Reflective Essay

Table of Contents

Introduction 3
Reflection upon Language Development 3
Reflection upon Gender Identity 7
Kolb’s Reflective Model 10
Concrete Experiences 10
Reflective Observation 10
Abstract Conceptualization 10
Active Experimentation 11
Conclusions 11
References 13
Introduction 
Language development and gender identity are two of the most important processes from
which every child goes through and it needs a lot of attention from the parents. However, at the
age of five children started developing language. In which we see that the initial stages of every
child are universal but the other stages of developing a language vary from child to child. More
than half of the world’s population is multilingual, and a few are monolingual, so in this case, a
child has to learn the languages of their parents and the society as well (Anderson, 1946).
According to the research, girls learn faster than boys and this varies from child to child
according to intelligence as well but after the age of 5, it is much more difficult for children to
learn the language. Same as language development, gender identity plays a very important role in
a child’s behaviors. Gender identity is the personal and very intimate sense of one’s gender,
sometimes the person is feeling not the way he actually is which is the main difference of sex
and gender, gender is typically what biologically a child is, and sex is what he feels he is (Yu &
Xie, 2009). Gender expression mostly reflects the gender attributes and quality of the person but
sometimes that is not the case, maybe expressing the attributes, traits, qualities, likes, and
dislikes but these traits and expressions can be opposite to what he is. So, this does not very
necessarily show one’s gender (Slavenas, 1993). 

