Unit 1: Communication & Language

1.1   Communication: Definition, Meaning and Scope

1.2   Classification of Communication: Linguistic and Non-linguistic

1.3   Language: Definition, Characteristics and Functions

1.4   Phases of language developmental in typical children

1.5   Pre-requisites for language development &impact of deafness

 

1.1   Communication: Definition, Meaning and Scope

 

 

Communication is a complex concept which scholars have put down into definitions.

 Newman & Summer define communication as an exchange of facts, ideas, options or emotions by two or more persons. For communication to take place, there is a person / sender / transmitter wanting to pass some information, another person to whom this information is to be passed on, the receiver understanding that message and responding to the message or providing feedback. Communication is the method of transferring information between people or group for mutual understanding and confidence. It comprises the flow of information from the sender to the receiver. The receiver must comprehend the meaning and message of information. It can considered as the process of sharing ideas, thoughts, opinions and views from one person to another person. 

Scope of Communication

Social aspect of communication Humans are social beings and are related / connected to each other on the grounds of humanity, compassion. Communication helps us share joys, sorrows, develop a social bondage with each other. It helps to determine social behavior of beings, inspires and motivates people according to their interests and makes them ready for life struggles.

 Organisational Communication

Role of communication organizational system is crucial. It helps to achieve organizational goals. It provides the necessary information, to formulate business plans and policies and facilitates production of goods and services, buying, selling of commodities. Effective communication augments efficiency and effectiveness management by smoothly facilitating production, purchasing and selling, logistics and other activities like planning, organizing, recruiting, leading, coordinating and many more. The communicative skills of the leader / head of organization or manager will boost the employees. Thus, we can say that communication works at strategic, tactic and operational levels.

The main organizational functions are

• Improved labour management by clear and smooth communication.
• Creates a sense of belongingness for the organization and motivates workers.
• Tracks, monitors, performance of employees at all levels and suggests corrective measures to improve performance.
• Public relations wing of the organizations maintains a strong connect with the clientele existing or prospective and uses propaganda and publicity to achieve the goals of the firm.
• Communication is vital to inform and educate customers about the product, build faith in brands, familiarize them and make them a part of the customer s day to day life. 

Entertainment aspect 

Communication from the aspect of entertainment- exciting, we all need entertainment to break the monotony, stress of life and provide us relief. And communication opens up a vast ocean of the mass communication industry. India s media and entertainment industry is growing at an outstanding pace. The Indian film industry is all set to experience a strong growth to become the largest cinema market after US & China y 2021 according to a report by a consulting firm PWC. The scope of films, drama, music, comedy etc. is wide and lucrative. Currently, there are about 800 plus television channels and the count is growing. All this and more makes the entertainment dimension of communication really exciting. Soap operas are popular beyond words. The characters become a part of audience and the audiences learn through their stories and struggles. Some shows become very popular and people copy behaviours of the characters. Some shows are for complete entertainment, while some project serious issues of gender bias, drug abuse, exploitation of the vulnerable. The popularity of this genre is ruling the Television industry.

 Cultural aspect

Moving on to the cultural aspect of communication, it helps spread culture, promote and preserve culture with culture, we refer to the activities that human beings have in common and that they have learned from their ancestors-parents / grandparents. Culture is taught and not inherited hence, communication plays a vital role in sharing cultural aspects. The symbol of culture are things like flags, clothes one wears, language one uses- greetings, rate and loudness of speaking, eye contact, distance between people. It also includes the famous people belonging to certain cultures and their characteristics which are revered by people of future generations e.g. Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Rani of Jhansi Lakshmibai. Rituals of culture are the ways of paying respect to others, celebrating festivals and religious ceremonies. Communication is implicit because of the common understanding shared by members of the same culture. For e.g. significance of Mangal sutra-chain of black beads worn after marriage in certain cultures, sindoor- vermillion applied by married women. Communication is prevalent in spreading and circulating various religious doctrines, prophets and saints preach to their followers, as a duty.

Educational aspect

This is a very crucial aspect of communication that has evolved over the centuries. Technological advancement has changed the style of teaching and learning. When, in the earlier days, teaching would be done using more primitive methods, in recent times, use of technology in this field has grown immensely and contributed to teaching and learning. Educators are increasingly using technology to overcome barriers of time and space and make teaching more learner-friendly. Use of educational applications has gripped early learning. Internet is a gateway to the world and there is immense information available just at the click of the button.

