ASSESSMENT OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF CHILDREN IN MOTHERLESS BABIES HOMES IN ENUGU STATE NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Motherless babies homes are places where children at different stages of language acquisition/development are taken care of. This research, aims at x-raying the linguistic development  of these  deprived children.  The  study explored the  linguistic development of children  in  motherless  baby  homes.  Specifically,  this  study sought  to:  assess the  level of language acquisition of children in the  motherless baby homes,  identify the  environmental factors that aid language acquisition that may be lacking in motherless babies homes, determine the extent to which children in the motherless babies homes negotiate and attach meaning to utterances, find out if the attention given by the workers in the motherless babies homes and visitors are capable of aiding the children’s language acquisition, ascertain the extent to which inputs from organizations aid the language acquisition of the children, find out the effect of the language acquired in the motherless babies homes on the children and determine if the prevailing language environment in the motherless babies homes is capable of impairing the language acquisition of children in the motherless baby homes.   In this study, the descriptive survey research method was adopted. Based on the nature of the research and target population, only purposive sampling technique was used. Three major instruments of data collection were used. These include; participant observation, interview (oral) and the questionnaire. The result of the study shows that the level of language acquisition by children in the motherless babies homes was low. Also the result of the study indicates that different organizations have been assisting these motherless babies homes, however their support were mainly in the area of helping the workers perform some domestic chores, as they were not very much interested in their language development. The result also shows that the children do not have enough materials and people to play with, and as a result of that, their language development were seriously delayed and or impaired. The study therefore concludes that the language environment of the motherless babies homes were defective in terms of providing favourable environment that aid the children’s language acquisition as most of the human and material resources in normal homes were not readily available in the motherless baby homes.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

Language  is the major  means  of human communication  and is mainly  obtained through acquisition,  learning and subsequent  development.  A few years  after birth, a normal child is capable of producing complex sentences that do not only attest to the knowledge  of his language  but  also  the level of his mental  development.  Language encompasses  every  means  of  communication  in  which  thoughts  and  feelings  are symbolized in order to convey meaning to others (Nwachukwu, 1995) through writing, speaking,  signs,  facial  expression  and  gestures.  This  must  have  prompted  Simpson (1994) to state that language  is a  system of speaking,  writing or signing.  Therefore, language was glossed as being  a  mode of speaking or writing common to a group of people. Among all human and in all known languages of the world, language is either developed through the process of acquisition or learning.

Language  acquisition  is  the  term  most  commonly  used  to  describe  the  process whereby children become speakers of their native language or languages (Agbedo, 2003; Malmkjaer, 2001). Language acquisition according to Rice (1989)  has three different components:  the  language  to  be  acquired,  the  child  and  the  child’s  endowment. Specifically, Clark (1991) opines that the acquisition of language forms the basis of all other  forms of symbolic  activities  by humans.  According  to Morrison  (2001)  when children in the first few years of life are  given appropriate opportunities,  they make remarkable,  effortless  acquisition  of  language.  Thus  language  acquisition  does  not require only the natural endowment but also the right environment.

Language learning, on the other hand, focuses on the process by which second or foreign languages are learnt.   The learning is guided in line with the curriculum of an educational establishment. In view of that, language learning, most of the time, requires a formal setting, conscious effort by a conscious learner and a conscious mind.

From the light of the foregoing, it can be seen that language acquisition seems to be the appropriate concept to refer to how the young humans learn their first language. On the other hand, language learning usually takes place in formal setting (school system) and by older adults who must have acquired their first language. Thus the first language becomes an effective aid for the learning of the second or foreign language.

However,  there  may  not  be  any  clear-cut  line  that  exists  between  language acquisition and language learning. This is even more so as it relates to child language.

This stems from the fact that in contemporary society, children who are acquiring their first language also start learning/acquiring  a second language even at home  and in a greater degree when they enroll in school system. Age cannot thus be used as a bearer since  the  child  even  starts  acquiring  and  learning  the  first  and  second  languages respectively from the womb. According to Hopson (1998), behaviourally speaking, there is little difference between a new born baby and a 32-week-old foetus. A wave of new researches according to her, suggest that the fetus can feel, dream, and even enjoy stories from the mother. They feel happy when their mothers read sweet and familiar stories to them in different  languages. She  however warns that, ‘a fetus prefers hearing mom’s voice over a stranger’s –  speaking in her native, not a foreign tongue- and being read aloud familiar tales rather than new stories’.

