Abstract:

For early childhood educators, an understanding of attachment theories has recently become a very important issue because children’s relationship with parents or other caregivers greatly influences the overall later development of the child's personality. Several types of research confirm that a quality relational bond between children and their caregivers has a significant impact on a child's language development (Nicely et al. 1999; Sajaniemi et al. 2001; Tamis-LeMonda et al. 2004; Juffer et al. 2005; Paavola et al. 2005; Sachs, 2005, Birsch 2011). Although genetics plays a significant role in the development of speech, several studies have confirmed the influence of the social environment and peer relationships on the further development of children and subsequently on their language learning. Attachment has been shown to have a significant ability to influence brain plasticity for language. Vocabulary diversity and parents' speech have been confirmed as strong predictors of children's later language and literacy development. In this context, attachment is one of the main determinants of children's vocabulary acquisition and is also our main variable. The aim of this review study is therefore to analyses studies on attachment theories and to determine how and to what extent these theories and constructs relate to children's early language development and later how they pave the way for early childhood education. We will focus on the verbally responsive interaction style, which the educator must consider as one of the basic manifestations of children's interaction.
The study is the output of the research task within Project Programme of linguistic development for children with a different mother tongue in Slovak language - creation and verification, supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the Grant No APVV-22-045.

Keywords:

Attachment theories, early childhood, education, language.