3 - First Language Acquisition

Question 1

How does L1A resemble L2A, and what does this mean?

Answer 1

• CV preference and deletion in phonology
• often there is a similar order of acquisition of morphology
• there are similar developmental stages of syntax such as negation and question
  These similarities may signify that there are universal mechanisms at work.

Question 2

What vocal developments are characteristic of an infant in the 1-2 month stage?

Answer 2

• vocalizations are mainly “distress sounds” (crying and fussing)
• other sounds produced are by-products of actions

Question 3

In the 2-4 month stage, what sounds do infants make?

Answer 3

• Begin making “comfort sounds”, typically in response to pleasurable interaction with a caregiver
• Infants begin being able to create glottal stops as their vocal tract develops
• laughter begins appearing at 4 months

Question 4

What vocal developments are characteristic of the 4-7 month period?

Answer 4

• Vocal play such as babbling begins
• Babbling consists of repetitive vowel-consonant combinations
• Baby’s noises begin to sound like phonemes

Question 5

In the 4-7 month stage, what is the purpose/characteristics of babbling?

Answer 5

• Vocalizations do not yet contain meaning
• Will only babble when calm, rather than when excited or upset
• These sounds are created before an infant begins to construct words
• Babbling in the first year of life typically signifies that speech is developing normally.

Question 6

What is the 7-month stage of child vocalization?

Answer 6

7 months is the canonical babbling stage.

Question 7

What is characteristic of the 7 month stage in vocal development?

Answer 7

• Infants are finally able to open and close the vocal tract
• Able to distinguish between the different consonant and vowel sounds
• Sounds are chopped up by rhythmic oral articulations into syllable-like sequences (bobo, nana, dada)

Question 8

At the 7-month stage of vocal development, what are the usual properties of consonants and vowels?

Answer 8

• Consonants tend to be stops and glides.

- Vowels tend to be low and open.

Question 9

What is the 10-month stage of speech development?

Answer 9

10 months is the holophrastic stage.

Question 10

What is characteristic of the holophrastic stage of speech development?

Answer 10

• Infants begin to utter recognizable words
• Generally only single-word phrases
• Words uttered tend to be in context that seems to involve naming

Question 11

At the 10-month stage, why might infants utter phrases such as “what’s that,” “peek a boo,” or “all gone,”?

Answer 11

Even though the phrases contain more than one word, the infant learns and stores them as single units.

Question 12

What is characteristic of the 18-25 month stage of development?

Answer 12

• The telegraphic, or two-word, stage syntax begins to emerge
• By 25 months, almost all children are combing words

Question 13

At 2 to 3 years old, how will have a child’s language developed?

Answer 13

Over the course of the second year, sentence length increases dramatically.

Question 14

At what age will most children have acquired all parts of their first language?

Answer 14

4 years old