’s interaction with others.
What did Bruner say about child-directed speech?
It’s an important feature to help children acquire language
What are the 8 features associated with child-directed speech?
1) Simplified terms (condensed language and simple sentences)
2) Paralanguage and prosody
3) Convergence (Giles)
4) Shared knowledge (talking about content they are familiar with)
5) Interrogatives
6) Third person address
7) Inclusive language
8) Scaffolding
Which theory links to Bruner’s Social Interactionist theory?
William O’Grady’s caregiver language theory
Who came up with the cognitive theory?
Piaget
What does the cognitive theory entail?
Piaget said it is the idea that children can only understand language when they understand the concept. He said comprehension comes before application. A child must understand a word before they use it; they have to experience it.
What are the 4 stages of Piaget’s cognitive theory?
Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operations, Formal Operations
What does Piaget’s sensorimotor stage include?
- approximately 0-2 years old
- child experiences the world through senses and movement
- object permanence learnt in the latter part of this stage
- Goal-directed behaviour acquired
- Become deliberate and choose actions (problem solvers)
What does Piaget’s preoperational stage include?
- approximately 2-7 years old
- egocentric - considers own viewpoint and judgement
- collective monologues
- sociodramatic play
- beginning of simple classification
- talk about events that happened in the past or people who are not in the room
What does Piaget’s concrete operations stage include?
- approximately 7-11 years old
- greater logical thought/reasoning - problem solvers, considering alternative outcomes
- egocentric cognition disappears and children consider other viewpoints
- greater understanding of classification
Whose theory is the caregiver language?
William O’Grady
What did O’Grady say is common form of child directed speech?
O’Grady said that it is common for caregivers to use shorter syntax as a form of child-directed speech (CDS).
How does O’Grady’s caregiver language contradict Skinner’s behaviourism and Paul and Norbury’s recasting?
He suggested that caregivers often leave the majority of children’s ungrammatical sentences alone, creating positive facework (Goffman).
What did Clark’s theory discuss?
Clark has said that children often experiment with spatial terms due to them being relative and context dependent.
What were Vygotsky’s theories called?
The Sociocultural Theory and the Sociodramatic Play Theory
What is Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development?
It’s the range of abilities that an individual can perform with aid but cannot yet perform independently. A child’s ZPD will involve lots of scaffolding in earlier years.
What did Vygotsky’s Sociodramatic Play theory discuss?
He linked sociodramatic play to both cognitive and social development. He also said that children ‘role-play’ adult behaviours as a part of exploring their environment.
