Language and communication is at the heart of society. Learning how to use language to communicate wants and have needs met can be a complex task for many children. Our course will explore how language develops and the intricate challenges many children face who experience a variety of physical, emotional and cognitive difficulties.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Class this past week.. Structural Analysis
The in class activity we did Monday with morphemes and utterances, what was the exact purpose of the structure analysis? Was it simply just to determine whether or not the child had any type of language or communication problems?
I am curious to see what your peers will come up with here...what do you believe is the purpose of a structural analysis? Why do we do language analysis? This will be the focus of our upcoming class as well.
I will chime in as others offer their ideas. I'm anxious to see you as students continue to use the information in the text and the resources on Blackboard to piece these ideas together - to construct meaning and the big picture.
I thought that the analysis was to see whether or not the child was appropriately communitcating based on the child's age. Also, maybe to help us with our future project of the Language sample analysis. I don't know if that's right...but that's what I think it was for...hope it helps!
The way that I look at the Language Analysis is that it is a starting point for educators in helping a child improve or over come a language or communication disorder. I say this because after taking a language sample there are a variety of components the sample can be used to analysis. For example, the sample allows you to find the child’s MLU. Using this MLU you are able to assess what Stage of Brown’s Language Development the child falls into. I know that the stages has what a typical age range for this stage looks like but if we take age out of the equation all we have left are the stages. Knowing what stage the child falls into no matter his/her age allows educators to seeing the starting point of the child they are looking with and gives a guide of where the child needs to go next. Help the child work through the stages of language development. A language analysis also could be used to analysis how the child is using semantics and pragmatics. And once again give you a guideline of where to begin and where to go with the child. Of course, I feel that for a valid language analysis you would want more than one language sample to analysis. I would try to take a sample in a variety of situations, i.e. different classrooms the child is in throughout the day, the cafeteria, with a parent. This may seem like a lot of hard work, which it would be but I believe that you would get a better understanding of how the child is using language in his/her everyday life; because the child could speak differently with different people he/she is in contact with. Plus, is would give you a more accurate representation of what Stage of Brown the child falls into. Remember you would have to average out you MLU’s to find the stage.
3 comments:
I am curious to see what your peers will come up with here...what do you believe is the purpose of a structural analysis? Why do we do language analysis? This will be the focus of our upcoming class as well.
I will chime in as others offer their ideas. I'm anxious to see you as students continue to use the information in the text and the resources on Blackboard to piece these ideas together - to construct meaning and the big picture.
I thought that the analysis was to see whether or not the child was appropriately communitcating based on the child's age. Also, maybe to help us with our future project of the Language sample analysis. I don't know if that's right...but that's what I think it was for...hope it helps!
The way that I look at the Language Analysis is that it is a starting point for educators in helping a child improve or over come a language or communication disorder. I say this because after taking a language sample there are a variety of components the sample can be used to analysis. For example, the sample allows you to find the child’s MLU. Using this MLU you are able to assess what Stage of Brown’s Language Development the child falls into. I know that the stages has what a typical age range for this stage looks like but if we take age out of the equation all we have left are the stages. Knowing what stage the child falls into no matter his/her age allows educators to seeing the starting point of the child they are looking with and gives a guide of where the child needs to go next. Help the child work through the stages of language development. A language analysis also could be used to analysis how the child is using semantics and pragmatics. And once again give you a guideline of where to begin and where to go with the child. Of course, I feel that for a valid language analysis you would want more than one language sample to analysis. I would try to take a sample in a variety of situations, i.e. different classrooms the child is in throughout the day, the cafeteria, with a parent. This may seem like a lot of hard work, which it would be but I believe that you would get a better understanding of how the child is using language in his/her everyday life; because the child could speak differently with different people he/she is in contact with. Plus, is would give you a more accurate representation of what Stage of Brown the child falls into. Remember you would have to average out you MLU’s to find the stage.
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