Hearing loss can affect a child s development of speech and language skills. When a child has difficulty hearing, the areas of the brain used for communication may not develop appropriately. This makes understanding and talking very difficult.

Communication: Communication is about sharing ideas, facts, thoughts, and other important information. Language can be used to share this information either by speaking or signing.

Language: Languages are used to help people communicate. Languages are made up of words and rules (grammar) that tell how these words are used. Words can be spoken, signed or written and thus languages can be spoken, signed or written. Spoken languages are made up of spoken words and grammar that are unique to each spoken language. Examples of spoken languages include English, Spanish and French. Signed languages are made up of signed words and grammar that are unique to each language. Examples of signed languages include American Sign Language, British Sign Language and Italian Sign Language.

Children with hearing loss may have difficulty with:

• Hearing and understanding sounds around them
• Making speech sounds
• Learning new words
• Putting together sentences
• Using correct grammar
• Effectively expressing themselves
• Understanding speech from other people
• Following directions in quiet and noisy places
• Paying attention and controlling behavior
• Following conversations with multiple people
• Making friends and interacting with peers. This can be caused by difficulty understanding games, rules, and directions.
• Listening and learning in the classroom
• Learning to read

When hearing loss is identified early and managed appropriately, the child can become an effective communicator. This process involves caregivers and professionals working together.

 

1.2   Classification of Communication: Linguistic and Non-linguistic

 

 

The word "linguistics" is derived from the Latin word for tongue. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be largely broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning and language in context. The first subfield of linguistics is the study of language structure or grammar. These emphases on the system of rules followed by the users of a language and it includes the study of morphology which means the formation and composition of words, syntax includes the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these words and phonology is the sound systems. Phonetics is a linked branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds and no speech sounds and how they are produced and perceived.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. The earliest activities in the documentation and  description of language have been attributed to the 4th century BCE  who wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit
Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay between sound and meaning. Phonetics is the study of speech and non-speech sounds, and delves into their acoustic and articulatory properties. The study of language meaning, on the other hand, deals with how languages encode relations between entities, properties, and other aspects of the world to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as manage and resolve ambigunity. While the study of  semantics typically concerns itself with truth conditions, pragmatics deals with how situational context influences the production of meaning.

Linguistic communication is a special form of social interaction mediated by linguistic symbols. Children are exposed to linguistic symbols as they interact socially with mature language users. To acquire productive use of linguistic conventions, children must have the social-cognitive skills to participate with others in joint attentional interactions; understand others' communicative intentions; take the perspective of others; and collaborate with others in co-constructing a conversation. 

Linguistic" means pertaining to language. "Nonlinguistic" means not using language. Nonlinguistic communication is the imparting of information without using language. Or in other words, sending and receiving messages without using a communication system that has the characteristic features of a language as identified by linguists. Gestures, written symbols, or voice sounds don't constitute "language" unless they take place within a language framework. For example, the voicing of sounds that are not part of any system is not called language, it is called babbling. Eventually babies start associating ideas and thoughts with sounds or signs (Owens, 1988). At that point you could say they are using "internal language." They aren't using "a language" yet, but they are using the building blocks of language to expedite their cognitive development. When a child starts saying a few words like mom or milk he is using language fragments to communicate. He is literally building a language framework.

Examples of Nonlinguistic Communication

Suppose I design a new water dispensing system for charitable use in an multilingual locality. I want to make sure people of any language background can use it. So I videotape myself going to the machine, setting my jug under the spigot, pressing a red button to position the spigot, pressing and holding a blue button to fill my bucket, releasing the blue button, pressing a green button to raise the spigot, and then taking my jug and walking away. My making and posting the video equates to my sending a message. The video is on a loop and so it continues playing again and again. People coming to the machine will be able to watch the video and form and understanding in their mind of how to use the dispenser. The message has been received. Language was not involved in the communication. The person watching my video may choose to use his native language to encode the steps of getting water into his memory. But that doesn't take away from the fact that I'm not using his language to communicate with him. A message has been sent and received without reliance upon language. I may use language to formulate my message. He may use language to process and encode my message into his brain...but the medium of transfer of the message was not language. That is the essence of nonlinguistic communication.

