Factors for Primary Language Acquisition

An average child, born with the ability to learn language, is quite a competent language user by age 6. That children acquire language so rapidly and with seemingly little effort is really quite miraculous. Although much is still unknown about how language acquisition takes place, scholars tend to agree that exposure to a language and interaction with other speakers of the language are both necessary for language acquisition. At least four factors have been identified that help determine the rate at which language is learned, two environmental and two genetic.

  1. Socioeconomic Status

    • Children in middle- or upper-class families progress more quickly in their language acquisition than children of the lower class, according to the University of Michigan. Parents in the lower class have been found to talk less to their children, to use smaller vocabularies and shorter utterances, to ask fewer questions and to read less to their children. The following parental actions, all of which tend to be more common in homes with a higher socioeconomic status, encourage a more rapid rate of language acquisition: speaking more frequently to a child, employing a rich vocabulary, creating longer utterances, asking more questions, thereby encouraging interaction, and reading books frequently.

    Gender

    • Girls tend to begin speaking earlier than boys, perhaps due to both physiological and social factors. For girls, the cognitive development needed to support language acquisition typically takes place between 14 and 20 months, while it occurs in boys usually a bit later -- between 20 and 24 months, according to the University of Michigan. The social aspect of speech development is the result of parents' differing treatment of boys and girls. For example, fathers often engage in rough-and-tumble play with their boys, while they are more likely to engage their young daughters in conversation, thereby encouraging communication skills in the girls.

    Birth Order

    • Parents tend to speak more to their first-born child than they speak to their other children. This influences language development, as does the willingness of an older sibling to anticipate what the younger wants and give it to him before the younger child can ask for it.

    Temperament

    • Some children are naturally shy or quiet, which may lead to a delay in spoken language. While it is true that some quiet children may have as much language facility as more talkative children, it is also true that language acquisition is helped along by adult-child interaction--and that requires the child to speak.

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