Matthew Gates

PSYC203

November 4th 2021

Development of Language

Module one of our course includes development of language during the early stages of
human life, highlighting how newborns universally follow the same path to learn how to
communicate, even across different languages and cultures. Our linguistic abilities are
exceptional and develop rapidly, as two-year-old babies are more linguistically advanced than
any other extant species (Berger, 2019).

During these first two years, there is a steady progression of steps before complete
sentences can be formed. Newborns make the most use of their facial expressions and cries; later
developed into more meaningful noises, movements, and expressions; to the comprehension of
simple words and deliberate and non-verbal signals; finally culminating with the toddler rapidly
learning new words and phrases and speaking multiword sentences more frequently (Berger,
2019).

The development of language is a strong indicator of an infant’s overall health and is of

much interest to researchers. Non-verbal communication is closely tied to the development of
language, as one study indicates certain “show and give gestures may serve as useful indices of
language outcomes and may help identify children, especially those in need of intervention,
earlier in life” (Choi 2021). Another recent development of interest, thanks to AI technology and
new differential language analysis (DLA) method, researchers in the field of human language
development can now interpret massive amounts of words used in social media to quantitatively
test psychological theories within alternative contexts (Kern, 2014). Quantitative and qualitative
research data is notably difficult to produce in psychology, as in the past researchers primarily
rely on their own subjective interpretations of used language, and at a much slower rate when
compared to DLA.
 References

Berger, K. S. (2019) Invitation to the life span (4th ed.). Worth.

Choi, B., Wei, R., & Rowe, M. L. (2021). Show, give, and point gestures across infancy
differentially predict language development. Developmental Psychology, 57(6), 851–862.
https://doi-org.montgomerycollege.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/dev0001195.supp
(Supplemental)

Kern, M. L., Eichstaedt, J. C., Schwartz, H. A., Park, G., Ungar, L. H., Stillwell, D. J., Kosinski,
M., Dziurzynski, L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2014). From “Sooo excited!!!” to “So proud”:
Using language to study development. Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 178–188.
https://doi-org.montgomerycollege.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/a0035048