India is a multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-linguistic country. Language has always played an important role in education in effect with school and college education. Linguistic communication is a system of sounds, gestures and written symbols. It bears specific meaning and significance within a particular social group. These understandings differ significantly between different people, based upon region, developmental age and cultural practice. The study of these bodies of communal knowledge is called languages and is known as linguistics.

1.3   Language: Definition, Characteristics and Functions

 

 

Mankind is blessed with wonderful instrument of language to convey and understand different individuals emotions, thoughts and opinions. The use of language is profoundly entrenched in human culture.

Language is a complex phenomenon. Linguists, psychologists and philosophers have attempted to define and describe it in their own words. Basically, it is means of communicating ideas, feelings and emotions through spoken and written words.

Language is primarily human and non- instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols -Sapir

According to J. Whatmough ,

Language is human .... a verbal systematic symbolism ... a means of transmitting information ... a form of social behaviour .... with a high degree of convention .

Thus, language is a system of conventionally spoken or written words by human beings to express themselves as members of the social or cultural group. Every normal person since childhood acquires the ability of make use of certain words of a vocal communication system for speaking and hearing purposes. This vocal communication system comprises circumscribed set of sounds resulting from movements of certain organs within the throat and mouth and is commonly known as language. By means of these sounds, people are able to exchange information and opinions, express emotions and feelings, influence the activities of others and feel friendliness and hostility towards others. Language is important means of communication, through communication is more than spoken and written language.

The Structure of Language

All languages have underlying structural rules that make meaningful communication possible.

This diagram outlines the relationship between types of linguistic units. Speech sounds make up phonemes, which make up words. Words make up sentences, which have literal meanings and contextual meanings.

Phonemes

A phoneme is the basic unit of phonology. It is the smallest unit of sound that may cause a change of meaning within a language, but that doesn t have meaning by itself. For example, in the words bake and brake, only one phoneme has been altered, but a change in meaning has been triggered. The phoneme /r/ has no meaning on its own, but by appearing in the word it has completely changed the word s meaning!

Phonemes correspond to the sounds of the alphabet, although there is not always a one-to-one relationship between a letter and a phoneme (the sound made when you say the word). For example, the word dog has three phonemes: /d/, /o/, and /g/. However, the word shape, despite having five letters, has only three phonemes: /sh/, /long-a/, and /p/. The English language has approximately 45 different phonemes, which correspond to letters or combinations of letters. Through the process of segmentation, a phoneme can have a particular pronunciation in one word and a slightly different pronunciation in another.

Morphemes

Morphemes, the basic unit of morphology, are the smallest meaningful unit of language. Thus, a morpheme is a series of phonemes that has a special meaning. If a morpheme is altered in any way, the entire meaning of the word can be changed. Some morphemes are individual words (such as eat or water ). These are known as free morphemes because they can exist on their own. Other morphemes are prefixes, suffixes, or other linguistic pieces that aren t full words on their own but do affect meaning (such as the -s at the end of cats or the re- at the beginning of redo. ) Because these morphemes must be attached to another word to have meaning, they are called bound morphemes.

Within the category of bound morphemes, there are two additional subtypes: derivational and inflectional. Derivational morphemes change the meaning or part of speech of a word when they are used together. For example, the word sad changes from an adjective to a noun when -ness (sadness) is added to it. Action changes in meaning when the morpheme re- is added to it, creating the word reaction. Inflectional morphemes modify either the tense of a verb or the number value of a noun; for example, when you add an -s to cat, the number of cats changes from one to more than one.

Lexemes

Lexemes are the set of inflected forms taken by a single word. For example, members of the lexeme RUN include run (the uninflected form), running (inflected form), and ran. This lexeme excludes runner (a derived term it has a derivational morpheme attached).

Another way to think about lexemes is that they are the set of words that would be included under one entry in the dictionary running and ran would be found under run, but runner would not.

