WESTERN PHILIPPINES UNIVERSITY – MAIN CAMPUS

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

BACHELOR OF SECONDARY EDUCATION MAJOR IN ENGLISH

2 – 3 YEARS OLD CHILD’S EARLY LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT:

A CASE STUDY

DR. LOVINA HAMORA

REAH LENE B. NOGA

Student

OCTOBER 17, 2023

ABORLAN, PALAWAN
I. Introduction

A child's ability to communicate and develop requires language abilities.

Children that possess these abilities can interact with others, learn from their

surroundings, and succeed in school. In order for children to develop language

abilities, they must learn the rules for stringing words together in a way that will

allow them to convey their thoughts and feelings as well as the significance of both

spoken and written language. (Robertson, 2023)

Children are pre-programmed to develop speech and language from birth. However,

language development continues through early life and into adolescence, with the

first five years being the most crucial. The brain develops new nerve cells and

numerous connections between them throughout the first five years of life, which is

crucial for the operation of both outspoken and receptive language. Lack of

stimulation at this period may cause a youngster to progress more slowly or develop

poor communication skills. Early in language development, the brain is wired to pay

attention to and start imitating speech sounds. Early on, babies like creating their

own sounds and trying to mimic the sounds and phrases they hear. Children start

using language for various purposes around the age of three. By the time they are in

pre-school (4 ½) children are starting to grasp and apply the laws of language to

convey possession of something, connect ideas, and quantify. They are not just

attempting to acquire what they want by asking, but they are also taking into account

past experience and even starting to use it to pretend. Their speech is evolving toward

adult speech.

Researcher have observed Erich Noga Velasco, a 3 years and 11 months old child, who

was born on November 29, 2019. She is the youngest among the two, Misty Noga

Palay is the oldest, with 13 years of age . Erich Velasco is being taken care of her own
mother, Rechel Noga Velasco. The usual people she interacts with is her sister and

her mom.

II. Objectives

The Case Study on 2-3 years old Child’s Early Language Development aims to:

1. Identify what language sounds the child can produce correctly and incorrectly;

2. Determine whether the child can communicate using complete sentences,

words only, or invented sounds/words; and

3. Explain the factors affecting the child’s early language development.

III. Data Gathered and Analysis

Table 1. Language sounds produced correctly and incorrectly by the child.

Language sounds produced by the child

Correctly pronounced Incorrectly pronounced

 /m/  /f/

 /n/  /v/

 /k/  /l/

 /s/  /r/

 /b/

 /z/
  /g/

 /t/

 /o/

 /q/

 /y/

Table 2. Language words, sentences, and invented words produced by the child.

Language words, sentences, and invented words produced by the child

 Dodot (milk or dede)  Wok ( Work)

 Walking Device (slippers or  Amakabogeyra( Im a kabogera)

shoes)  I want to play

 Kaeyn me Mom  Pweeees(Please)

 Han(saan) my ate Misty Mom?  Wice (Rice)

 Awuv you Mommy (I Love You)  It so cold Mom

 Bubu(wound)  Ate Misty you go sleep

 Bambam(butt)  Thank You

 Pray  Hi

 Lord  Hello

 Dirty  Hawayo?(How are you?)

 Hard-headed  Im hungwy (Hungry)

 Oh sowe, mommy ( Sorry  Woter (Water)

Mommy)

 Buwit ( Burit)
  Opo

 Tita

 Ate

 Daddy

Analysis

According to the information in Table 1 above, the child can pronounce the

proper letters more often than the incorrect ones. Erich picked up the British accent

from viewing movies with the same accent; she uses it in all of her communications.

The child's adoption of some British accent pronunciation is the reason why they

speak certain letters incorrectly. According to the data in Table 2, the child mumbled

when speaking while producing strange terms and their own inventions.

Language is viewed by structuralists as a system of signs and rules that can be

deciphered and comprehended by means of its fundamental structure. According to

them, language is a structured system with its own internal logic rather than just a

collection of meaningless symbols. A study by Noam Chomsky, children pick up

language easily and quickly because they have an innate language acquisition device

(LAD). As stated by his theory , universal grammar principles—which are

predetermined by genetics and shared by all languages—rule the structure of

language. Chomsky asserts that a child's language development is guided by a

predetermined set of grammatical rules and parameters from birth. Children activate

and modify these rules as a result of being exposed to their mother tongue, which

results in the formation of grammatically correct sentences. In line with cognitivists’,

language is an essential component of the mental processes and cognitive processes

that take place in the minds of the child. They contend that prior knowledge and
cognitive structures have an impact on language acquisition. The researcher’s

observations indicate that the child's difficulty speaking Tagalog may be related to

her exposure to the English language.

The child will pronounce a word or sentence incorrectly. For instance, they

might say "woter" instead of saying "water". The word /r/ has replaced by the letter

of /w/. For example, child pronounce “Howayou?” instead of “ How are you?”. The

word “Dodot”is observed as one of the words the child produces. It is a childs term

for milk in a bottle . The child learned this because that was the first word she learned

when she’s starving and need a bottle of milk. Taken from B.F. Skinner's behaviorist

theory, kids pick up new skills as a result of the consequences of their actions.

Children are more likely to repeat a behavior in the future if they receive positive

reinforcement for it. Similar to Erich, the child asks her mother, "Mom, where is my

dodot?" The mother responds, "Here po," to which the child responds, "Thank you

po." Thus, every time the child asks a question or says something, she develops the

habit of using the words "po" and "opo." as a sign of respect and proper behavior.

The Functionalists’ view on language states that language learning has

something to do with the competencies that a speaker must possess such as

communicative competence, grammatical competence, strategic competence, and

discourse competence. The child’s communicative competence is in the average level.

She can recognize the words needed to utter in the given situation but, it is limited

only on situations she used to run into. There are also times that the Researcher

observed adversities in conveying what she thinks and feels especially with strangers.

In grammatical competence, the child lacks of it because she still has difficulties in

forming correct words and is unaware of the grammar when communicating. A child

having too much curiosity is a common nature of developing children. The

because she knows how to start small conversations with her family and how to keep

it going by asking more questions to the other person. Nevertheless, her discourse

competence is restricted because of less vocabulary and trouble in understanding

chunk of words.

The researcher found that the child does not spend enough time with her

mother because she works from home and her sister goes to school. The researcher

found that their only means of communication is at night. Child learns English as a

result of being exposed to technology and television.

Conclusions

The various theories put forth by various individuals explain how a child

learns a language and how it develops day by day. It is not only about the body

systems or language devices that children use to speak; it is also about the child's

exposure to technology. As a toddler starts to articulate a variety of terms, this idea

of language development starts to manifest. The child's pronunciation is initially

erratic, with daily fluctuations and occasionally shorter intervals. Furthermore,

differences have been noted between kids when it comes to their mastery of a

particular syllable (Otto, 2010). The idea of language development first manifests in

toddlerhood, when a child's ability to speak and understand language is greatly

influenced by the features of their environment. A child's experiences dictate how

quickly their language skills develop. The amount of interaction a parent or caregiver

has with their child has a big impact on how they develop their language. Health

problems can also hinder a child's ability to understand language or cause him to

start articulating a variety of terms.

References:
https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/language_development/

https://ivypanda.com/essays/language-development-in-early-childhood/