Dr Robert Winston

Dr Robert Winston

After watching a short video discussing how your language develops when you’re growing up I discovered some interesting facts. Children use a different area of the brain to adults, this area of the brain is brilliant with picking up language easily, and this is also why children find it easier to learn a second language than adults. Children also have a lowered larynx than adults, this is an advantage as it lowers the risk of choking however this leaves less space for sound making it harder to communicate as language was developed to survive. The Larynx naturally drops but 3 cm around the age of 1.

A 16 month old has to use 30 muscles for them to make these sounds. When the larynx drops and the child goes into the toddler stage (2 and a half) they learn around 10 words on average a day. Also through this period children start to learn self-awareness as a child of 2 couldn’t recognise herself in the mirror.  When they get this self-awareness they demonstrate this through the use of 1st personal pronouns, this is when the children realises its needs and knows how to have them met. Children have an instinct for language as they are able to learn new words but also guess what they are. However they struggle with words such as “mice”, a child would think its “mouses” this only happens when its irregular and haven’t learnt that rule yet.