During the 1920s, a biologist named Jean Piaget proposed a theory of cognitive development of children. He caused a new revolution in thinking about how thinking develops. Since then numerous research on cognitive development has provided science educators with constructive information regarding student capacities for meeting science curricular goals. One of the most recent approaches to the study of cognitive development is bilingualism. The debate over bilingual education centers around several key issues, such as culture and language maintenance, individual, community, and national identity, and equitable access to social, economic, and educational opportunities. However, an underlying issue that learning psychologists have grappled with over the years is whether or not bilingualism should be a desired goal primarily from a cognitive perspective.
These scholars recognize that examining the effects of bilingualism on mental and intellectual capacities has far-reaching implications for language policy and teaching. If research consistently demonstrates a positive relationship between cognition and bilingualism, educators can argue that such findings support the aim to promote bilingual education. Building their argument basing on two theories of relationship between bilingualism and cognitive development, which are: thresholds and balance theories, the scholars are able to present a number of interchanging facts about mutual supplementation of bilingualism and development of critical thinking and common sense reasoning. The most notable case study came from Werner Leopold (1949) who claimed that exposing his daughter Hildegard to two languages enhanced her mental development. He theorized that bilingual children are able to focus on the content of words rather than their forms because bilinguals learn early on the abstractness and symbolism of words and are forced to separate two different words for each referent. One needs to consider why empirical findings and case studies such as Leopolds seem to contradict one another with respect to how bilinguals develop cognitively. The explanation may lie in the poor methodological approaches of the empirical studies, which have in fact led to claims by current investigators such as Cummins (1976) that these early studies are completely unreliable. One major limitation was that the studies did not control for socioeconomic status between the bilingual and monolingual subjects.
The Term Paper on Development in Language Learning
Language educators in mono-linguistic societies world-wide face a commonly held myth: children are only able to handle one culture and one language at a time. No doubt this is due to the fact that these perceptions are largely formed by adults who have been brought up and conditioned to think in the modes of a one-language, one-culture society. Yet research has shown that children are much more ...
Another problematic area of the research methodology of early studies was the failure to adequately assess and consider differences in degree of bilingualism. This is certainly seen in how researchers defined and evaluated the bilingual or monolingual status of their subjects. In the late 1950s a shift in the social sciences emerged where a behavioristic approach was being overshadowed by a cognitivist one. In line with such a shift, bilingualism began to take on a cognitive definition rather than a societal or empirical one; consequently, bilingualism was conceptualized as an individuals proficiency in two language systems. This led to theories hypothesizing the relationship between thought and language, and ultimately, to studies demonstrating positive effects of bilingualism on cognitive functioning. One of the studies found that bilingual children scored significantly higher than monolinguals on most of the measures of verbal and nonverbal intelligence, in particular on those tests requiring mental manipulation and reorganization of visual symbols, concept formation, and symbolic flexibility. It has been concluded concluded that the bilingual children outperformed their monolingual peers due to their enhanced mental flexibility and strong concept formation skills. Therefore the balance theory of bilingual affect on the cognitive development has been proved by this study.
The Essay on Compare and contrast Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development in children
This essay will compare Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development in children. Also, show the differences between the two psychologist’s theories. Thus, by showing their similarities like in language and adaptation theories. Further, differences like Piaget’s theory on cognitive developmental stages and the schemas which are build to learn or accommodate new words or things. ...
The balancing of knowledge of two languages and their phonetic structures has allowed the first group of children to grasp new ideas quickly and with higher level of overall apprehension. Thus, contrary to previous studies, the research suggested cognitive advantages to being bilingual; calling into question the validity of earlier studies and supporting the claims linguists had been making for years. Since the early 1960s there have been multifarious studies examining the cognitive development of bilingual children. Several studies lend support to the notion that the bilingual experience enhances the ability to think flexibly and abstractly about language. Specifically, bilingual children appeared to be two to three years ahead of the monolinguals with regard to semantic development. The literature thus strongly suggests the cognitive advantages of bilingualism, particularly with regard to metalinguistic awareness.
But bilingual children do show other enhancements in their mental development. Analogical reasoning has also received a great deal of attention by psychologists because of its developmental importance in cognition. The thresholds theory implies that up to some certain level the bilingual person is having difficulties in correct utilization of his principles to the new tasks, however upon reaching some level of proficiency that person is able to demonstrate a deeper understanding of the problem and find faster and more efficient ways of its resolution. In contrast to the findings of positive effects of bilingualism on cognitive development, some studies suggest negative effects, or a cognitive disadvantage. Ten to eleven year old Japanese-English bilinguals, for example, scored lower on measures of verbal ability than monolinguals in a comparison group (Tsushima & Hogan, 1975).
The Essay on Bilingual Program: Children Language Development
This paper discussed on bilingual program that become one of the reasons parents choose schools for their children and its effect on children language development. As the impact of globalization English become a necessity for everyone in exploring and finding new things across the globe. Educational institutions see this as an opportunity to introduce bilingual program as a respond to the demand ...
Furthermore, it has been found that while the Spanish-English bilingual children studied showed comparably stronger performance levels on tasks requiring verbal transformation and analyses of structural complexity than English monolinguals, these same bilinguals also showed some delay in vocabulary and grammatical structures. Therefore, one must consider advantages as well as disadvantages that may be linked to bilingualism, and which processes may or may not be affected by the experience of developing proficiency in two language systems. Possible explanations for how bilingualism affects cognitive process will be discussed in a later section. Despite the general consistency of findings illustrating positive links between intellectual capacities and bilingualism, some researchers are quick to point out limitations of the methodologies employed in these studies.
One issue centres on the notion that bilingual and monolingual groups are not comparable due to the impossibility of true random assignment. In light of the aforementioned criticisms of the theories of balance and thresholds, some researchers have begun to examine the intelligence of bilinguals from a within-group, within-bilingual, framework. Such a perspective allows for an examination of how differing degrees of bilingualism may be related to cognitive abilities. Given the strong evidence for positive links between bilingualism and cognitive processes, researchers have found explanatory power in varying models. Although much past research has focused on outcome, or product, measures of cognition rather than process variables (Diaz, 1985), researchers have proposed theories to explain the positive relationship. Balance theory claims that by acquiring two languages, bilinguals learn more about the forms as well as the functions of language in general, which affects various cognitive processes. According to Vygotsky bilingual child is able to see a language as one particular system among many, to view its phenomena under more general categories, and this leads to awareness of his linguistic operation. Experience with two language systems may enable bilinguals to have a precocious understanding of the arbitrariness of language. For example, researchers have demonstrated that bilingual children are often more willing to relinquish a known name for an object and substitute a nonsense or unconventional word and to verbalize the arbitrary link between words and referents. Moreover, the ability to objectify language is linked to a capacity Piaget (1929) termed non-syncretism, which is the awareness that attributes of an object do not transfer to the word itself.
The Term Paper on Language Acquisition Child Words Months
CONTENT Introduction... 3 Main body 1. Language acquisition... 42.The stages of language acquisition... 52. 1. The pre linguistic stage... 72. 2.Babbling... 72. 3. One-word utterances... 92. 4.Two-word utterances... 102. 5. Telegraphic speech... 132. 6.Language learning during the pre-school period... 163. The critical period... 174. The summary of behaviour's to expect of children with normally ...
A second model proposed by researchers is consistent with thresholds theory. Because bilinguals are able to move rather easily from verbal production in one language to that in another, they may have an added flexibility. The balance, thresholds, and verbal mediation theories have contributed to our understanding of bilingual childrens active processing of linguistic information into coherent systems of knowledge. Emerging from these models is a discussion of related cognitive strategies bilingual children appear to utilize in making sense of their language environments. Some researchers, educators, and laypersons continue to maintain the belief that bilingualism impedes cognitive development. However, as research in this field continues to define the relationship between bilingualism and cognition, perceptions and beliefs about the nature and significance of these links may be altered. Those educators committed to equitable education for limited English proficient students will need to advance a research agenda that incorporates explorations into the significant role of bilingual instruction at all levels of education, but particularly within a level largely ignored in language research, that of early childhood education. References: Cummins, J.
(1976).
The influence of bilingualism on cognitive growth: A synthesis of research findings and explanatory hypothesis. Working Papers on Bilingualism, 9, 1-43. Diaz, R. M., & Padilla, K. (1985).
The self-regulatory speech of bilingual preschoolers.
Paper presented at the 1985 Meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Toronto, Canada. Leopold, W. F. (1949).
Speech development of a bilingual child: A linguists record. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Piaget, J. (1929).
The child’s conception of the world. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Tsushima, W. T., & Hogan, T. P.
The Essay on Children speech and language development
From the time of birth to three years, children’s brain known to grow quickly. This makes it very important for early intervention to treat autism disorder at this age. It needs a therapy hence during this age the children have not yet started going to school hence very available for this exercise. Also at this age children have less ingrained habits. This makes it easier to stop this ...
(1975).
Verbal ability and school achievement of bilingual and monolingual children of different ages. Journal of Educational Review, 68, 349-53. Vygotsky, L. (1986).
Thought and language. A.
Kozulin (Ed.).
Cambridge: MIT Press..
