CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORISTS:

VYGOTSKY AND THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT: 

*The zone of proximal development: ''the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in a collaboration with more capable peers.''

*Vygotsky views interaction with peers as an effective way of developing skills. He suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skilful peers. 

*EG/ a child couldn't solve a jigsaw puzzle singlehandedly so they interact with the father who has developed competence at this and applies this to the child.

Wood and Middleton (1975) - 

PROCEDURE:

*4 year old children told to use a set of blocks and pegs in order to build a 3D model based on an image they were shown. W & M observed how the mothers of the children interacted with them and helped them build the model. The support included: general encouragement ('now you have a go'), specific instructions ('get three blocks'), direct demonstration (showing the child how to clip the peg on)

RESULTS: 

*Out of all of the above, no single strategy worked the best in terms of helping the child progress. The study proved that mothers who varied their assistance were the most efficient. When the child was succeeding they dropped back and became more vague with their help but when their child was struggling they gave very specific clues until progress was gained. 

CONCLUSION: 

*Vygotsky's concept of the ZPD and scaffolding are displayed within this study. Scaffolding is the idea of assistance and it's most effective when it pairs exactly with the needs of the learner rather than being general. 

SKINNER AND OPERANT CONDITIONING:

*Operant conditioning means that we learn through positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment. Positive reinforcement increases the strength of a behaviour by providing a consequence that acts as a reward to the learner. Eg/ at primary school teachers would give stickers to the children who had behaved well and this reward teaches the child that it should be repeated and is desirable. Negative reinforcement also strengthens behaviour but by removing an unwanted reinforcer. It teaches a certain behaviour as the reward is the negative experience is stopped. Eg/ whenever you start the engine of a car and don't have your seatbelt on a loud beeping sound occurs until you put it on and then it stops. On the other hand, punishment is designed to weaken a behaviour whereas negative and positive reinforcement are designed to encourage particular behaviours. Eg/ a punishment could be giving someone a shock when they fail to answer a question correctly in a test (eg Milgram) or removing a positive stimulus like deducting someone's pocket money. 

*Skinner viewed babies as 'empty vessels' and he said that language is something that needed to be 'put into' them. In terms of CLA, children go through trial-and-error until they succeed with reinforcement and shaping provided by the parents. Positive reinforcements include smiling, attention and approval from the parents and these are viewed as pleasant in the eyes of the child. But not only do children learn by language being reinforced, they also learn via imitation which is also rewarded.

*Skinner takes a very behaviourist view towards language and says that the environment determines language and learning. There's no biological impact. His study 'Skinner's Box' demonstrates this perfectly.

BRUNER AND THE INTERACTIONIST APPROACH:

*According to Bruner, the intelligent mind creates ''generic coding systems that permit one to go beyond the data to new and possibly fruitful predictions'' from experience. Therefore, as children grow they attain a way of presenting ''recurrent regularities'' in their environment. This means that to Bruner the most important outcomes of learning aren't just concepts, categories and procedures involving problem-solving but the ability to ''invent'' these things for oneself.

*Bruner's cognitive development research into the development of children (1966) lead to the proposal of these 3 modes of representation:

-ENACTIVE REPRESENTATION (action-based, between the ages of 0 and 1 years old.) : This is the first stage and it involves encoding action based information and keeping it stored in our memory. Eg/ movement is stored as muscle memory like a baby shaking a rattle. A baby will make the action of shaking a rattle even if it has been dropped as they expect the sound to me made. 

-ICONIC REPRESENTATION (image-based, between the ages of 1 and 6 years old.) : Information here is stored visually in the form of mental images in the mind's eye. Not everyone consciously experiences this and it has practical application. Eg/ making diagrams for revision so we can visually recall them later on.

-SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION (language-based, 7+ years old.) : This is the final stage to develop and it is the stage where information is transferred into a code or symbol and is then stored in the memory. This form of representation is the most adaptable as images and actions have a direct relation to what they are representing, whereas symbols can have personal meaning. 

*CDS (child-directed speech) is also a key part of Bruner's approach. He says that the language behaviour of adults when talking to children (CDS) is specially adapted to support the acquisition process. This support is often described as scaffolding (link to Vygotsky) for the child's language learning. Bruner also coined the term as Language Acquisition Support System (LASS) in response to Chomsky's LAD.

CHOMSKY AND THE LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE:

*Chomsky said that 'language is an innate faculty' and we are born with knowledge about language rules (universal grammar). According to Chomsky's idea of universal grammar, children instinctively know how to combine a noun and a verb into a correct phrase with meaning. This is also referred to as the 'LAD' (language acquisition device).

*This hardwired syntax is similar across all languages and is also referred to as 'nativism'. Chomsky said that children don't copy language; instead, they deduce rules from it and base what they say on these rules they've picked up. This can explain the over generalisation mistakes that children often make. Eg/ the application of the suffix 'ed' onto the end of verbs to change their tense, 'walk' becomes 'walked' however 'run' becomes 'ran' and not 'runned'. A common mistake is also the use of the suffix 's' on the end of a word to pluralise it. 'Dog' becomes 'dogs', 'house' becomes 'houses', but 'mouse' becomes 'mice' and not 'mouses'. 

*Although there's supporting evidence for Chomsky's theory, there are many opposing ideas. Skinner's theory of conditioning opposes Chomsky as he takes a purely behaviourist approach towards learning and states that we begin a blank slate. Chomsky however, takes a more interactionist approach as he says we enter the world with an innate sense for word order and syntax, but this sense develops further from watching others. Piaget sides with Skinner as he also believes language awareness is developed over various stages rather than it being in born.

LENNEBERG AND THE CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS:
*The foundation of Lenneberg's critical period theory comes from two neurosurgeons Penfield and Roberts (1959). 
*Penfield and Roberts were investigating the neuroscience behind language and they deduced that this ability resided in the left hemisphere of the brain. This was discovered during extensive research into the brains of individuals who suffered brain damage and experiments testing their linguistic performance compared to a 'normal' control group. Agreeing with Chomsky's opinion that children aren't born as tabula rasa, P and R said that, in addition, children have a critical period up to which any language they learn will be fluent. 
*Lenneberg supported this theory, to eventually develop the critical period hypothesis. He claimed that this critical period ends around puberty and children within this time span must have acquired their first language or they'll never speak it fluently. The science to back this is called lateralisation and Lenneberg believed that this would happen after the critical period, resulting in a loss in brain plasticity meaning learning becomes increasingly difficult.
THE CASE OF GENIE:
Genie Wiley born in 1957 was a victim of neglect and social isolation since birth. She was found at age 13, locked in a small room and tied to a potty. Her case captivated psychologists and linguists as she was potential living evidence/proof for a critical period of attachment and language acquisition. If Genie was heavily educated and still couldn't catch up or get close to what was expected of her age linguistically then it would prove the critical period right. After many tests she initially scored a language processing score of that of a 1 year old. She entered the telegraphic stage of language acquisition after a year of teaching but although she was capable of learning after puberty she struggled with grammar and so would never be fluent.