Literature Review Vocabulary Size and Verbal Fluency

Language Sample Analysis
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course Name/Number
Instructor’s Name
Due Date
Introduction
Different aspects of development are measured through an analysis of communication, language, and speech. As stated by Hulit, Howard, and Fahey, to fully understand the factors that contribute to development, one must understand that language and speech exists independently, but both work together to form communication. For instance, speech can exist in the absence of language as seen with infant babbling, and language can exist in the absence of speech as seen with sign language. Speech refers to the oral expression of language that requires the cooperation of resonation, respiration, phonation, and articulation. Language refers to a shared code that makes it possible for a sender and receiver to communicate. Lastly, communication refers to the process of exchanging information. This includes a sender and a receiver who interprets the information, message, or idea given by the sender (2011, p. 3-4).
The purpose of this study is to analyze a language sample of a child focusing on all domains of language: phonology, lexicon, morphosyntax, and pragmatics. The child chosen for this analysis is Mattias, a three year, nine-month-old boy. His family is monolingual English speaking with both parents and an elder sibling at home. Developmental milestones such as walking, crawling, sitting, and self-care skills were reached promptly. Mattias’s parents report that he babbled and cooed as an infant. His first word was spoken at fifteen months. To assess his language skills, a play-based conversational sample was collected in which spontaneous speech was encouraged. The conversational sample will be used to gauge the participant’s language skills.
Literature Review
Vocabulary Size and Verbal Fluency
As confirmed in a study on lexical access, when compared to bilinguals, monolinguals usually maintain a broader vocabulary in a specific language, which increases monolinguals’ efficiency of word retrieval (Bialystok et al., 2008). Additionally, monolinguals access words more frequently compared to bilinguals in a specific language. In a task that involved letter fluency, the study confirmed that monolinguals easily responded to the letter cue with more words compared to bilinguals (Bialystok et al., 2008). In a separate study on creative functioning, the researchers discovered that monolinguals performed better on flexibility and fluency than bilinguals (Torrance et al., 1970).
Non-Verbal and Verbal Cognitive Development
According to a study conducted by the University of York, which was later published in Child Development Journal, the effects of the development of a child’s non-verbal and verbal language were examined and matched between bilingual and monolingual children in a specific language. Researchers compared one-hundred, six-year-old bilingual and monolingual children (bilingual in French and English, bilingual in Spanish and English, bilingual in English and Mandarin, and monolingual in English). The study tested their non-verbal and verbal communication cognitive development. The study considered factors such as educational experience, cultu...