From the above statement,  it can be seen that though children prefer their  native languages right from the womb, they do not close their ears to other languages. Thus, neither the age of the child nor the first, second or foreign  language can be used to differentiate language acquisition and learning in relation to child language. The only difference that can be deduced is that while the child acquires his first language in the native speaker’s environment,  he learns the  second and foreign language outside the native speaker’s environment.

At this juncture, it should be stated that both the acquired and learnt languages lead to language development.  Language development which manifests in learning  to talk among  children  is  one  of  the  most  visible  and  important  achievements  of  early childhood.   In a matter of months, according to Johnston (2006), and without explicit teaching, toddlers move from hesitant single words to fluent sentences and from a small vocabulary  to one that is growing  by six new  words a day. This is true of normal children  who  have  the  required  predisposition  (innate  abilities)  to  acquire  language (Agbedo, 2003; Yule, 1997). However, we know that not all children acquire language at the same rate, as some have delayed language development (Morrison, 2001), specific language disorder  (Johnston,  2006), language  handicaps (Crystal, 1992), etc. Finally, there are children with language disabilities (Harris, 1990). Again, while some children are in socially enriched language environments  which aid their language development (Morrison,   2001),  others   are  in   isolated   settings.   In  whichever   condition/social environment a child finds him/herself, Lucchese & Tamis-LeMonda (2007) observe,

Early language development is rooted in the interactions children have with their parents, significant  caregivers,  childcare providers,  and  peers.  These

early social exchanges both foster developing language skills and provide a vital foundation for children’s social readiness and academic achievement. (p. 3)

In  line  with  the  importance  of  early  language  development  among  children, researches had been carried out in area of phonemic development (Sills, 1972), type of language   addressed   to  the  child   by  mothers   and  caregivers   (Galloway,   1994), communication disorders in children (Agbedo, 2008), establishing the appropriate time children acquire language (Toger-Flushberg, 1994), when children start communicating with adults (Machado,  1990) and  whether language (acquisition)  is innate or learned (Bowen, 1998). However, not much has been done in the area of looking at the language development of children outside the normal home or family environment.

Motherless  babies  homes/orphanages  and  rehabilitation  homes  are  such  places where children at different stages of language acquisition/development are taken care of. Children   in  these   two   homes   have   been  classified   as  deprived   children.   This classification is based on the fact that they are in peculiar environments which are not only exceptional to their language development but also in social setting.

It is a known  fact,  according  to Morrison  (2001),  that children with or  without disabilities benefit more when they are in natural environment and thus grow in area of personal, language, cognitive and social skills which they may not other wise learn in isolation or even in classroom. The question now is, are the motherless babies homes’ environmentally  rich  enough  to  facilitate  and  aid  child’s  language  development? Actually,  motherless  babies  homes  have welfare  officers,  organizations  and workers who take care of the children. Visitors visit these children individually and sometimes in groups  and  thus  provide  them  with  the  much  needed  warmth.  However,  the  next questions  are, to what  extent  do  visitors  interact  with these children?  Even if these visitors interact with these  children to a great extent, can the level of their interaction with the children be reasonably equated with that which exists between the children and their mothers or  the caregivers at home? Are the children capable of negotiating  for meaning  (Rhonda,   2002) to both the caregivers in the motherless babies homes and visitors to the extent that they understand what they mean and react accordingly?

The last question is based on the fact that even a child’s cry is meaningful (Harris,

1990) and the meaning attached or not attached to their utterances reveal a lot about the child.  After  all,  mothers  even  affirm  to  the  fact  that  associating  meaning(s)  to  the

utterances of the children are capable of identifying children with language  disorders and other disorders.

One  may  equally  be  tempted  to  ask,  at  this  juncture  if the  caregivers,  welfare officers and other visitors spend enough time playing, listening, associating meaning to children’s utterances and detecting children with language and other  problems. These Alms (2004) likened to diagnostic test which covers three modalities; listening, speaking and reading.  Morjoram (1985:87)  on the other  hand opines  that  by “…  listening  to children and encouraging them to speak at length, one may note all kinds of strengths and weaknesses and growth points – speech defects obviously”. Parents and teachers are in a position to accomplish  these tasks (Essa & Young, 1994; Crystal, 1992; Hall & Segara,  2007; Machado,  1990) as they are usually close to children.  Whether  these features  merely  facilitated  the acquisition  for the children,  or guided  the  children’s progress in language acquisition, Agbedo, (2009) while stressing the views of Aitchison (1991), observe that they have the following influence,

(i)      Direct  influence  : the  possibility  of motheress  directly  influencing  the child through imitation

(ii)     Indirect influence: the possibility of the mother’s speech indirectly guiding the child, for example, by providing a pattern of usage  which  the child might follow.

(iii)    Facilitation: the possibility of parental speech providing clear input from which the child extracts what it considers relevant. (p.124)

The present study supports the fact that environment  influences the child’s  language acquisition process; however, it hinged this study on the fact that parental speech greatly facilitates the language acquisition process of the child. This is in line with Agbedo’s (2009) position, when he states that, in language acquisition process, normal children benefit substantially from both the innate linguistic capacity and cognitive abilities and that the entire process stands to be facilitated  by sufficient exposure to sensitive and helpful parental speech and/or caregiver language.

Children in motherless babies homes may have teachers/caregivers around them but

not  their  parents.  As  such,  this  puts  them  at  risk  in  area  of  not  only  language development  (  Bernard  Van  leer  foundation,  2007)  but  also  in  the  area  of  early childhood  care  and  development   (Maduewesi,   2005).  Even  the   Integrated  Early Childhood Care and Development (IECD) did not capture both the language need and other needs of these children.

According to the Nigerian Educational Resource and Development Center (NERDC) (2004), the objectives of IECD include:

(a)   to provide care and support to the child in form of good nutrition and health for  children,  a  healthy  and  safe  environment,  psycho-social  stimulation, protection and security,

(b)   to  inculcate  in the child  the spirit  of enquiry  and creativity  through  the exploration of nature, the environment, art, music and playing with toys etc,

(c)  to effect adequate transition from the home to school… and

(d) to inculcate social norms–that is, culturally relevant skills and  behaviours which allow them to function effectively in their current context.  (p. 3)

It can be seen from the above that the programme fits those children that have homes and live with their parents. This led Early Childhood Matters (2007) to declare that;

… the challenge  of early childhood  development  (ECD)  among  Orphans and vulnerable children (OVD)are enormous,… it has became clear that an approach consisting of one or even two areas of intervention is not sufficient to  address  the  varied,  interdependent   needs  of  very   young  children. Additionally  focusing  only  on  children,  or  only  on  children  and  their caregivers, do not adequately address needs of the community or facilitate essential changes in national policy. (p. 9)

This emphasizes the fact that children in orphanages and motherless babies homes are vulnerable  children and as such require  special  attention.  This  attention  is even needed more in the area of language acquisition and development.

These children need special attention not only because they can no longer hear their mothers’ voices which hither-to they had been hearing from the womb (Klaus & Klaus,

1985) and reap fully all the advantages there-in in motherese language (Crystal, 1992) but  more  importantly  because    they  have  been  removed  from  the  natural  human environment where language makes things work.

It can be seen that children in motherless babies homes suffer a lot of deprivation. But then, can their inability to reside in a natural or ‘language environment’ impair or affect acquisition and their over- all language development?

This  research,  therefore,  aimed  at  x-raying  the  linguistic  development  of  these deprived children. This is with a view to assessing their vocabulary development and the impact of the motherless babies homes, environment on their language development. In an  attempt   to  x-ray  the  language   acquisition/development   of  children;  language acquisition/development, language learning, negotiation for meaning, environments and

language development, language disorder, language, thought, and culture and the effect of education in language acquisition were examined.

