| The child who was the subject of this study made major advances in language learning throughout the duration of the study. He became an active and determined language user in an environment that encouraged and promoted functional and interactional language.;The child in the study is a male Caucasian of an upper middle class family residing in a small Midwestern town. The first indication that a problem existed was evidenced in his early speech. At age three he was limited to single word utterances and made no attempts to use connected speech. This language behavior, as well as other immature behaviors, continued into the fourth year. During the next three years many specialists were consulted; they offered general suggestions, and program planning included speech therapy (articulation and syntactic instruction) and a series of motor exercises. Tutoring programs included instruction in letter and number recognition and phonics. Little progress was noted; when the child was eight years, ten months of age he was placed in a special university program. Seven months later he was enrolled in a self-contained Language/Learning Disabilities classroom in a public school.;Two research approaches guided the present study: a phenomenological approach for data collection and M. A. K. Halliday's approach for linguistic analysis. Data were collected in naturalistic settings with the researcher acting as both observer of the child and participant with the child in activities. Instances of the child's uses of the language processes--speaking, listening, writing, and reading--were collected. Notations were made concerning the receptive and productive processes and concerning child-initiated and teacher-initiated verbal expressions.;The samples of language production were categorized according to Halliday's initial functions of language--instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginative, and informative. The register (the type of language used) was analyzed according to the variables of field (setting, subject matter, and purpose), tenor (participants, their role relationships, and attitude), and mode (channel of communication and the role of the language).;The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the language learning of a child identified as language disordered and to present a description and analysis of the development of the language processes--speaking, listening, writing, and reading--of this child. A further purpose was to study the effects on the child's language learning of classroom environments which emphasized the integration of the language arts and encouraged natural language use. Finally, this study was intended to contribute to the existing body of knowledge concerning language learning of children identified as language disordered.;This study was conducted over an 18-month period and data were collected in two formal learning environments: a special university program and an existing self-contained Language/Learning Disabilities classroom in a public school. The theoretical orientation of the teachers in the two classroom settings was that of whole language; a perspective which views language as a system for construction of meaning, learned in functional and interactional contexts.;In an environment that encouraged and promoted natural language use, this child became an active and more determined language user. This ability and incentive to use meaningful and personally significant communication resulted in increased self-initiated language (both oral and written). The self-initiated as well as teacher-initiated language was exemplified in a greater variety of registers.;The child's responses to a given classroom setting (field), involving appropriate dialogue between child and teacher (mode), with an accepting and cooperative teacher (tenor) enabled him to receive language in all the functions and to produce language in increasing numbers of functions. |