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. Some anthropologists have seen linguistics as basic to a science of man because it provides a link between the biological and sociocultural levels. Modern linguistics is diffusing widely in anthropology itself among younger scholars, producing work of competence that ranges from historical and descriptive studies to problems of semantic and social variation. In the 1960's, Chomsky prompted a formal analysis of semantics and argued that grammars needed to represent all of a speaker's linguistic knowledge, including the meaning of words. Most semanticists focused attention on how words are linked to each other within a language through five different relations

1.     synonymy - same meaning (ex: old and aged)

2.     homophony - same sound, different meaning (ex: would and wood)

3.     antonymy - opposite meaning (ex: tall and short)

4.     denotation - what words refer to in the "real" world (ex: having the word pig refer to the actual animal, instead of pig meaning dirty, smelly, messy or sloppy)

5.     connotation - additional meanings that derive from the typical contexts in which they are used in everyday speech. (ex: calling a person a pig, not meaning the animal but meaning that they are dirty, smelly, messy or sloppy)

Formal semanticists only focused on the first four, but we have now discovered that our ability to use the same words in different ways (and different words in the same way) goes beyond the limits of formal semantics. Included in the study of semantics are metaphors which are a form of figurative or nonliteral languagethat links together expressions from unrelated semantic domains. A semantic domain is a set of linguistic expressions with interrelated meanings; for example, the words pig and chicken are in the same semantic domain. But when you use a metaphor to call a police officer a pig, you are combining two semantic domains to create meaning that the police officer is fat, greedy, dirty, etc.

Syntax

Syntax is a set of rules for constructing full sentences out of words and phrases. Every language has a different set of syntactic rules, but all languages have some form of syntax. In English, the smallest form of a sentence is a noun phrase (which might just be a noun or a pronoun) and a verb phrase (which may be a single verb). Adjectives and adverbs can be added to the sentence to provide further meaning. Word order matters in English, although in some languages, order is of less importance. For example, the English sentences The baby ate the carrot and The carrot ate the baby do not mean the same thing, even though they contain the exact same words. In languages like Finnish, word order doesn t matter for general meaning different word orders are used to emphasize different parts of the sentence.

Context

Context is how everything within language works together to convey a particular meaning. Context includes tone of voice, body language, and the words being used. Depending on how a person says something, holds his or her body, or emphasizes certain points of a sentence, a variety of different messages can be conveyed. For example, the word awesome, when said with a big smile, means the person is excited about a situation. Awesome, said with crossed arms, rolled eyes, and a sarcastic tone, means the person is not thrilled with the situation.

Put these together in a kind of hierarchical structure, using the sound system as the first building blocks and working upward from there, gives us the following structure:

We see this kind of structure, built from the ground up, as possessed solely by humans, and not observed by other animals, even primates such as chimps, gorillas, etc.

The structure of their communication system is much simpler: fewer vocabulary items, simple syntax, and very little innovation.

 

CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE

1.     Tools of communication: Language is primarily a tool of communicating ideas, feelings and emotions. But, it is not only means which human beings use. They use different gestures to convey emotions and feelings. The signals are used to control traffic, mores codes are used to transmit telegraphic messages. Animals and sects have their own means of communication. But human language is unique and wonderful in comaprision to other forms of communication because of the element of versatility, clartity and completeness.

2.     Arbitrariness: Language is entirely arbitrary, as there is no logical relation between words and the object that words and the object that words represent. For example, we use word water in English. The same object is described as pani , jal , Nir ,etc . in hindi or Punjabi or other north Indian languages.

3.     Conventional ad non-instinctive: Language does not develp in a day. It evolves over a period of time because of the result of set of conventions that develop in the society in which people live. Each generation learns from its predecessors and transmit to the coming generation.

4.     Formal symbolic system: Language is a formal system of signs governed by grammatical rules of combination to communicate meanings. Human language can be described as closed structural systems consisting of rules that relate particular signs to particular meanings.

5.     Vocal: Language is an organisation of sounds of vocal symbols the sound produced by the use of articulatory organs, to convey some meaningful message. Different systems of vocal communication constitute different languages. No two persons speak exactly alike and a result , one can recognise the voices of friends over the telephone and distinct number of unseen speakers in a radio broadcast. Writing is in fact a way of recording speech. There are certain societies in the world that use their languages in speech, but they have not invented their alphabet and consequently their language is not available in written form.

6.     Human : Human beings are the blessed species on the earth as they are gifted with the power of speech. Animals also communicate but their system of communication cannot be regarded as language. They do not have the type of brain and articulatory organs that human beings have.