1.2.  Statement of the Problem

Studies  on  child  development  often  focus  on  the  normal  child  in  a   natural environment.  In  like  manner,  policies  and  programmes  of  government  are  usually targeted at the same group of children. As such, while Nigeria Educational   Research and Development Council (NERDC) (2004) states that one of its objectives for IECD is to  “effect  smooth  transition  from  home  to  school”  through  the  empowerment  of households/caregivers  to provide  appropriate  care  for children aged 0-5 years at the household level, the Federal Republic of Nigeria  (FRN) (2004) affirms that the purpose of Early Childhood/pre-primary  education shall be to, “effect a smooth transition from home to school (and) provide adequate care and supervision for the children while their parents  are  at  work  (on  the  farm,  in  the  markets,  offices,  etc)”  (p.11).  Thus  the programs/polices of both the FRN (2004) and NERDC (2004) focused on children that have parents and live within the normal family/community settings.

Researchers had thus focused on the personal, social and educational need of family based children without taking cognizance of the fact that there are  many other children that do not live in the comfort of their parents’ homes or live in normal ‘homes’. Even more  worrisome  is the  fact  that  most  of these  researchers  did  not  focus  children’s language development.  Fine arguments, findings and  recommendations  had thus been made in the area of education of the child, improving the social and other cares given to the child, but insufficient thought has been given to the important role language plays in the child’s educational, personal social and over all development.

Even when the language of the child and the child’s language development are the focus of linguistic researchers, efforts were geared more towards looking at the language development  and  language  impairment/disorders  of children  in  normal  home/natural environment.

As Nigerian children in motherless babies homes are regarded as endangered species

due   to   their   peculiar   environment,   (Justice,   Development   and    Peace/Caritas Commission  (JDPC)  (2009),  this  research  aimed  at  assessing  the  vocabulary  cum language  acquisition/development  of  these  children.  Since  language  development  is linked to other domains and since language acquisition  is enhanced  and can equally

enhance other areas of child’s development,  other areas of child’s development  that affect the child language development were looked into.

Specifically,    the   research    focused    not   only   on   assessing    the    language acquisition/development  of these deprived children, but also sought to  find out if this peculiar environment can affect their language acquisition process/development.

1.3.    Purpose of the Study

The  general  objective  of  this  study  is  to  critically  investigate  the   language acquisition/ development of the deprived children in motherless babies homes in Enugu State of Nigeria. Specifically, the objectives of the study are to:

(i)  assess the state of   language acquisition of children in the motherless babies homes.

(ii) identify the environmental factors that may aid language acquisition among children in normal homes which are lacking in motherless babies homes.

(iii) assess the extent to which children in the motherless babies homes negotiate and attach meaning to utterances.

(iv) find out if the attention given by the welfare officers, workers of motherless  babies homes and visitors are capable of aiding the children’s language acquisition process.

(v) ascertain the extent to which inputs from organizations, aid the language acquisition of these deprived children.

(vi) find out the effect of the language acquired  in the motherless  babies homes on  the children.

(vii) determine  if the prevailing  language environment  in the motherless  babies  homes  is capable of delaying the language acquisition of children in the motherless babies homes.

1.4.    Research Questions

The study sought to provide answers to the following research questions:

(i)  What is the state of language acquisition of children in the motherless babies homes?

(ii) What are the favourable environmental factors that aid language acquisition in normal homes which are lacking in motherless babies homes?

(iii) To what  extent  do children  in the  motherless  babies  homes  negotiate  and  attach meaning to utterances?

(iv).Do the children in the motherless  babies homes receive enough attention that  aids their language acquisition from workers and visitors?

(v) To what extent do the inputs of organizations aid the language acquisition of these children?

(vi) What are the effects of the language acquired in the motherless babies homes on the children?

(vii) Do the language environments in the motherless babies homes delay the  language development of the children?

1.5.   Significance of the Study

Specifically,  the research is significant  in that it will aid linguists, researchers  in related    fields,    mothers/caregivers,    governmental    and    other    non-governmental organizations,  and  experts  involved  in  planning  programmes/polices  for  children  to understand  and  appreciate  not  only  the  crucial  role  language  plays  in  the  over-all development  of  the  children  (in  motherless  babies  homes)  but  also  the  peculiar environment they acquire their language.

