Difficulties in a childs acquisition of vocabulary- Updated.

Explain some of the difficulties a child might encounter in its acquisition of vocabulary from the time it speaks to the age of seven. You can also refer to some phonological features, as well as considering ideas such as the use of concrete and abstract nouns, overextension, acquisition of grammar words etc.

There are many different difficulties a child might face in their acquisition of vocabulary from their first words to the age of seven. One feature noticeable is that children of a young age tend to use monosyllabic words, for example wow, moo, quack etc. These are sound words and will be known as representation words for the animal. By taking part in the activity ‘a child’s first 50 words’ it is evident that children mainly use naming words, and objects they are surrounded with are very commonly used, a common example of a child’s first word is often ball, this is then used to compare most round objects this is known as analogical overextension. This supports Skinner’s imitation and behaviour theory, which children learn from what is around them. It also supports Bruner’s social Interactionists theory, which if modes are witnessed in social interactions children will use them, an example of this is ‘allgone’ a parent or caregiver may use this phrase when interacting with their child, when they’ve finished their dinner they may say ‘allgone’ in which the child will copy the word and tell their caregiver that their dinner is ‘allgone’. 

Other difficulties a child might face are the different concepts of words. Some families use different words for certain things than others and this can cause confusion for the child. If an adult holds a toy and calls it a teddy bear, but the child’s parent calls it a cuddly bear, the aspect of the same object having two different names but meaning the same can confuse the child. This fits in with overextension. Overextension is when a child will have the same word for objects or things of similar likeness. For example, every four legged animal might be referred to as a doggie. This occurs because although a child understands what the animal is and notices differences, the infant only has one word for animals with for legs, this word being dog. 

 The younger the children the more they sound phonemes out loud, helping them hear how a sound is produced. Many children often forget the final constant of a word, this is known as deletion. A child will say ‘do’ or ‘cu’ instead of dog and cup. As well as deletion children often use addition, this is when they add an extra vowel to the end of words, an example of this is when children say ‘doggie’. Many children use phonemes for example making the noise of an m, or d, this can be taken to mean mummy or daddy, children will also progress this to ma or da, and will then repeat the whole syllable to produce ‘mama or dada’. This also refers to the first stage that Jean Aitchison identified, the labelling stage, this involves making links between the sounds of particular words and the objects they refer to, for example ‘mummy’ or ‘mama’ is referring to the child’s mother. Children learn from past experience, if they see a bug which they are told is an ant, the next bug they see might be a cockroach but they are going to think it is an ant, because they do not yet understand there are differences.