Jean Berko Gleason - The Development of Language

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gleason, Jean Berko, editor. | Ratner, Nan Bernstein, editor.

Title: The development of language / [edited by] Jean Berko Gleason, PhD, Nan Bernstein Ratner, PhD.

Description: Tenth edition. | San Diego, CA : Plural Publishing, Inc., [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022037337 (print) | LCCN 2022037338 (ebook) | ISBN 9781635504262 (paperback) | ISBN 1635504260 (paperback) | ISBN 9781635504286 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Language acquisition. | Psycholinguistics. | Sociolinguistics. | LCGFT: Essays.

Classification: LCC P118 .D44 2024 (print) | LCC P118 (ebook) | DDC 401/.93 dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022037337

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022037338

T his is the tenth edition of The Development of Language , which we have written for anyone with an interest in how children acquire language from infancy through the later school years. As always, there have been many new developments since our last edition, and we are very pleased to present new perspectives and new findings that have emerged over the past several years. This edition also includes some new topics that we think are interesting and important for a broader understanding of the basic features of language development from both historical and cross-cultural perspectives.

Our goal in writing this book is to provide an authoritative, interesting text that includes concepts and research findings that are both important and useful. The tenth edition places an increased emphasis on language development in children who are learning languages other than, or in addition to, English as well as on children with risk factors for language delay or disorder. As in prior editions, the chapters address cultural influences that lead to group and individual variation in childrens language. The book focuses on language acquisition from the early months, even before children begin to speak, through the school years, to adolescence, when children achieve mastery of adultlike language skills.

New to This Edition

This edition continues to have many digital features that will make the concepts and material more accessible, more complete, and more invitingly interactive. The chapters have media clips that illustrate information and introduce students to some of the leaders in our field. Links are also provided to a vast number of online resources. A brief list of some of the new features of this edition includes the following:

Each chapter has been updated and streamlined to more effectively highlight the most important concepts, theories, and findings that we believe are central to understanding the discipline and its applications to education, clinical practice, and real-life experiences.

Each chapter continues to integrate typical development in its topic areas (e.g., speech, vocabulary, reading) with the most commonly observed difficulties seen in acquiring this skill. Benefit: With new Response to Intervention (RTI) approaches to treatment, all teachers and therapists must be prepared to recognize the most common delays or problems in children; this discussion is not limited to a single chapter, where students may not appreciate these differences fully. Location in text: All chapters, especially .

The chapter on atypical development has been reframed to concentrate on crosscutting concepts in child communication delay and disorder. Readers are now able to understand common themes across the many causes and manifestations of delay in learning critical communication skills, such as genetics, environmental deprivation, and the common features of developmental disabilities that impair language learning. Location in text: .

Each chapter contains a variety of media links to examples of concepts, first-hand expert interviews, and illustrations that deepen student appreciation of concepts. Benefit: Concrete examples improve student understanding of concepts and deepen student mastery of material. Location in text: All chapters.

We continue to deepen coverage of socioeconomic disparities and their impacts on childrens communication development across almost all areas of skill. Benefit: Students will gain additional understanding of how socioeconomic disparities can influence childrens language development. Location in text: Integrated throughout all chapters.

Childrens language development does not occur in a vacuum. We continue to provide updated coverage of neurological, genetic, and anthropological research that places childrens language development in a larger context. Benefit: Major advances in mapping the brain, understanding the genetic contributions to language and language disorders, and clarifying the unique capacity for human language contextualize what enables children to succeed in the process of learning language. Location in text: Primarily , but interwoven through almost all chapters.

As in the past, each chapter is written by outstanding scholars who are known for their expertise in the areas that they discuss. For students, each chapter provides a helpful summary and a list of suggested course papers and projects. In response to instructor requests, we have put references at the end of each chapter.

We wrote this text for use in upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses in language development or as readings for courses in psycholinguistics, cognition, developmental psychology, speech pathology, education, and related subjects. Our streamlined coverage in this edition makes the book a readable resource for professionals (and nonprofessionals) in all of these fields.

In this spirit, readers do not need previous knowledge of linguistics; each chapter presents its material along with whatever linguistic background information is relevant. This means that there will be some repetition of major concepts, which will help to reinforce them and make them clearer. Many language development texts are concerned only with language acquisition by young children and have tended to assume that development is complete by the early primary grades. But linguistic development, like psychological development, continues over the school years and beyond, and so we have included development through adolescence, with the understanding that language development continues over the life span.