2. EARLY SOCIAL SKILLS AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Question 1

primary intersubjectivity

Answer 1

• first months: attention to faces, eye contact, produce vocalisations, imitate sounds and gestures, one at a time interactions
• caregiver and infant share experiences in face-to-face interactions. but these interactions are dyadic (baby and caregiver, baby and object)
• no assumption of the perspective of others
• these interactions are not intentional

Travarthen, 1979

Question 2

secondary intersubjectivity

Answer 2

• older infants (around 9m) : more sophisticated, pointing, turn-taking, shared attention
• caregiver and infant share experiences, these interactions start to become triadic
• interactions become intentional and infants start to assume that others have their own perspective

Trevarthen, 1979

Question 3

dyadic mimicry

Answer 3

• newborns mimic facial expressions
• 3-4 month olds imitate sounds
• limited form of imitation
• no understanding of intention
• shows motivation to engage

Kuhl & Meltzoff, 1996; Meltzoff & Moore, 1977

Question 4

preference for faces

Answer 4

from birth, infants prefer to look at things that are “face-like”

Question 5

Attention to gaze - newborn

Answer 5

newborns prefer to look at direct (compared to averted) gaze

Farroni et al., 2002

Question 6

attention to gaze - 6 month

Answer 6

• 6 month old infants only follow the gaze to the object if preceded by mutual eye gaze
• same results for IDS (not ADS)
• the communicative signal encourages infants to attent to the same object

Senju and Csibra, 2008

Question 7

9 month ‘revolution’

Answer 7

• around 9 months
• coordinating with others: emotional response, visual attention
• interact over other object, activity etc..
• use of pointing to direct attention

Tomasello, 2003

Question 8

Name 2 experiments used to investigate coordinated emotional response in infants

Answer 8

still face experiment (Adamson & Frick, 2003)

visual cliff example (Sorce, et al., 1985)

Question 9

signals of beginning of intentional communication by infant:

Answer 9

• use of eye contact/pointing to direct attention
• consistent use of vocalisation to indicate specific goal
• evidence of child waiting for response
• persistence if not understood

Question 10

Turn-taking

Answer 10

• young infants (from around 3m) alternate vocalisations with their mothers
• by 12 months, very few overlaps between ‘speakers’
• proto-conversations

Question 11

proto-conversations

Answer 11

an interaction between an adult and baby, including words, sounds and gestures. attempting to convery meaning before onset of language
- similarities between turn-taking in early vocalisations and later conversation

Bruner, 1975

Question 12

At what point can children control turn-taking?

Answer 12

• interruptions suggest children cannot control turn-taking until 3rd year (Rutter & Durkin, 1987)
• in the early stages the caregiver ensures a smooth interaction
• difficult to establish exact point

Question 13

joint intention

Answer 13

triadic interaction involving child, adult, and object/event

shared awareness of the shared attention
- attention is shared, followed, and directed

Question 14

social referencing

Answer 14

By 9 months, children look to adult in unfamiliar or threatening situations to gauge emotional response
- visual cliff (evidence)

Sorce et al., 1985

Question 15

Joint attention skills predict….

Answer 15

later language skills

Question 16

Routines

Answer 16

• much of early language is learnt in routines
• caregivers structure routines around child
• routines create a shared context, child knows what is next
• highly repetitive routines provide a scaffold for language learning
• routines differ in the types of words used

Bruner, 1983

Question 17

Role of mother: joint attention

Answer 17

• mother initially solely responsible for establishing shared topic and providing relevant language
• Mother’s sensitivity to child’s focus of attention related to child’s vocabulary development (Tomasello & Farrar, 1986)
• Twins often show language delay - linked to amount of time spent in joint attention episodes with mother (Tomasello et al., 1986)

Question 18

development stages: following points

Answer 18

9 months: can follow point in front of another person
12 months: begin to check back with pointer
14 months: follows point across line of sight

Carpenter et al., 1998

Question 19

age of specific gaze tracking

Answer 19

infants dont specifically track the gaze until around 18 months
(Corkum & Moore)

• 12 month olds follow a blindfolded head turn (wont follow if eyes are closed)
• 14 months olds follow when eyes are visible
  (Brooks and Meltzoff, 2002)

Question 20

intentions - Behne et al., 2005 study

Answer 20

look at whether 14-, 18-, and 24- month-olds will follow a helper’s point. Do they understand that there is a shared goal of finding the toy?
results: (both point and gaze)
- mostly correct at 14 months, improves at a slowing rate with age

results: (non-communicative points and gaze)
- slightly more incorrect at 14m, slightly correct at 18

Question 21

types of pointing

Answer 21

imperative - get adult to do something
declarative - to direct adults attention

Question 22

directing attention criticism

Answer 22

• infant learns that pointing gets what they want
• infant gets attention by pointing
  BUT
• infants indicate when adult finds ‘wrong’ object