Learning aims have been provided to help keep track of the key concepts you need to master in each chapter:

• understand the different facets involved in the study of human language
   
• be able to articulate the essential points of learning, nativist and interactionist accounts of language
   
• be aware of evidence for and against each of the three theoretical accounts
   
• be able to describe the key concepts involved in phonological development
   
• be able to describe the course of semantic development including concepts such as fast mapping and the constraints which support the development of children’s word learning
   
• be able to describe the course of grammatical development including concepts such as syntactic bootstrapping
   
• be able to describe the developmental course of pragmatic knowledge and key concepts such as speech registers, conversational implicature, and the cooperative principle