Social Environment And Cognition In Language Development

Language development is driven by multiple factors involving both the individual child and the environments that surround the child. The chapters in this volume highlight several such factors as potential contributors to developmental change, including factors that examine the role of immediate social environment (i.e., parent SES, parent and sibling input, peer interaction) and factors that focus on the child’s own cognitive and social development, such as the acquisition of theory of mind, event knowledge, and memory. The discussion of the different factors is presented largely from a crosslinguistic framework, using a multimodal perspective (speech, gesture, sign). The book celebrates the scholarly contributions of Prof. Ayhan Aksu-Koç – a pioneer in the study of crosslinguistic variation in language acquisition, particularly in the domain of evidentiality and theory of mind. This book will serve as an important resource for researchers in the field of developmental psychology, cognitive science, and linguistics across the globe.

For students of developmental psychology, this book should be a useful reference guide to the main concepts concerned with "motherese", scaffolding, socio-cognitive learning and joint problem solving. It is also a contribution to the debate on the influence of social behaviour on development.

The language experience of children developing in linguistically diverse environments is subject to considerable variation both in terms of quantity and quality of language exposure. It is an open question how to investigate language exposure patterns and more important which factors are relevant for successful language learning. For example, children acquiring a minority language, including a signed language, are exposed to less variety of input than children acquiring a more global language. This is because they are living in a smaller linguistic community and with fewer occasions to use the language in everyday life. Despite this reduced input, most native signers are successful language learners. In contrast native language competence is not always achieved in signing deaf children with hearing parents or those with cochlear implants learning a spoken language. A similar outcome but with very different reasons has also been reported for hearing children with language impairment. In these populations acquisition of morphosyntactic aspects is developing atypically ending with an uncomplete linguistic repertoire. The circumstances of exposure during language development tend to differ in significant ways with respect to a large number of factors, such as, (i) length, quality and quantity of input, (ii) social status and attitudes toward the language, (iii) cognitive abilities required for language learning, and (iv) age of first exposure. Having early exposure to a range of different speakers is important in the acquisition of any language and may affect language proficiency. However, negative societal attitudes or a cognitive based disadvantage may create an unfavourable learning environment that prevents language learning from surfacing typically. This situation inevitably generates a different type of exposure for the child and consequently different language competence. In this Research Topic we intend to encourage the debate on social, linguistic and cognitive factors at play for designing an effective environment for language acquisition aiming at integrating linguistic variables coming from theoretical studies on language with environmental variables, such as, measures of language input or cognitive abilities on functions ancillary to language development.

For some time now, the study of cognitive development has been far and away the most active discipline within developmental psychology. Although there would be much disagreement as to the exact proportion of papers published in develop mental journals that could be considered cognitive, 50% seems like a conservative estimate. Hence, a series of scholarly books devoted to work in cognitive devel opment is especially appropriate at this time. The Springer Series in Cognitive Development contains two basic types of books, namely, edited collections of original chapters by several authors, and original volumes written by one author or a small group of authors. The flagship for the Springer Series is a serial publication of the "advances" type, carrying the subtitle Progress in Cognitive Development Research. Each volume in the Progress sequence is strongly thematic, in that it is limited to some well-defined domain of cognitive developmental research (e. g., logical and mathematical development, development of learning). All Progress volumes will be edited collections. Editors of such collections, upon consultation with the Series Editor, may elect to have their books published either as contributions to the Progress sequence or as separate volumes. All books written by one author or a small group of authors are being published as separate volumes within the series.

For young children, two of the most important tasks they face are learning how to communicate and learning how to think about themselves and the social world around them. The premise of this book is that these two tasks are inherently linked. The communicative routines and language that children learn enable new modes of cognition, which in turn allow for more complex social interactions. The model of early child development that emerges is one in which equal importance is given to the socio-cultural context in which children are developing, and to the role played by children in actively constructing their own knowledge. The book is organized into four thematic sections, each introduced by an integrative overview. The first section, "Language and Cognition," examines the function of language in young children's lives. The second section, "Intentionality and Communication," explores young children's understanding of intentions and their verbal and non-verbal communication. The third section, "Theory of Mind and Pedagogy," examines the ways in which developments in cognitive and communicative skills transform children's participation in the process of teaching and learning. The final section, "Narrative and Autobiographical Memory," looks at the effects of narrative on young children's understanding of themselves and their world. This book will be of great interest to anyone concerned with young children's learning and development.

The Classic Edition of this foundational text includes a new preface from Miguel Pérez-Pereira, examining how the field has developed since first publication. The volume provides an in-depth account of blind children's developing communicative abilities, with particular emphasis on social cognition and language acquisition from infancy to early school age. It provides insights into why the development of blind children may differ from that of sighted children and explores development of "theory of mind" and perspective taking in language learning. It also discusses the caregiver–child interaction, research on early intervention and practical strategies for blind children that can assist parents and practitioners. The up-to-date preface discusses recent neurological research and the comparison between the psychological development of visually impaired and autistic children. Language Development and Social Interaction in Blind Children continues to facilitate dialogue between those interested in the study of typically developing children and those interested in the development of children who are blind, and challenges some widely held beliefs about the development of communication in blind children.

To what extent, and in what ways, is a child's cognitive development influenced by their early experience of, and access to, language? What are the affects on development of impaired access to language? This book considers how possessing an enhanced or impaired access to language influences a child's development.

The purpose of this book is to explore meaningful integrations of developmental processes and functioning with conceptualizations of "context" -- a term traditionally denoting physical settings, social arenas, or perceptual or social backdrops in relation to a focal point. However, the study of context has taken a considerably more unique and vibrant form in recent years -- the term is becoming more than a substitute for background independent variables. Rather, the contributions of context to behavior, thought, feelings -- and vice versa -- are becoming central issues in many research domains. This text is a collection of empirical and theoretical accounts for understanding context; its focus is on integrating the study of context with the science of developmental psychology. Although the authors work in many different areas of the field, and with different populations, they all converge on a central methodological/conceptual theme of contextualism, which is presented as the dynamic integration of intraindividual factors with environmental and social/environmental factors.

This volume includes the papers presented at the fourth symposium on topics in the general area of cognition sponsored by Carnegie-Mellon University, and held there on April 11-12, 1968. The specific topic was developmental linguistics, or those processes by which children acquire language. Some of these papers are the texts presented at the symposium, while others reflect considerable development since that time. Some papers report post-symposium reflections, or respond to issues the symposium raised, reflecting the lively, collegial discussions that characterized the symposium.

In recent years the field has seen an increasing realisation that the full complexity of language acquisition demands theories that (a) explain how children integrate information from multiple sources in the environment, (b) build linguistic representations at a number of different levels, and (c) learn how to combine these representations in order to communicate effectively. These new findings have stimulated new theoretical perspectives that are more centered on explaining learning as a complex dynamic interaction between the child and her environment. This book is the first attempt to bring some of these new perspectives together in one place. It is a collection of essays written by a group of researchers who all take an approach centered on child-environment interaction, and all of whom have been influenced by the work of Elena Lieven, to whom this collection is dedicated.