Linguists and psychologists are still a long way from a complete theory of language acquisition (Nwachukwu, 1995). This assumption stems from the fact that most experts that propound theories of language acquisition use the language  behaviour of normal children  and  children  in  normal  environment  (the  society)  to  formulate  theories  of language  acquisition.  They thus neglect  other children  in  isolated  environments  like motherless babies homes and rehabilitation centres.  This study is an attempt towards assessing the language acquisition of these deprived children and therefore it is expected to be an eye opener to the fact those language acquisition theories especially those that

relate to stages in acquisition should be so comprehensive as to include children in both normal homes and other special settings.

Equally, researchers in related fields especially those that relate to child  language, education     of     the     environmentally      challenged      children,      and      language impairment/disorders, will find this study useful. As the child’s language, especially that of the environmentally challenged ones is the focus of this research, other researchers in these areas will find it a veritable spring-board  and  reference material for their own study.

Mothers and caregivers are very essential in the language acquisition of the growing child. Mothers  and other  individuals  who visit the motherless  babies  homes and the caregivers in these homes will also find this study useful. This is because the study has not only exposed the language and environmental needs of these children but will also make their handlers to be better informed on the role language plays in the child’s early development.  These groups  of people  will not  only learn from the study the act  of monitoring  the  language  development  of  these  children  but  also  to  give  them  the necessary attention that will aid their language acquisition process.

Organizations,  be they religious, governmental or non-governmental  will find  this study useful in the area of understanding the linguistic needs of the research population. As these groups provide children in these homes with financial,  human  and material resources  needed  for  the  running  of  the  homes,  the  study  will  also  help  them  to understand the linguistic needs of the children and thus be able to provide them with the needed linguistic friendly environment, both within and outside the homes.

The study is also useful to experts in linguistics, education as well as policy makers. This is because the research will help them have a broader view of all the children in the country and thus be enable to formulate language polices that are so comprehensive as to include our research population.

1.6.    Hypotheses

In order to achieve the objectives of this study, the following null hypotheses were formulated.

(i) There is no significant difference in the state of language acquisition of children in the motherless babies homes and children that live in normal homes.

(ii) There is no significant  difference  between the language environment  of the  deprived children and normal children.

(iii)  There  is  no  significant  difference  between  the  negotiation  abilities  of the  deprived children and the normal children.

(iv) There is no significant difference between the mean response of mothers and workers in motherless babies homes on the effect of the language environment  in the motherless babies homes on the language acquisition of the children.

1.7.    Scope of the Study

The  study  covered  some  sampled  motherless  babies  homes,  in  Enugu  State  of Nigeria. It specifically focused not only on the language acquisition process of children in the motherless babies homes but also on the prevailing language environment in the motherless babies homes.

Since  the  field  of  speech  acquisition  among  children  is  a  very  large  one,  the researchers restricted the study to the speech/language  acquisition of children (infants aged 0-5 years) in the motherless babies homes. This enabled the researchers have an in- depth study of these linguistically deprived children

1.8.   Delimitation of the Study

A lot of constraints were encountered by the researchers while carrying out this research. Foremost among these constraints was the bureaucratic procedure involved in getting the approval of the motherless babies homes’ management for the use of their “homes” for the research work. All the motherless babies homes that were used for this study were owned by different organizations  and it was a  herculean task getting the approval of the management of these motherless babies homes for the use of their out- fits in this research work.

The  use  of  tape  recorder  of  any  type  is  essential  in  most  research  works especially when interviews and participant observation are employed. However, the use of such  back-up  equipment  is  highly  prohibited  in  these  motherless  babies  homes. Visitors  and  especially  researchers  were  not  allowed  to  use  tape-recorders,  video machines or even papers in recording anything in these motherless babies home. In view

of this, researchers  may thus be left with no other option than to collect the  needed information secretly.

Carrying out research with children is usually a difficult task and sometime time consuming.  This  is  because,  sometimes  they run away when they see that  you are interested in asking them questions and not playing with them. This was coupled with the fact that motherless babies homes have their own time-table, in view of that, whether you are through with your assignment or not, once it is time  for visitors to leave, you have to leave. Carrying out research in these motherless  babies homes was therefore time consuming as the researcher visited these motherless babies homes several times.

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