Young Minds Grow Through Incidental Language Learning

Often the word “incidental” tends to convey an impression of something less important. The thesaurus on my laptop lists “minor” and “secondary” as the first two out of six synonyms. When we talk about the growth of our children’s minds, let me assure you that incidental language learning is quite the opposite of something less important. Instead, it is one of the most powerful and important developmental processes in the lives of our children. It is key to our children’s potential in language, literacy, and life-long learning.

Remember this one sentence of Amy McConkey Robbins, M.S., CCC-SLP:

“It [incidental language learning] is the most efficient, and perhaps the only way to truly master a spoken language.”

“Two Paths of Auditory Development for Children with Cochlear Implants,”
by Amy McConkey-Robbins
Loud and Clear Volume 1 Issue 1
A publication of Advanced Bionics Corporation
http://www.bionicear.com/userfiles/File/Vol1Issue1April_98.pdf

Remember these words of renowned audiologist Mark Ross, Ph.D., who has a hearing loss himself, as he is quoted by Carol Flexer, Ph.D.:

“Beware of underestimating the barrier that any type and degree of hearing impairment presents to the casual acquisition of information from the environment (Ross, 1991).

Facilitating Hearing and Listening in Young Children
By Carol Flexer , Ph.D.
1994 Singular Publishing Group, Inc.

Within the context of incidental language learning, my choice of the best definition for “incidental” is “occurring as a result of something”. As our children’s young minds grow toward language maturity, incidental language learning is that most vital language learning that occurs as a result of our children’s minds absorbing the language of human interactions going on all around them each and every day of their lives. It is one of the most amazing, natural developmental processes in the lives of our children. Neurological pathways and connections are formed that will support our children’s language and learning abilities for their lifetime.

It all happens without effort because children have invisible antennae that they use to continually listen to speech that goes on all around them, even when they are not directly involved in the conversations. Children depend on hearing the patterns of speech of others in order to develop their own internal model of language. This everyday school of life teaches grammar and syntax without using textbooks. Other daily gifts of life come in the form of new vocabulary, including the four-letter variety from some of the most surprising sources. It also comes in the form of jokes and laughter, seemingly odd expressions that children learn to recognize as idioms, and so many other popular words and slang expressions used by everyone in daily life.

Typically the auditory structures of a child’s brain fully mature somewhere around fifteen years of age. Most adolescents speak in a manner like adults, and they typically complete their language maturity while in high school.

The key ingredients for our children with hearing loss are language rich opportunities and appropriate listening conditions which match the needs of their hearing technology and listening abilities. At school, our children must be able to hear both their teachers and classroom peers in order to be able to develop their minds.

Quoting Lawrence Siegel a couple of times from his chapter titled “Communication, Language, and Education”:

“SCHOOL IS PERHAPS, more than anything else, a language laboratory. It is where linguistic skills mature and a child’s sense of self and knowledge grow. Emotional, intellectual, and educational growth is unthinkable without the ability to communicate, to exchange ideas and information. Language is the linchpin of everything we learn.”

“Access to fluent conversation is necessary for language and cognitive growth; indeed, much of a child’s linguistic growth comes from interaction with peers, through the casual, ongoing interchange between children.”

The Human Right to Language: Communication Access for Deaf Children
By Lawrence M. Siegel
2008 Gallaudet University Press

The Acoustical Society of America explains the unnecessary, adverse impact of reduced opportunities for listening in the classroom:

“Students who do not have full auditory access to spoken information in classrooms (from the teacher or from peers) do not learn at a normal rate. The literature demonstrates that even slight hearing loss is often accompanied by delayed acquisition of vocabulary, reduced incidental learning, frequent significant academic delay, and limited reading abilities (e.g., Ross, 1990). However, none of these deficits is a necessary consequence of hearing loss. They are consequences, rather, of reduced communication opportunities between the child with hearing loss and that child’s teachers and peers. If the acoustic barriers to communication can be overcome, then we can facilitate learning for all children.”

Classroom Acoustics Booklet I
Acoustical Society of America
http://asa.aip.org/classroom/booklet.html

Much of my appreciation and passion for incidental language learning comes by way of real life experiences. We have been so incredibly fortunate to participate in our daughter Nicole soaring in her listening and language abilities. Her love for listening combined with the auditory potential offered by her cochlear implants has allowed her to share in the blessings of incidental language learning. My mother and father are both deaf, and their limited language abilities are very much reflective of both late intervention and an absence of incidental language learning during their childhood. My wife Shelley and I are also the parents of another daughter Josselin who is deaf and who is a very late intervention child from a very poor country in Central America where she did not receive any language help in nearly the first seven years of her life. We taught her privately for the first six years that she was here in the USA, and we know first-hand that virtually all of her language learning comes through that which is directly taught to her.

There are many different expressions revolving around the theme of not appreciating what you have until you lose it. In my family, we reversed it. First we knew what was lost. Then we witnessed the incredible possibilities of what was found through today’s technology and what must be protected through access to language and appropriate listening conditions.

Please learn more about growing the minds of our children through incidental language learning. Be a passionate advocate for your child’s access to language at home and in school. The more they hear, the more opportunities their minds will have to grow.