My study and criticism of the above theories compels me to believe that the modeling and reinforcement theory is more practical in the process of language acquisition. Catherine Parero a linguistic specialist with interests in development of language, at the University of Manchester explains that children develop their languages from their early exchanges with their parents and caregivers.
Children begin by imitative the parents sounds as well as copying their mouth shapes as they talk and this provides the initial impetus for the development of the language. According to her, children learn a lot from their immediate environment. The parents, elder siblings, caregivers as well as the other components in the immediate environment have significant impact in the development of language for the infant.
In conclusion, while language development can be said to follow any of the above theories, the involvement of the parents, teachers or even caregivers in the development of the child’s language cannot be over emphasized. This will take the form of advising children on the correct words to use, while at the same time impressing on the children to learn the use of language to express good habits as well as words that are considered as necessary such as ‘sorry’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
References
Harris, P. L. (1989). Children and emotion: The development of psychological understanding. Oxford,England: Basil Blackwell
Ormrod, J.E & Mcdevitt, T.M. (2012). Child Development and Education. Pearson publishers
Pipe, M.-E., & Salmon, K. (2009). Memory development and the forensic context. In M. L. Courage & N. Cowan (Eds.), The development of memory in infancy and childhood. New York: Psychology Press.
