Expressive and Receptive Language

Expressive and Receptive Language 3 The differences in the development of the acquisition of prepositions among two, three, and four-years olds were investigated. Acquisition was looked at both receptively and expressively. The children who were voluntarily involved in the study "played a game" by answering questions pertaining to the spatial relationship between a block and a bin. The results of the study showed that both age and the type of language were both significant factors in the number of correct responses. The study also showed that the interaction between the age and the type oflanguage was also a significant factor in the number of correct responses. The findings are consistent with the current literature. Expressive and Receptive Language 4 The Acquisition of Prepositions: Comparing the Expressive and Receptive Language of Two, Three, and Four-Year Olds The idea for my thesis developed from a class I took Spring Term of my junior year, introduction to Language and Linguistics. As an elementary education major and English-writing minor, this topic was something that I had never studied but that certainly intrigued me. Although l had spent years learning about the tremendous task of learning to read, I had never considered the question of how children learn to speak. The more I learned about language acquisition in general, the more 1 wanted to know. I have spent the last three years working at Children' s World Learning Center, a day care center in Vernon Hills. During my work there, 1 began paying closer attention to the differences in the language skills of the children and quickly discovered that these children developed at varied rates, which, of course, came as no surprise. My combined experiences lead me to the topic of my thesis-the acquisition of prepositions. r wanted my thesis to involve direct work with children. I did not want to simply read about what children do; 1 wanted to discover that for myself. I decided that I wanted to do some sort of diagnostic test with children to determine which prepositions they understood compared to which prepositions they could use. I chose to use prepositions because most other basic language develops earlier; prepositions are still emerging at this age. ln the beginning I thought that this task would involve two-yearolds. Before conducting any sort of test, I needed to do some background research. I was unable to find any journal articles written on this specific subject. I found and read articles concerning infant-directed speech, preschoolers' uses of multiple labels for objects, Expressive and Receptive Language 5 Noam Chomsky>s theories of language acquisition, and arguments to rus theories, as well as countless other topics within the field of language acquisition. 1 consulted a few textbooks and found limited infonnation. I then decided that the limited information gave me sufficient background knowledge t o conduct my test . I decided that I would compare the expressive language (the language that is produced and used in conte>.'t) with the receptive language (the language that is understood) of not only two-year-olds, but threeyear-olds as well. Eventually I added four-year-olds to the test. At trus point, I conceived of a diagnostic test in which I would utilize two objects to illustrate various spatial relationships. I consulted Kathleen Czaplewski, an Early Childhood Speech and Language Pathologist in District 203, and asked her about the test she uses. She explained the test commonly used in the field, which was similar to the test I bad developed, so I felt confident in using my test. The point of this study was simply to compare the differences between expressive and receptive language among different age groups of children. I predicted that the receptive language would be more developed in all three age groups and that the older children would have larger receptive and expressive vocabularies. I also predicted that there would be an interaction between the age and the development of both receptive and expressive language. Background Around the time of a child' s first birthday, he or she utters his or her first words. This period is .known as the .. one-word" stage, in which a child speaks using one-word sentences. Around the age of 18 months, children begin to move into what is known as the "two-word'' stage. It is in this stage that children begin to combine words to create Expressive and Receptive Language 6 sentences. The sentences are simple, using the same few patterns repeatedly. According to Brown ( 1973 ), there are eight basic constructions that are created in the two-word stage. These eight constructions are: agent + action, action + object, agent + object, action + location, entity + location, possessor + possession, entity + attribute, and demonstrative + entity. According to Ashcraft (1998), what is important about the two-word utterances is that they express semantic rather than syntactic connections; that is, they express ideas rather than syntactic rules. Soon after the two-word stage, children begin to create more complex constructions, involving more than two words, thus called the "multi-word" stage. Moskowitz ( J 978) explains that the speech of this time has been called "telegraphic speech" and is characterized by "short, simple sentences made up primarily of content words: words that are rich in semantic content, usually nouns and verbs" (97). Moskowitz also explains that the reason the speech is called telegraphic is that it initia!Jy lacks function words. However, Ashcraft ( 1998) states that it is during this stage that important syntactical structures begin to appear, such as -ing, plurals, and articles. It is near the end of this stage that children ' s sentences begin to sound more and more like the adult sentences we are used to hearing. Between the ages of two and four, a child' s vocabulary drastically increases in size. According to Smith (as cited by Moskowitz, 1998), at age two, a child' s vocabulary consists of approximately 225 words; by the time that child is four, the size of the vocabulary bas risen to 1,426 words. That is an increase of over six times as many words. In fact, according to Bower ( 1998), after age two, toddlers increase their vocabularies daily by as many as nine words. Expressive and Receptive Language 7 According to Moskowitz (1978), the prepositions ''in" and "on" are usually the first to appear in the vocabulary of a child. In fact , according to Ashcraft ( 1998), the acquisition of these two prepositions comes early on in the sequence of graphical morphemes, only after the present progressive. It comes before the acquisition of the plural and irregular past tense. Owens (1992) states that prepositions that describe a topographic relation (''in," "on,'' ''under") are easier for a child to grasp than those that describe dimensional spatial relations ("behind," "beside," "between," and "in front of'), A child can better understand spatial relationships when applied to an object with obvious sides, such as a box. Moskowitz explains that the acquisition of prepositions such as "behind" and " in front of' cannot be determined by age or stage of development; these prepositions appear as a result of an individual child' s experiences and "frame of reference." Ashcraft ( 1998) states that a child ' s receptive vocabulary is almost always larger than his or her expressive vocabulary, meaning that a child may understand what a particular word, in this case preposition, means but may not use it in his or her own speech. Based upon this research, results of the study can be predicted. Most of the children should understand the prepositions "in" and "on" because those prepositions are seen early in the development of language. Because "under" and "over" are other prepositions that describe topographical relations, they should be ones that are more revalent. "Behind," "beside," "between," "in front of," and "next to" will be the more difficult prepositions for tbe children to understand and use, so those should be less frequent in the study. Because receptive vocabulary is almost always greater than the Expressive and Receptive Language 8 expressive vocabulary, the children should understand more of the prepositions that they are able to use. Since children will gain experiences and references with age, the older children should understand and use a greater number of prepositions than the younger children. Method Participants The children who participated in this study are all enrolled at Children's World Learning Center on West End Court in Vernon Hills. Since the original experiment was to compare two-year-olds with three-year-olds, seven children of each age participated in the test. Five four-year-olds were added as an extra comparison. I wanted participation in this study to be voluntary because l felt that forcing a child to participate would hinder the results. 1 felt that the task needed to contain an element of fun in order for the child to give his or her fuU attention and therefore more accurately represent his or her knowledge. Materials A rectangular wooden block, approximately 5" x 3" x I", and an 11.4 quart Rubbermaid bin were the two objects used in the task. L also used a table with two chairs sitting across from each other, at which l conducted the test. l created a recording sheet in which !listed the eight prepositions 1 wanted to test (in, on, beside. next to, over, under, in front of, and behind). The sheet contained a column for both receptive and expressive tasks. Procedure Expressive and Receptive Language 9 l decided to begin with the receptive task because, as noted earlier, children almost always have a larger receptive vocabulary than expressive vocabulary. Therefore, I felt that the children would be more successful at the receptive task. J chose to start the children with what would be easier for them so that J would not discourage them. Also, I felt that doi