Theory

Chomsky- Innate

This is the theory that suggests the human brain is pre-wired. It understands that there are fixed principles for example verbs, questions and adjectives within the human brain. This is supported by the fact that they’re all present in the many languages spoken around the world because they are what we our brain produces.

Vygotsky- Social Interaction

This theory includes the zone of proximal development. It believes that there are stages where children learn best, they must be assisted and then are left at a key point to independently learn and then they will succeed. This zone of development is crucial and plays a large role in the child’s progress and learning.

BF Skinner – Operant Conditioning

Operant condition involves punishment and reward. It’s scheduled reinforcement in response to the child’s actions, or in the case of learning language the things they say and whether they’re incorrect or correct. This was tested on birds through teaching them to read. By changing the word from peck to turn they could get the bird to respond with the correct response by proving food if they responded correctly. 

Piaget – Stages

This theory is about how children develop and in which order at certain ages. The stages are:

Sensori-motor (Birth to 2 years)
Differentiates self from objects and recognises self as agent of action for example shaking a rattle to make a noise. They realise that things continue to exist when they’re removed from the situation.

Pre- operational (2-7 years)

They learn to use language and represent objects by images and words.  Have difficulty taking viewpoint of others. Classify objects by a single feature for example colour or shape.

Concrete operational (7-11 years) 

The child can think logically about objects or events. They achieve understanding of number age six, mass age 7 and weight age 9 and can classify objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size.

Formal operational (11 years and up)
Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically. They become concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems