1 language learning in early childhood preview

Usage-based learning
As more and more research has documented the ways in which children
interact with the environment, developmental and cognitive psychologists
find further evidence that language acquisition is 
usage-based
. In this view,
language acquisition is possible because of children’s general cognitive
capacities and the vast number of opportunities they have to make
connections between the language they hear and what they experience in their
environment. Sophisticated electronic recording devices have been used to
track and count words and phrases children hear in their daily lives. Deb Roy
documented his son’s acquisition of words, showing the frequency and the
contexts for the occurrence of language. His research provided an impressive
demonstration of the power of interaction between the child and the adults
and how adults focus on the language the child has begun to use (Roy, 2009).
The usage-based perspective on language acquisition differs from the
behaviourist view in that the emphasis is more on the child’s ability to create
networks of associations rather than on processes of imitation and habit
formation. Referred to by various names, including cognitive linguistics, this
view also differs sharply from the innatist perspective because language
acquisition is not seen as requiring a separate ‘module of the mind’ but rather
depends on the child’s general learning abilities and the contributions of the
environment. As Elena Lieven and Michael Tomasello (2008) put it,
‘Children learn language from their language experiences—there is no other

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way’ (p. 168). According to this view, what children need to know is
essentially available to them in the language they are exposed to.
Some of the early research in this framework was done in the context of