Summary of supporting literature for development of the FOCUS™ System

Under Halliday’s Functional-Interactional theory (1985) language development is seen as environmentally driven mastery of innate language potentials. This theory highlights how linguistic features (i.e., the language per se) and the social aspects (i.e., the environment and intent of communication directed to the infant/child by carers) strongly interact. Bruner (1977, 1983) suggests that children need two forces to learn to use a language: an internal “push” referring to an innate component and a “pull” provided by the environment.

Research investigating the social aspects of language development focused on the primary markers that emerged from mother-child interactions. These effects, often referred to as “motherese”, are described as naturally occurring, individual adaptations in the mother’s speech that reflect her perceptions of the child’s ability to cope with language. Several adaptations have been described (e.g., simplified vocabulary and grammatical structures, and changes in tone and prosody) (see McLaughlin, 1998; Snow, 1995, for reviews). ‘Motherese’ has been described as scaffolding, or assistive, devices which assist young children’s development of language (Wells, 1985). The link between ‘motherese’ used and communication outcomes of the children continues and has been the subject of much research since the 1960’s.  Current intervention and prevention approaches used in practice to assist and reduce the risk of late talkers largely involves changing the communication patterns the parents use when interacting with their children (Hannen, 1998).

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