Abstract
This paper discusses the book "How Babies Talk: The Magic and Mystery of Language in the First Three Years of Life" by Roberta Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsch-Pasek." It explains that the book is geared toward parents with infants who are interested in tracking how their children learn language. The paper looks at a portion of this book which is devoted to "experiments" that parents can do with their children. This also paper examines the style in which the book is written, the language used and the use of humour. Overall the writer was not impressed with this book and feels that it adds very little to the study of language development.

Outline:
Overview
In Utero
Tactile Learning
Babbling and Other Things
Toddlers
Conclusion

From the Paper
"The authors of this book, Roberta Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsch-Pasek, claim that the fetus is being prepared to hear "the contours of our voice and the cadences of speech without ever hearing words the way that we do" (13). The words that the fetus hears, the authors state, is like the swimming pool game of guessing words spoken underwater.It is possible to hear the syllables and pitch of those words, but in most cases the words are indistinct at best. Using an experiment that monitored fetal heart rate, which declines initially before rising again when the fetus is exposed to a new experience, researchers found that babies can even differentiate between new sounds even in the uterus (14-15). Other experiments revealed that the fetus could determine differences in music and in poetry as well."

Tags:childern, speaking, sounds, music, development

Abstract
The paper explains that the principles of reference, extendability and object scope are the building blocks of new words. The paper relates that children build new words by paying attention to their environment and sometimes just by being in an environment. The paper points out that culture is an important part of the language for children just as memory and cognition are important factors in children learning new words. The paper says that children learn new words in many different ways including overhearing words, one-on-one contact with adults and building onto words they know.

Tags:language, children, learning

Abstract
In this book review of "How Children Learn the Meanings of Words", author Paul Bloom's theory of language acquisition in small children is explained. The paper discusses the primary theory called the "theory of mind," which is also called naive psychology. The paper explains that the book presents this theory on language acquisition through descriptions of research, presented in a clear and largely conversational manner. The writer of the review recommends this book to both students and to parents interested in helping their children acquire language.

Outline:
Theory of Mind
Fast Mapping
Objects and Concepts
Context Learning
About this Book
Conclusion

From the Paper
"This book describes the process of language acquisition through syntactic cues that are present in the child's environment. Such a process is not just a part of language acquisition, but is also part of other forms of reasoning as well. The capacity to learn language in such a way belongs to human beings alone. Although other mammals are capable of communicating in what could be considered to be a limited language, only humans have the capability to acquire abstract concepts."

Tags:language, acquisition, theory, of, mind, parenting, fast, mapping

Abstract
This paper describes the role of assimilation and stresses its importance for the child in reference to learning the dominant language.

Abstract
The paper discusses Rousseau's belief that when children are subjected to intense pressure and the artificial acceleration of their natural learning of language, it can make them unnecessarily shy and self-conscious, it reinforces the wrong pronunciation and it promotes lazy speech. The paper also explains Rousseau's assertion that the French tradition of ensuring that everyone sounds the same detracts from the ability of the individual to express himself completely. The paper emphasizes Rousseau's belief that some children simply begin speaking later than others, and that if they were left alone and allowed to absorb language at their own pace, they would not necessarily suffer any lasting consequences of starting to speak later than other children.

From the Paper
"Throughout Book I, Rousseau explains his criticism of the way that modern society (even in his time) teaches language to children. Rousseau's characterization of the way that children learn language naturally was prescient for his era, but was perfectly consistent with modern understanding of infant babbling. Today, it is known that infants in all cultures babble all of the sounds used in all languages spoken by man. During the first year of life, infants gradually discard the vocalizations not used in their language of origin because their linguistic experiments are modeled after and reinforced by the sounds (and mouth shapes) of their parents and caretakers (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2007)."

Tags:pronunciation, speech, fluency, linguistics, conversation, instruction

Abstract
This paper reviews Paul Bloom's book, "How Children Learn the Meanings of Words", explaining some of its basic ideas on language acquisition. The writer points out that this book is used to explain the author's theory of language acquisition in small children. The primary theory is called the "theory of mind," which is also called naive psychology. The writer notes that the book presents this theory on language acquisition through descriptions of research, presented in a clear and largely conversational manner.

From the Paper
"This book describes the process of language acquisition through syntactic cues that are present in the child's environment. Such a process is not just a part of language acquisition, but is also part of other forms of reasoning as well. The capacity to learn language in such a way belongs to human beings alone. Although other mammals are capable of communicating in what could be considered to be a limited language, only humans have the capability to acquire abstract concepts."