7.     Social behaviour: Language being social institution exists in the society, not in isolation. It is inherited rather than acquired by man in society. It is a means of nourishing and developing human relations in society.

8.     Productivity: Language provides opportunities to send the message in countless ways by forming number of sentences. It is this feature of language that is referred to as productivity or creativity of language.

PURPOSE OF LANGUAGE

Language serves the following purposes:

      To convey emotions, ideas, opinions and thoughts.

      To understand other s perspective and point of view.

      To describe a particular phenomenon.

      To overcome communication gaps and to bridge understanding.

      To foster environment of friendliness and trust.

      To expand knowledge , art and science.

      To link with other people of the globe.

      To expand trade and commerce.

      To influence people in particular direction.

Language is popular means to convey one s ideas, opinions, thoughts, and emotions. Not only we convey our thoughts and feelings but also understand other s point of view. With this, the gaps between the understandings of different individuals are bridged and environment of trust and friendliness is build up.

The purpose of language may be to describe particular phenomenon that an individual has felt like anxiety, depression, spirituality, mystical experiences, etc. sometimes, words of any language fail to communicate the whole, yet without language our understanding is not possible. Language brings the person near to certain level of understanding and the description of the phenomenon.

1.4   Phases of language developmental in typical children

 

 

 

Language development starts when a child is born and continues to develop. However, the first five years are crucial for acquiring a child s speech and language abilities. During this period, a child s brain is primed for rapid growth, and their communication skills expand astonishingly. 

As parents and caregivers, knowing the typical developmental stages can help us identify any potential delays early on. Understanding what to expect allows us to better support our children s language progression through encouraging interaction and providing language-rich environments.

Stages of Language Development

Language development can be divided into several main stages as children advance from simple communication to mastering complex grammar and vocabulary. Here s an overview of what occurs in each phase:

Birth to 3 Months: Pre-Linguistic Stage

Babies communicate through crying, eye contact, facial expressions, and body movements in the first few months of life. They also begin cooing and making gurgling sounds in response to human interaction.

Key milestones

• Makes sucking noises
• Coos and vocalises pleasure 
• Cries to signal needs
• Smiles in response to human faces and voices

As caregivers, we encourage pre-speech development through talking, singing and reading to babies from day one. This interaction helps build early communication skills.

3 to 6 Months: Babbling 

Babies become more vocal in the babbling stage. They discover and play with sounds by stringing consonant and vowel combinations together, such as ba-ba or da-da . It s their first step in understanding phonological awareness, which is how we recognise and produce sounds in speech.

While it may sound like real words, babbling lacks meaning at this phase. However, it allows infants to practice making speech sounds in preparation for language. Babbling lays the foundation for imitation and taking turns in conversation.

Key milestones

• Babbles with long strings of sounds like bababamama.
• Uses different pitches and emotions in babbling
• Begins to imitate some sounds
• Responds to own name
• Uses sounds or gestures to interact with others, e.g. laughing and vocalising

6 to 12 Months: First Words/ Holophrastic

Around their first birthday, babies speak their first words. These are initially basic nouns like mama , dada and baba . 

Early words often relate to daily routines, family members and familiar objects. Understanding precedes expression, so babies may respond to words before they can say them.

Key milestones

• Says first words like mama and baba
• Points or gestures to objects when named  
• Experiments with imitating words
• Begins to follow simple commands and instructions
• Names a few familiar objects
• May engage in simple back-and-forth babble conversations

At Tappy Toes, we promote word learning by naming objects, actions and concepts as we engage with children in play and caregiving. We also sing songs and read books that expose children to new vocabulary.

12 to 24 Months: Language Explosion

After speaking those first precious words, a child s vocabulary rapidly takes off. They combine two words to form phrases like Daddy bye or more juice . 

By 24 months, little ones are starting to speak in 2-4 word sentences and have a vocabulary of around 50 words. Comprehension likewise expanded dramatically during this time.

Key milestones

• Combines two words into short phrases 
• Vocabulary jumps to around 50 words
• Asks questions using words like what , why and where.
• Follows two-step directions ( Get the book and put it on the table )
• Engages in short back-and-forth conversations
• Learns new words at a rapid pace

24 to 36 Months: Complex Speech/ Telegraphic stage

A child s language progresses in leaps and bounds between two and three years old. Sentences become longer and more complex. Vocabulary expands rapidly to around 300 words. Conversations start to include descriptions of past and future events.

