Course Work On Language Acquisition

The ability to learn a language is specific to humans due to the correspondence between the stage of language development demonstrated by a child and biological factors, such as weight of the brain and stage of motor development. There is a critical period for language acquisition in children, namely, between 18 months and early puberty. Within this period, language acquisition is normal, but outside it, language acquisition is difficult or even impossible. The external environment surrounding a child determines what type of language such an individual acquires.
Lunneberg presented the evidence for a biological basis for a specifically linguistic ability. He drew a suggestive parallel between the time course of certain features of the human brain maturation, and behavioral characteristics of language development. There are two hemispheres to the brain, at birth the hemispheres are not structurally identical, but Lunneberg assumed that they were functionally identical and were each capable of supporting language development. Around 18 months, he assumed that each hemisphere began to become functionally specialized, where the left hemisphere began to control functions characteristics of language.
The type of language could influence the order in which children acquire each system of the language. Social interaction and cognitive development also affects acquisition. In learning language, children may first rely on nonlinguistic options, such as, understanding effect first from gestures and quality of adult voice, and comprehend how to have attention from adult stance or gaze prior to understanding words. They set up representations of what they see, know, and use these for recognition, as well as recalling, summoning them first with reenactments of events and gestures, and later with words. Therefore, in support of language acquisition among children there is a need for an individual to focus on introducing gestures and visual objects to a child, which aid in a faster acquisition of language.