Because for the first
several years of childhood (if not longer) most of what children know comes
through direct experience. Language develops first in relation to experiences
that children have. Children who grow up on the reservation will normally
know words like "pow-wow", "fry bread", "snow" and "star quilt" much sooner
than will a child in Los Angeles who has no experience with those sorts
of things. The more experiences a child has, in general, the more of a
vocabulary she will have, because she will need to have words for those
experiences. The other important point, that I will come back to over and
over, is that children learn through INTERACTION with other people. Piaget
did not emphasize this as much as other theorist, most particularly Vygotsky,
but he did say it was important.
TALK TO YOUR CHILD AS YOU DO ALL OF THESE THINGS.
Julia goes through life with a constant narrative.
"Those are leaves on the tree,
Julia. Green leaves. Leaves are green. Touch them."
"That is bark. It is the tree's
bark. The bark feels rough. It is brown."
How much of it do I think she understands? At this point, probably close to none. I do know two things for certain, though.
1. Young children learn through repetition, and she gets a lot of it as I constantly label everything she sees and experiences through the day - blue boat, red boat, yellow boat, and so on.
2. At some point, she will start understanding language and at that point it will be all around her. She won't have missed a day when she was ready to learn that she wasn't exposed to a constant stream of language.
More on research on early development