Abandoning Here-And-Now Language: Sensorimotor Development in the Acquisition of Persian as a First Language

Abstract Going through the sensorimotor period of language development, children use words referring to objects not immediately present. This study aimed at finding out the extent of one- to two-year old Iranian children's abandoning here-and-now language. 15 children were selected from Talash Kindergarten in Shiraz as the participants. Their language and behavioural development was carefully observed and recorded for five months. The qualitative data analysis of the study indicated that infants having a greater mastery on object permanence are able to use words for objects not present in their immediate environment. Thus, the study supported Piaget's cognitive development in language acquisition.

[1]  J Atkinson,et al.  Acuity, contrast sensitivity and accommodation in infants , 1981 .

[2]  J. Piaget.  The construction of reality in the child , 1954 .

[3]  E. Gibson,et al.  The development of perception , 1983 .

[4]  S. Levinson,et al.  Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development , 2001 .

[5]  J. Konczak,et al.  The development of goal-directed reaching in infants II. Learning to produce task-adequate patterns of joint torque , 1997, Experimental Brain Research.

[6]  E. Spelke,et al.  Object permanence in five-month-old infants , 1985, Cognition.

[7]  A. Bekoff,et al.  Neural control of limb coordination , 2004, Experimental Brain Research.

[8]  D. Slobin,et al.  The development of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish , 1977, Journal of Child Language.

[9]  M. Hadders‐Algra,et al.  Developmental course of general movements in early infancy. II. EMG correlates. , 1992, Early human development.

[10]  Jürgen Konczak,et al.  Neural Development and Sensorimotor Control , 2004 .

[11]  David A. Boas,et al.  Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy , 2002, NeuroImage.

[12]  M. Sigman,et al.  Sensorimotor skills and language comprehension in autistic children , 1981, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[13]  A. Gopnik,et al.  The Development of Categorization in the Second Year and Its Relation to Other Cognitive and Linguistic Developments. , 1987 .

[14]  Frank Guerin,et al.  A Piagetian model of early sensorimotor development , 2008 .

[15]  M. Sigman,et al.  Longitudinal study of sensorimotor development. , 1974 .

[16]  Jerome Kagan,et al.  The nature of the child , 1986 .

[17]  E A Gidoni,et al.  Routine Developmental Examination in Normal and Retarded Children , 1967, Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology.

[18]  M. Tomasello,et al.  Cognitive bases of lexical development: object permanence and relational words , 1984, Journal of Child Language.

[19]  Alison Gopnik,et al.  Language acquisition and conceptual development: Theories, language, and culture:Whorf without wincing , 2001 .

[20]  David W. Carroll,et al.  Psychology of Language , 1993 .

[21]  Nathan A. Fox,et al.  Brain development over the first year of life: Relations between electroencephalographic frequency and coherence and cognitive and affective behaviors. , 1994 .