Children start using words to form sentences earlier than thought
Katy Morton
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
New research by Newcastle University challenges the idea that the early word combinations of two- and three-year-olds are devoid of grammar.
The study, led by Dr Cristina Dye, a lecturer in child language development, found that children’s speech is far more advanced at the age of two and three than previously thought.
Dr Dye and her team studied 50 French-speaking children aged between 23 and 37 months and captured tens of thousands of their ‘utterances’.
They went on to analyse every sound made by the children and the context in which it was produced.
Their findings show a clear, yet previously undetected, pattern of sounds and ‘puffs’ of air, which replaced grammatical words in many of the children’s utterances.
According to the researchers, children were using little words which form the skeleton of sentences such as a, an, can, is, an, far sooner than expected.
Dr Cristina Dye said, ‘Many of the toddlers we studied made a small sound, a soft breath or a pause at exactly the place that a grammatical word would normally be uttered.
‘The fact that this sound was always produced in the correct place in the sentence leads us to believe that young children are knowledgeable of grammatical words. They are far more sophisticated in their grammatical competence than we ever understood.’
‘Despite the fact the toddlers we studied were acquiring French, our findings are expected to extend to other languages. I believe we should give toddlers more credit.’
She went on to say that the results challenge the old view that toddlers' early words are devoid of grammatical words and that children under go a ‘tadpole to frog’ transformation when they start to develop grammar in their speech.
‘The research sheds light on a really important part of a child’s development. Language is one of the things that makes us human and understanding how we acquire it shows just how amazing children are.
‘There are also implications for understanding language delay in children. When children don’t learn to speak normally it can lead to serious issues later in life. If we can understand what is "normal" as early as possible then we can intervene sooner to help those children.’
Dr Dye and her team studied 50 French-speaking children aged between 23 and 37 months and captured tens of thousands of their ‘utterances’.
They went on to analyse every sound made by the children and the context in which it was produced.
Their findings show a clear, yet previously undetected, pattern of sounds and ‘puffs’ of air, which replaced grammatical words in many of the children’s utterances.
According to the researchers, children were using little words which form the skeleton of sentences such as a, an, can, is, an, far sooner than expected.
Dr Cristina Dye said, ‘Many of the toddlers we studied made a small sound, a soft breath or a pause at exactly the place that a grammatical word would normally be uttered.
‘The fact that this sound was always produced in the correct place in the sentence leads us to believe that young children are knowledgeable of grammatical words. They are far more sophisticated in their grammatical competence than we ever understood.’
‘Despite the fact the toddlers we studied were acquiring French, our findings are expected to extend to other languages. I believe we should give toddlers more credit.’
She went on to say that the results challenge the old view that toddlers' early words are devoid of grammatical words and that children under go a ‘tadpole to frog’ transformation when they start to develop grammar in their speech.
‘The research sheds light on a really important part of a child’s development. Language is one of the things that makes us human and understanding how we acquire it shows just how amazing children are.
‘There are also implications for understanding language delay in children. When children don’t learn to speak normally it can lead to serious issues later in life. If we can understand what is "normal" as early as possible then we can intervene sooner to help those children.’