Key milestones

• Combines 3-4 words in sentences ( Daddy go to work )
• Asks lots of questions
• Vocabulary grows to 300+ words  
• Uses pronouns like me , mine , and you.
• Begins using some plurals, prepositions and tense markers
• Enjoys rhyming and silly language games
• Has conversations of 3-4 turns

We provide opportunities for more advanced communication through activities like show-and-tell, dramatic play and group discussions. Books and stories also expose children to richer vocabulary and language structures.

3 to 5 Years: Grammar and Sentences

Between three and five years old, children gain mastery over grammar rules and sentence structure. They transition from speaking in short sentences to longer, more detailed sentences using grammar elements like conjunctions and prepositions. Complex language abilities like telling imaginative stories, joking and understanding metaphors emerge.

Key milestones

• Speaks in 4-6 word sentences 
• Uses past tense, plurals, prepositions and subject-verb agreement
• Tells short stories, shares ideas and opinions
• Asks lots of why and how questions
• Carries on extended conversations
• Learns around five new words per day
• Develops clear speech intelligibility 

 

Understanding the stages of language development helps us appreciate every new word, sentence, and question a child asks. From babbling to storytelling, it s a magical journey. We can ensure that every child thrives in their language and speech development journey with the right support, whether through early childhood speech therapy or engaging in meaningful conversations. 

 

 

 

1.5   Pre-requisites for language development &impact of deafness

 

 

As soon as a child is born they are learning and developing pre-language or non-verbal skills which will support later language learning. Prerequisites are the first step for the language development as soon as child s birth. These are the methods in which adult communicate through gestures, facial expressions, imitation, joint attention, eye contact.

The components of pre- requisites include:

• Eye contact and listening: the child recognises human faces and able to discriminate (especially mother s face from others). Also the child listens to voices and identifies familiar ones.
• Social smile: the child starts smile while interacting with parents when they take turns with sounds, actions, facial expressions.
• Joint attention: the other main factor in which child gives attention to the speakers which help for the development of communication skills.
• Turn taking: this is the basis of communication and interaction. It starts off as taking turns in an activity and moves to taking turns in a verbal interaction.

 

Pre-language skills form the basis from which understanding and talking is developed. For example, a child who has difficulty looking at and attending to their mother s speech will not have as many opportunities to hear the language and words their mother is saying and attach meaning to those words. This can have a negative impact on the child s development of understanding and using language.

Similarly, difficulties with joint attention (i.e. when people are attending to the same thing at the same time) will mean fewer opportunities for a child to learn about things in the environment around them. It is through looking at something together and the adult commenting or talking about what they are seeing, that helps a child learn about the world and attach meaning to words (e.g. both looking at the dog through the window and saying dog ).

Children who have difficulty in the development of pre-language skills may go on to have verbal language and interaction difficulties. Identifying and working on the development of pre-language skills at an early age can prevent difficulties with verbal language later in the child s life.

Building blocks necessary to develop talking readiness (pre-language) skills

• Looking and Listening: As soon as a baby is born they will watch their mother s face. A child learns to discriminate human faces and recognise which ones are most important. The ability to sustain eye contact will help the baby gain information about language from the mouth and face. The same applies to listening: the child learns to recognise the human voice and determine which ones are the most important. The ability to filter out the human voice from background noise is a complex skill.
• Turn-taking: Turn-taking develops from the first weeks when the parent interprets the baby s noises, smiles and movements and adds sounds, actions and words. The parent begins to leave gaps for the baby to make a response. Eventually a baby and their parent take turns with sounds, actions and later, words.
• Anticipation: By 3 months a baby shows excitement at the sounds associated with different situations (e.g. running bathwater, approaching voices), showing a developing understanding of situations and an awareness of gesture and facial expression. From birth, babies build up the understanding that gestures and facial expressions carry meaning.
• Copying: Copying others fosters cooperation as well as social interaction. By 9 months, a child is able to copy hand clapping and playful vocal sounds (e.g. smacking lips, coughing, brrr). By developing copying skills a child is more likely to have success at imitating words and sentences as their language develops.

