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The stages through which children pass will be very largely the same. They do not, however, necessarily learn at the same rate and it is here that the possible influence of schedules of reinforcement can be admitted. But from the linguist's point of view, rate of learning is far less significant than the nature of the learning mechanism itself. Observation of children learning language also suggests that there are occasions on which pieces of language are learned simply through being heard. A word may be heard, perhaps once, perhaps more than once, but not produced by the child at the time it is heard. There is therefore no active responding and consequently no reinforcement and no repetition. In spite of this the child may suddenly produce the word quite correctly in a totally new context. However useful the behaviourist notions of reinforcement and repetition may be, then, they do not relate to conditions that are essential for learning to take place. |
