Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Theories of Language Development

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders

  • 429 Accesses

Definition

Language acquisition presents children with what seems like an important but near-impossible challenge: how to determine the mappings between meanings in their world and the complex acoustic signal of speech. Children must segment the running stream of sounds that they hear into words and phrases and determine the regularities, or systematicities, of the language. This is particularly challenging because of the “many-to-one” mapping problem. That is, a particular word can be conveyed with a large variety of different acoustic signals; this allows us to understand people with accents, or who have peanut butter in their mouths, but has made machine language comprehension a strikingly difficult task. Additionally, speakers do not pause between words; thus, the learner simply hears a continuous acoustic stream. Children accomplish this feat of learning in the absence of direct instruction and even (e.g., in the case of Quiche Mayan) while hearing little language directed at...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 1,799.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References and Readings

  • Candland, D. (1993). Feral children and clever animals: Reflections on human nature. New York: Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N. (1959). Review of Skinner’s “verbal behavior”. Language, 35, 26–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cicchetti, D., & Rogosch, F. (1996). Developmental pathways: Diversity in process and outcome. Development and Psychopathology, 8(4), 597–896.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Curtiss, S., Katz, W., & Tallal, P. (1992). Delay versus deviance in the language acquisition of language-impaired children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 35(2), 373–383.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • de Marchena, A., Eigsti, I. M., Worek, A., Ono, K. E., & Snedeker, J. (2011). Mutual exclusivity in autism spectrum disorders: Testing the pragmatic hypothesis. Cognition, 119, 96–113.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Elman, J. L., Bates, E. A., Johnson, M. H., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D., & Plunkett, K. (1996). Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor, J. A. (1983). The modularity of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fromkin, V., Krashen, S., Curtiss, S., Rigler, D., & Rigler, M. (1974). The development of language in Genie: A case of language acquisition beyond the “critical period”. Brain and Language, 1(1), 81–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McNeill, D. (1970). The acquisition of language: The study of developmental psycholinguistics. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markman, E. M. (1990). Constraints children place on word meanings. Cognitive Science, 14, 57–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinker, S. (1984). Language learnability and language development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plunkett, K. (1995). Connectionism and language acquisition. In P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (Eds.), The handbook of child language (pp. 36–72). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pye, C. (1986). Quiche Mayan speech to children. Journal of Child Language, 13, 85–100.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V. (1960). Word and object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274, 1926–1928.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Saffran, J. R., Pollak, S. D., Seibel, R. L., & Shkolnik, A. (2007). Dog is a dog is a dog: Infant rule learning is not specific to language. Cognition, 105, 669–680.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello, M. (2000). The item-based nature of children’s early syntactic development. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 156–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, New Haven, 406 Babbidge Road, U-1020, Storrs, CT, 06269-1020, USA

    Dr. Inge-Marie Eigsti

  2. Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, USA

    Dr. Inge-Marie Eigsti

Authors
  1. Dr. Inge-Marie Eigsti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Inge-Marie Eigsti .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology Yale University School of Medicine, Chief, Child Psychiatry Children's Hospital at Yale-New Haven Child Study Center, New Haven, CT, USA

    Fred R. Volkmar (Director, Child Study Center) (Director, Child Study Center)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this entry

Cite this entry

Eigsti, IM. (2013). Theories of Language Development. In: Volkmar, F.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1698-3_543

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1698-3_543

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1697-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1698-3

  • eBook Packages: Behavioral Science

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation