1-1 - History of Child Language Studies Flashcards
Where does “What’s Past Is Prologue” come from?
Motto of US Archives
Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”
What is Ethology?
The scientific and objective study of animal behaviour (Subtopic of zoology)
Focuses on animal behaviour under natural conditions
Opposed to behaviourism, which focuses on behavioural response studies in a laboratory setting.
What does “What’s Past Is Prologue” mean as the motto of US Archives?
Understanding the past helps you understand the present
What does “What’s Past Is Prologue” mean in regards to Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”?
The past shapes the present.
A couple of characters kill another and they explain that they did this because of the dead characters actions.
What are the three major periods of language study?
Diary Studies
Large Sample Studies
Longitudinal Studies & Experimental Studies
When were Diary Studies the rage?
1876 to 1926
When were Large Sample Studies the rage?
1926 to 1957
When were Longitudinal Studies & Experimental Studies the rage?
1957 to Present
What are Diary Studies?
A parent/caretakers writes down what their kids say
What are five key words that describe the method of Diary Studies?
Parent Observer
Induction
Unsystematic
Unpredictable
Atheoretical
How were diary studies inductive?
The goal was to collect data on observations
Next we sought to interpret this data without assumptions
What sort of observational data was collected in diary studies?
Babbling
Word construction
Prepositions
How were diary studies atheoretical?
They were trying to learn, not to test any theories
They came into studies with a completely open mind about what they were going to find
When was Taine’s big year?
1877
What did Taine contribute to the study of child language?
He was a French man who wrote about a study of his child
Darwin remembered he had studied his own child too and wrote an associate paper on his own son
What was Darwin’s big year in regards to the study of language?
1877
What was Darwin’s son’s name? Where did he fit in with Darwin’s other children?
William
The first of 10 children
At between what ages did Darwin study his son’s language development?
Birth to 21 months
What was the name of the paper Darwin wrote about his son’s language development?
“Biological sketch of an Infant”
What did Darwin add to the study of child language?
Gave the study of child language acquisition some credibility
What was Stern & Stern’s contribution to the study of child language?
Der Kindersprache
The first book on child language
What was Stern & Stern’s big year?
1907
What was the Pedagogical Seminary’s contribution to child language studies?
It was the first journal to publish several articles on the subject
Who was the editor of thePedagogical Seminary?
G. Stanley Hall
What was Leopold’s contribution to child language studies?
He wrote 4 volumes on his daughter Hildegard’s speech development
When were Leopold’s big years?
1939 to 1949
When was Leopold’s work cited a lot and why?
The 1950-60s
It was the most detailed work at the time
Who was Margaret Morse Nice?
One of top diary researchers
When did Margaret Morse Nice live?
1883-1974
What did Margaret Morse Nice study later in life?
Became a ornithologist later in life
What was Alexander Chamberlain’s contribution to the study of child language?
He was a prominent anthropologist & linguist
He specialized in American Indian linguistics
He published several hundred publication before he died at 49
When did Alexander Chamberlain live?
1865-1914
What was Louis XIII’s contribution to the study of child language?
His court physician kept a daily language diary on him for 29 years
This was the first documented child with a speech sound disorder - a lisp
When was Louis XIII born?
1601
What do Nativists believe?
That language is innate
“______ and______ are so strong in a child that if it learns our language from us, we ______ from the child” (Taine)
Originality
Invention
Learn it
What are two critiques often given of diary studies?
They are unsystematic & biased
Does Dr Ingram agree with the common critiques of diary studies?
No, he sees this as mostly unfair criticism
What is one real weakness of diary studies?
Phonetic transcription not as developed as it is now so there are inconsistencies
What are some strengths of diary studies?
They provide rich data
The gave us first insights to how children acquire language
What was Piaget “bowwow” study?
It looked at how his son used the word “bowwow” over a 2-3 month span
Did Piaget keep diaries of his kids?
Yes
How did Piaget’s son use “bow wow” at 1;2?
He said bowwow to…
Dog Hen Cows Guinea pig Cat
How did Piaget’s son use “bow wow” at 1;3?
Said bowwow to an…
Ant
Tractor
How did Piaget’s son use “bow wow” at 1;3?
Said
Moo to cows & deer
Kitty for cats
Moo or kitty for pigs
What is something unique that diary studies can show us?
How children will specifically avoid certain words
What words did Samuel Ingram avoid? What did he say instead?
Ball
Boat
Box
Aiyiyi substituted for a word he did not want to say
What is the method for Large Sample Studies?
5
Large numbers of subjects
Cross-sectional
Systematic
Small samples per child
Quantitative analysis
Diary studies were looking at ______ samples.
Very small
Large Sample Studies came during the time when psychology at the time was trying to find ______ data for _______.
Commonality/normative
ALL children
Most normative data on children was established in the ______.
1950s
Large sample studies usually included ______.
20-30 kids or more
What do cross-sectional studies look at? Why?
Children at different ages
It allows you to study different ages during the same small time period
How are large study samples systematic?
Same sampling procedure/test is done for each subject
What worries Dr. Ingram about large sample studies? What would improve this?
50 sentences is not enough to assess a child’s linguistic ability
We should increase the number of samples per child and lessen the sample size
Longitudinal studies are better at looking at how children ______.
Change as they grow
The field of speech and hearing sciences was formed in the ______.
Big 10 schools (midwest)
What were Madorah Smith’s big years? Where was she based?
1920-30s
Iowa
What did Madorah Smith do?
Large sample studies
Looked at average number of words per age
Gave us a sense of what was normal per age
Where were Dorothea McCarthy & Mildred Templin based?
Minnesota
When was Templin’s big year?
1957
Templin was working during the ______.
Peak of large sample studies
What was Templin’s big experiment?
She looked at 480 children between the ages of 3;0 – 8;0
What three things did Templin measure?
Vocabulary Acquisition
MLU (Mean Length of Utterance)
Speech Sound Development
What is the Behaviorist’s theory of language?
Children learn by being reinforced for what they do
Child vocalizes [da]
Child imitates words will similar sounds, e.g. “doll”
Child associates sound to context
When was Behaviorism the dominant viewpoint?
1920-50s
Who promoted the behaviorist perspective beside Skinner? When was his big year?
Bloomfield
1933
Chomsky said it was better to study ______ than to study _______.
One language in depth
100 languages superficially
What were the downfalls of large sample studies?
4
Linguistically naïve (Only looked at few parameters of language: consonants, vocab, and length)
Grouped data (Not enough data to represent a full brain, doesn't get at the depth of language learning)
Superficial
Atheoretical
What were the benefits to large sample studies?
Norms
Extensive group data
Measurement
What did David Pearlmacher do?
Taught himself fluent German but having lunch with a german professor once a week for 9 months
What was the usual method to Longitudinal & Experimental Studies?
3 children
Regular longitudinal visits
Audio recorded
Transcribed (handwritten in early studies; now entered into computer files)
When was Brown’s big year?
1973
What were the names of the three children that Brown studied?
Adam, Eve, Sarah
Why was Sarah added to Brown’s study?
Because Adam & Eve were so different
In Brown’s study…Who was the fastest learner? Who was the slower learner? Who was the most interesting to researchers?
Eve was faster learner
Sarah was slowest learner, but her morphology was very interesting to researchers
When was Bloom’s big year?
1970
Who were the three kids that Bloom studied?
Eric, Gia, Kathryn
Who published more studies: Bloom or Brown? Who is more famous? Why?
Bloom published more studies than Brown
Brown is more famous because he allowed others to borrow his research
Where did Brown study/teach?
Columbia University
Who did Bloom study? When did she start?
Her own daughter Allison Bloom
Started recording her at age two
What was Bloom’s book called? What was it about?
“One Word at a Time”
First words and word combinations
What did Allison Bloom do?
She sued her mother as an adult for invading her privacy as a child
When was Braine’s big year?
1963
What were the names of the three children that Braine studied?
Gregory, Andrew, Steven
What does CHILDES stand for?
“Child Data Exchange System”
What is the CHILDES Database?
A massive archive of child language studies
There are also algorithms that allow you to compare different aspects of data
How do Italian and American kids differ in there acquisition of the phoneme /v/? Why?
Italian children acquire it early; American children acquire it late.
/v/ is in a lot of child-specific Italian words
Child Language is ______, ______, offers _____, and is _____.
Inductive
Data oriented
Lean interpretations
Constructionist
Why does the Child Language approach offer lean interpretations?
It assumes that kids are working hard to learn language (Not so much that it’s a struggle but that it takes time)
It assumes that kids don’t understand more much more than what they are actually saying
Why is the Child Language approach considered Constructionist?
It believes that that kids go through stages of language learning
What journal is associated with the Child Language approach?
The Journal of Child Language
Language Acquisition is _________________.
5
Deductive
Theory oriented
Offers rich interpretations
Maturationist
Needs a large linguistic understanding
What journal is associated with the Language Acquisition approach?
Language Acquisition
How do children learn?
Innate knowledge
Linguistic input
Correction
Who were two individuals who believe that kids are born with innate knowledge?
Chomsky
Bates
Who provided the “other one spoon” example?
Braine
Is correction a main ways kids learn language?
No