Reflection upon Language Development

Language is one of the most important tools to survive in society for adulthood as well as
childhood. Learning a language is a very difficult thing to do and learning multiple languages in
schools colleges are way more difficult for students especially when we have to learn the
language as a foreigner living in a specific area (Choe, 2013). Within a few years, the awareness
and concern are being more of learning a language and from last approximately twenty-year the
scope of learning more than one language is being increased especially for the families who are
not from an English background and this language awareness is a bridge for language
acquisition.
The theoretical processes that help in promoting and constructing language development
are cognitive development, behaviorist, nativist, and interactionism. There are also some other
prospectives that do not positively contributes into language development but assist the process
through concepts and ideas development. The interactionism and behaviorist perspectives are
more on the contribution of nurture which is self-made and from the society, on the other hand,
cognitive and the nativists perspective focuses on the natural qualities which are inborn and
innate, they are not self-made of influenced (Choe, 2013).
The behaviorist perspective is with the idea the children behave with each other and our
daily life they do, influenced by our past experiences. Behaviorist idea is based on the nurture
that children learn based on the stimuli, forces, responses, and reactions which occur on daily
basis in our environment (Feldman, 2019). Language is learned by the nurture and the
environment in which the children are encouraged and by connecting and associating verbal
stimuli and objects (Feldman, 2019). 
Skinner argued that language is learned by the re-enforcement where th3 children go with
trials and errors. In this way, children are learning more because they try until they successfully
learn to speak correctly. In this major part is playing by parents they are shaping all the
information in the head of their children by providing different gestures may be, approving,
neglecting, attending or smiles which are somehow pleasant foe the children (Garvey, Bloom &
Lahey, 1979).
Cognitive development perspective, people are very curious to know that how the
children come to know about the world and its living. People have noticed and discovered that
children have different thinking and point of view at different ages of their lives. The knowledge
is not merely distributed verbally but it is sometimes it is constructed and reconstructed by the
learner, he filters knowledge. The child has to know about the objects and things to know about
the language of one’s culture. Nativist theoretical perspective is when a child picks any grammar
or syntax vocabulary without any formal teaching because they understand and learn their native
by listening and practicing from the surroundings, socioeconomic society and family, etc.
(Miller, 1979).
During real childhood, the ability of the child to get more information and store it,
produce, gain, and developing a language is more effective and rapid. Young children start
developing and learning the language at the age of 3 to 6, picking the names and information. At
the age of 3, the vocabulary of the children extends to approximately 900 words. By age 6, the
vocabulary which is to be spoken dramatically and effectively increase from 8,000 to 14,000
words. In infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood, young childhood, children can understand
the words and vocabulary by lip-syncing but not able to speak that much properly (Zucker et al,
1993). Noticing further rather than just listening their expressive sense (the works which they
can speak) is also much more increased with the exposure of the receptive sense (ability to listen
and respond). 
Children who acquire two languages earlier in the age of 3, is terms as simultaneous
bilingualism seem that their parents are speaking two languages at home, so it is easy for a child
to adopt. Successive bilingualism develops after the age of 3, when the children start acquiring
the second language and when the student experience language overlapping. This happens when
the children confuse themselves between two languages from one to another. Children start
mixing the vocabularies, terms, alphabets (Kuhn et al, 2014). Codes of these 2 languages which
are being spoken in front of them the two languages are very beneficial to teach the children the
ethnic and traditional unity. Code mixing is a common phenomenon when the child becomes
used to it the two languages are always in the favor of them.
Children learn a new language easily than adults because of the more potential to learn
and having fresh minds to absorb new information. Language and culture go side by side they
are the major and interwoven part of children’s life. Children learn language and culture by
seeing their family, socioeconomic society, education, and dialect. Most of the children learn
language rapidly. Language is the source of communication and understanding due to which it is
considered to be the most significant moment in a child's life when he speaks his first word
(Kuhn et al, 2014). It is a common phenomenon that children learn language from their
surroundings which include parents, friends, and family who communicate with the child and
encourage them to respond back. From crying to speaking some words they develop immense
understanding by learning thousands of words from family environments, socials, etc.
Language is the main source of communication and to live a social life. One who is not
able to communicate cannot enjoy a good social life. Miscommunication is quite a barrier.
Language and speech problems do not normally occur in children, but research has been
discovered that children with this type of speech impairment disorder are more likely to have
psychological issues. However, children with more speech confidence and communication skills
are healthy and socially active (Otto, 2018). 
Studies have revealed that the child and adolescents with speech disorders or
communication impairment are evident to have disproportionately problematic. These problems
can include the disadvantages in language and speech competence, educational adjustment,
educational achievement, intellectual functioning, psychosocial disabilities and problems, and
enhanced chances of psychic disorder (Feldman, 2019). Key insights of the research have
revealed that these problems occur mainly in the child from early childhood that doesn't feel
comfortable in speaking or when he has to communicate in the society and he feel ashamed
which result in problems that affect his language. Similarly, it reflects his academic, cognitive
behavior, psychosocial issues and ultimately he becomes the victim of bias behavior of the
society. It is important to support the victim of language impairments and it should be done
specifically in schools (Feldman, 2019). 
There is a strong possibility that a child with poor language skills, lack of
communication, speech impairments have a high risk of getting into psychological or psychiatric
issues, i.e., anxiety, depression, mental disorders from early childhood, and Adolescents. Poor
and bad verbal skills can highly affect the psyche of a child and especially it is common in boys.
Children or adolescents with the disorder who have language impairment in early childhood are
more likely to experience situations concurrent and future behavioral rather than the child who
has this at a young age (Garvey, Bloom &Lahey, 1979). Rather than the speech problem alone,
children who have language impairments as well are more likely to have psychological disorders
and behavioral problems. Having these disorders, language impairments are quite a gap between
a child and society, they often face social difficulties, they get bullied in schools, they are
ignored, and they are socially separated by their peers. Continuous social difficulties in adults are
researched out to be that these adults will be clinically referred children, having disorder and
language impairments.
Language impairments are mostly referred to bad academic performance or
understanding in Children or Adolescence. Language impaired children and youth, on average,
more likely to have bad performance in the academic phase than the children who have not this
disorder (Kuhn et al, 2014). On the other hand children at the age, five to eight who are having
language impairment are more likely to have disabilities in learning and speaking, and these
children when becoming adults at the age of 19 can be facing learning and a bit of speaking
disorder without language impairment issues. The most recent research has been revealed that
children with language impairment face a lot of problems in development, including short-term
memory loss, aggression, auditory processing (Kuhn et al, 2014). At the age of 25, a person with
language-impaired is having lower problems or maybe the age of 19 rather than the children of
age 5, 6, or maybe 8. Moreover, the job opportunities, quality of life, social support, etc., are as
high as the people with normal language controls but children with the poor outcome are
relatively language impairments from childhood rather than the ado lenses.

Reflection upon Gender Identity 

Mostly, people think that sex and gender are the same things theoretically and practically
but in fact, these two are different in their nature and roles. Gender means that the person is a
male or female apparently and physically. On the other hand, sex means that what a person feels
and sense that they are. Male, female, both, neither, etc. gender refers to the biological term that
the person is, but sex refers to the person who they feel, and it can be different from their
biological sex (Beal, 1994).
Most of the children start to show their gender abilities, qualities, and specification at the
age of 2 to 3 years and they do this by several actions, maybe choosing the color, appealing
content, selection of toys, clothing, and by their traits. As they reach their age 3 they started
playing games about what their gender has appealed to them and the gender which are same to
them. For instance, maybe the video games, truck games or car games, action games are more
appealed to the boys then the girls and play of dress-up, dolls, and colors are more appealed to
girls, but one cannot judge the gender by only playing games because nothing is sure about
identifying the gender. We talk about the majority but there are also a lot of exceptions. Some
boys love cooking, playing with makeup, and are too much into clothing and colors and some
girls do not like dolls or [lay with dolls they play with cars, love going out being a child and
gardening (Beal, 1994).
However, children do not think or start thinking about gender and their traits at the age of
3 or 4 until they are fully aware of the world at the age of 9 or 10 when they start socializing with
people around them and start differentiating between them and other genders and in this way
they start behaving in the way they think the society will accept and love them (Cervantes,
2018). Gender roles are mostly identified and influenced by the role models of the children. For
instance, children see their parents, relatives, peers, or anyone and learn from them, they see their
fathers doing jobs, earning for households, socializing and they see their mothers mostly in the
kitchen, socializing, attending guests and side by side doing the job. So in this way, a child starts
developing a perspective that this is “male’s duty”, and this is ”female’s duty”. This is how a
child influences himself from the surroundings (Beal, 1994). 
Somehow this is very important to know that one cannot associate anything with the
specific gender this would be a sweeping statement. Boys must know that playing games, having
interests in cars, technology, like the blue color, like socializing, doing jobs are not manly things
this is also associated with girls and this depends on one’s interest (Cervantes, 2018). Likewise, a
boy should also be free to do what he wants, some boys love to be a designer, they like cooking,
they like pink color, they love to wear colorful clothes, they are sensitive and shy, and things
which are traditionally associated with girls. Boys and girls should be what they want rather than
how society thinks fit for them. The ability to the recognition of things is the ability which
usually children develop over time and it is a natural process. They start questioning about
things, about body development, things of their interest which maybe they like or dislike. They
start seeing their parents about things, even sometimes they start doing certain things which can
be associated with the gender identity of a child. In this way, one can access that these are things
or traits that are being boyish or the traits which are being girlish (Halim, Ruble & Amodio,
2011).
For more than 60 years, the researcher has been researching that how gender is developed
and influenced by the surroundings. Most children learn the gender associated things from
adults, family, environment, and most importantly parents, how to walk, how to sit, how to
behave, attitude towards the scenario, and in personality development as well. The behaviors
which children learn about gender from the people around them are called “gender norms”
(Halim, Ruble & Amodio, 2011). One thing we should remember that gender norms are not the
same in every society as we see that in some society’s men do the jobs of women as we as
women do the jobs of men. Same as the adults are always the role model for children. As we see
that the child is more likely to be resilient and brave where they are appreciated and felt
important that they belong to the world.
At the age of 3 to 4, children start learning about the difference in genders, attributes,
qualities, physical appearances and what society is expecting from them being a boy or a girl,
and how different they are in their traits. At the age of 5 to 6, children are much rigid in what
they believe and what they are. They are not able to accept the change and any argument. They
felt a lot of pressure on them of what they are because they do not have that sense of
understanding and they are not that much developed to think and modify the beliefs and the
things they know. For instance, the peers, educators, or the parents who have a great role in
guiding him can understand that the child cannot understand the white lies and still hard to use
them. Researched call these ages the most rigid age of the human (Ostrov & Godleski, 2010). If a
child wants to wear clothes which are not suitable for his gender even knowing that the other
children may find it strange. This type of rigidness, resistance, and persistence can clearly show
the desire and the strong urge to do what he wants. But we see that the gender rigidity declines as
age increases because with age they start developing their instinct and impulses that what is good
for them and other children (Ostrov & Godleski, 2010).
Children require safe nurturing for growth, adults need to understand the behavior of
children what they want and what they are. Children have their gender qualities because gender
traits are not specific and universal. Parents should let their children develop their traits
according to what they are. Sometimes people say such things that are gender-based and it
creates the mindset of a child, for instance, adults tend to comment the girls on their dress-up that
“you’re looking adorable”, “which color are you wearing”, “how beautifully you walk”, “do you
cook” but these type of compliments are not common for boys in society. On the other hand,
adults tend to comment the boys that” how fast you run”, how do you climb”, “do you play
games”, “you’re very smart”, you’re very responsible” etc., these type of compliments we do not
usually listen for girls (Otto, 2018). As we know the adults are the stimulator, motivator, power
package, encouragement, and role models for the children o they should encourage them to be
what they are and to provoke their self-esteem because it is the need of everyone irrespective of
the gender. Rather than complimenting on games, plays, dress up, beauty, food, etc. adult should
talk about the values for instance, “hoe kind you were with your friend”, “ have you seen those
kids eating with etiquettes”, “one should clean up his room”, your sense of design is so good, etc.
(Otto, 2018).
There is nothing biological or psychologically wrong with the boy kid who wants to play
with dolls and the gild kid who wants to play with trucks. They are just different as everyone is
and one should accept that moreover in gender identity development children sometimes seems
to be transgender or gender creative, they have also the right to live as the other children do.
They can live with the child with male and female gender and live a happy healthy life, in this
case, parents must talk to the gender specialized professional who has specialization in care of
transgender in case of any problem. Sometimes the child cannot speak himself on this issue so
parents must have a check on them regarding any personal or social issues (Pungello et al, 2009).
Kolb’s Reflective Model 
Kolb's reflective model is actually experiential learning because according to this model a person
learns through his own experiences. It is a continuous process of our own experience which is
firstly viewed, then analyzed, and thirdly evaluated to start the cycle again with new experiences.
It has four stages which are as follows:

Concrete Experiences 
This is the first stage in which a person physically experiences a situation, due to which he
realizes that to learn something new from it, he must evaluate it with existing skills and practice
it again and again. In this phase, one will only consider the experience and express his feelings
and thinking. Both children learning development attributes language development and gender
identity, which are described above, the child grasps the situation according to his understanding
and repeats the situation, again and again, to keep it into his thoughts (Perry, Pauletti & Cooper,
2019). The best example from language development is when a child learns a new word or
sound, he repeats it all day and night and refers everything to it. At that stage, the child was just
analyzing his experience with new ones and linking the objects with words, this is how he
learned the language. A similar situation is with gender identity, he starts recognizing the gender
from his parents and links everybody according to features of his parents, and this is how he
starts recognizing the genders at a very early stage of his development (Mills & Rubin, 1990). 

Reflective Observation
The second stage in Kolb's reflective model is reflective observation. It is a self-analysis stage
where every person keeps doing what is new and stop from doing things that were already
learned. This stage promotes team working and team development because a person learns a new
vocabulary, new experiences from the surroundings which in this stage known as a team. In the
language development process, vocabulary is very important because it helps in communication
and understanding. In the case of child language development and gender identity, he starts by
repeating the already learned words, with each passing week he learns new vocabulary and starts
using them in his conversation, that's how his process of language development progress.
Similarly, with growth and physical gender resemblances, a child slowly starts identifying the
opposite gender except for his parents and it goes to family and friends circle (Miller, 1979).     

      
Abstract Conceptualization 
The third stage is abstract conceptualization, it is not a verbal or communicating process, its a
level of analysis and interpreting the situation. In this stage one sense the surrounding and
develop a relationship among the experience and events. It’s an inbuilt natural approach. It is
very common in gender identity, where a child senses his mother or close relatives instantly than
a stranger. Similarly in language development, children respond to rhyming words more
frequently than to unknown words (Loeber et al, 1993).

Active Experimentation
 It is the experimental stage where the things acquired in concrete experience are modified and
new strategies are made to reflect new experiences. This active experimentation becomes a new
concrete experience and that's how Kolb's reflective model starts once again. Keeping the two
reflective perspectives that are described above into consideration, the child learns words and
sounds by using the Kolb model in a way of grasping sounds and repeating them again and
again. Once he is satisfied with his work, he got indulge in trying something new, and with each
passing month, he learns and develops his behavior and skills (Loeber et al, 1993). 

Conclusions 
In both cases, language development and gender identity, parents' support and attention are much
more needed. One should not force the child to do what he is for the society but to do what he
wants to do. For language development, one should talk to their child on daily basis according to
the interest of the child about things and career. Talking to them and wait for them to respond in
their best possible way (Pungello et al, 2009). Another is to respond to the child, whenever he
wants to talk about something, say something, one should respond to them quickly so that they
have a sense that they are being understandable and book reading is one of the best things one
can do with his kids. It enhances the brain psychology, though process and one of the best ways
for improving vocabulary and language. The same case with gender identity, in homes parents,
should talk to their children about the natural body phenomenon of life which are with everyone,
the environment at home must be friendly so that they could ask and do not feel shy or
embarrassed (Robbins & McGowan, 2016). In this way I child is feeling any discomfort he
would talk to his parents and feel relaxed. This is the most important thing to understand in both
cases that the children must be judged by whom they are not by what other children are and what
they do. Every child is different and has different traits and attributes. One should accept his
child what he is being a person and he feels, children grow at different rates so there is a wide
range of being normal in the child development process (Siegel, Bijou & Baer, 1963).

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