Tags:language, children, psychology

Abstract
In this essay the writer explores how the things parents say and do in front of their children affect the children and their learning. The writer then takes the reader through a discussion about the importance of body language in the classroom and some examples of effective use suggestions.

From the Paper
?We have all heard the saying "Do as I say and not as I do," and we know it is a statement about hypocrisy. Unfortunately many parents don't understand that is the exact message they sometimes give to their children by their actions and deeds in front of them. We all want our children to learn the proper values and morals and we hope hey grow to be value filled compassionate and honest individuals.?

Tags:strongest, lesson, children, teachers, behavior, emulate, message, self, esteem, actions

Abstract
The paper discusses the problems that occur in schools today and explains that these problems are due to the lack of love in the language of teachers. Teachers need to learn to speak each student's love language e.g. words of affirmation. In addition, the different words can be spoken publicly, privately or even written in notes. The paper further relates that the tone of the language is also an important aspect and if the love language is learned by a teacher, the teacher has thus learned to communicate on an emotional level and thus has become a caring teacher.

From the Paper
''Understanding the love language of each student is vital to reaching the hearts of the student. When a teacher learns to speak the love language of each student, the teacher has learned to communicate with the students on an emotional level that allows the students to know the teacher genuinely care. The students will notice that the teacher loves them truly enough to understand a love language that the teacher may not speak themselves. Yes, learning the love language of twenty or thirty languages will take time. No, learning the love languages of each student will not be learned overnight. Yet, when each student is knit to the teacher's heart and have a "full love container", there will be an absence of cheating on tests, lying, bullying, and weapons being brought to school. And if God says that the greatest commandment is to love each other than that commandment should be obeyed by those who have one of the greatest influences on the next generations: the teachers".

Tags:education, teaching, love, children, words, of, affirmation

Abstract
A discussion of the negative and fewer positive effects that television has on children and their language skills. Several propositions seem undisputed by all the researchers such as: children are the largest audience for television, television is a continuing interest for most children, and television can provoke a response in children. This paper concludes that television can invigorate the vocabulary of children, encourage their reading, and inspire their writing.

From the Paper
"Without doubt, television influences the mental processes and speaking habits of young people who may develop their language skills in the family den as much as they do in the classroom. Indeed, statistics abound on the television habits of children. High school seniors will have watched about 15,000 hours of television by the time they graduate (1986 Nielson Report as cited in Powell 41). To gain perspective, Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet put it this way: "By the time the vidkids matriculate at their favorite institution of higher learning, almost one-half of their waking life will have been spent being Superseted, Chromacolored, and Colortaked" (22-23). Sister Rosemary Winkeljohann reports this incident: A few seasons ago, on an episode of "Happy Days," Fonzie got a library card as a small part of the overall story. The producers thought nothing of it until they later learned that librarians all over the country were swamped the next day with children coming to the library. Children who had never used the library facilities now wanted library cards! (100) "

Tags:children, development, education, language, learning, media, parents, research, society, statistics, teachers, television, verbal

Abstract
This paper describes a study to assess individual differences among preschoolers' emotional understanding, verbal ability, and gender role behavior. The paper relates that the study looks at simple and complex emotional understanding and children's vocabulary ability, as well as gender differences in preschool children and how their parents perceive their gender role behavior. In addition, the paper describes the different methods used in the study to find out the preschoolers' knowledge of emotions.

From the Paper
"Young children's understanding of emotions has been the topic of many studies; some results being similar and some contradicting. The article "Preschoolers' Understanding of Simple and Complex Emotions: Links with gender and language" (Bosacki & Moore, 2004) discusses the research issue of how there are differences among individual preschoolers when it comes to understanding emotions and how gender and language play a role. The complexity of emotions is also looked at and how the usage by children can differ based on simple and complex. Different cultures also have different ideas of how to express one's self and how to feel in different scenarios. Children across cultures are exposed to different languages, beliefs and values; social experiences also come along with those differences. Children's understanding of the emotions they experience and the emotions people around them experience are drawn from their particular culture or gender. People around them may be parents, siblings, peers, daycare teachers or any other part of the Childs mesosystem (Shaffer, Wood & Willoughby, 2005). When decoding a child's understanding of emotion there are different aspects to take into consideration; the child's gender, culture, vocabulary ability and their capability of translating simple emotions into something more complex."

Tags:understanding, correlation, emotions