• Smiling: From about 6 weeks a baby begins to smile. This further fosters social interaction because it is much more rewarding to interact when you get a response. Adults will initiate more communication with responsive babies.
• Joint attention: The ability to follow another person s focus of attention and also to direct someone else s attention to what you are interested (i.e. so that you both attend to the same thing at the same time) is a vital communication skill. By 12 months, a child points with their index finger at objects or events which are of interest. This further encourages adults to engage with the child and to name objects/events for the child. For most children, once words start to fill these pointing experiences, pointing becomes redundant and is discarded. All of these non-verbal skills continue to develop as the child s verbal skills emerge. Non-verbal and verbal communication skills are interlinked during all language learning.
• Understanding: In the first 12 months understanding is based on cues in the environment (e.g. direction of eye gaze, facial expression, pointing and gestures). A child will develop an understanding of no and bye by 12 months. For many children the main difficulty in understanding is that adults talk so fast that the child often does not have sufficient time to pick out the important words.
• Expression: The baby will be communicating non-verbally through looking, facial expressions, body language, vocalisation and gesture. First words will appear at around 12- 15 months.

 

Deafness can significantly impact the prerequisites of language development. Language acquisition typically relies on sensory input, especially auditory stimuli, which is challenging for individuals with hearing impairments. Here are some key ways in which deafness affects the development of language prerequisites:

1. Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness (the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken language) is heavily dependent on hearing. Deaf children, particularly those who are profoundly deaf, may struggle to develop this awareness, as they cannot hear sounds or the subtle differences between them (like consonant blends, intonation, etc.).

Without exposure to sound-based phonological patterns, developing skills like rhyming, syllable segmentation, and sound-letter correspondence becomes difficult.

2. Vocabulary Development

Vocabulary acquisition is usually fostered through hearing words in context. Deaf children, especially those with limited access to language at an early age (e.g., without early exposure to sign language), might face delays in vocabulary development.

Without early linguistic input, both in terms of spoken or signed language, the development of vocabulary and the ability to use words effectively can be slowed.

3. Grammatical Structures

Deaf children who are not exposed to language (spoken or signed) early in life may not develop the necessary grammatical structures required for fluent communication. While sign language has its own grammatical rules, those who rely on spoken language without access to it may find it difficult to understand and use proper syntax.

Difficulty in constructing and understanding complex sentences, leading to challenges in communication and learning.

4. Social Interaction & Communication Skills

Deafness, particularly when accompanied by limited early exposure to language (such as sign language or spoken language with visual support), can hinder the development of social communication skills. Communication relies on back-and-forth interactions, which help develop turn-taking, understanding of non-verbal cues, and other essential social components.

Deaf children may have limited opportunities for interaction with peers or adults, which may lead to delays in social language development.

5. Speech Perception and Production

For those who are deaf but receive some form of hearing aids or cochlear implants, the clarity and quality of speech input may still be inadequate. As a result, speech production may also be affected, making articulation and phoneme production more challenging.

Speech delays, non-standard pronunciations, or difficulties in expressing thoughts clearly.

6. Cognitive and Conceptual Development

Language is critical for cognitive development. Deaf children who lack sufficient language input might struggle with abstract thinking and problem-solving. Language is essential for forming concepts, categorizing, and making sense of the world.

Delayed cognitive skills, particularly in areas like reasoning and the ability to make connections between ideas.

7. Access to Literacy

Reading and writing skills are deeply tied to spoken language proficiency. Deaf children, particularly those without early language exposure or access to sign language, may face challenges in learning to read and write.

Literacy delays, limited comprehension of written materials, and difficulty in writing clearly and effectively.

8. Delayed or Alternative Pathways to Language Development

While hearing loss can delay or complicate language development, it is important to note that deaf individuals can still acquire language usually through alternative means like sign language or visual communication. Early intervention with sign language, visual aids, or assistive technology can mitigate some of these challenges.

If exposed to sign language early on, deaf children can develop strong linguistic and cognitive skills, often on par with their hearing peers.

 

The impact of deafness on language prerequisites is profound, particularly in the absence of early and appropriate interventions. However, with early access to visual or signed language, as well as supportive educational environments, many deaf individuals can successfully navigate these challenges and develop language skills comparable to hearing peers.