Chapter 5 Flashcards
Language as a Social Tool
- Infants communicate well before they have language
- Infants learn that language is a tool they can use to have their needs met
- The acquisition of language depends on early communication development
- Infant-Caregiver dialogue
- Caregivers talk about objects that are immediately present in the environment
- The primary caregiver is the primary socializing agent
Role of the Caregiver in Communication w/ Infant
- Has superior flexibility of timing and anticipates the infants behavior
- Has an intuitive curriculum and leads the infant’s behavior
- Is able to monitor and code changes of expression
- Can alternate among different means to attain the desired ends
- Is creative in introducing variations of repetitive vocalization
- Assumes the infant is intending to communicate even when the infant is not, thus causing development
- The infant responds, makes sounds and reactions that the caregiver interprets as communication
- The infant’s eye contact is a form of closeness and communication
- head position, turning towards/away
- Infant influences communication with wakefulness too
Facial Attenuation
- Infants show a bias for listening to speech from birth
- Infants have a visual preference for the human face
- Caregivers interpret eye contact as a sign of interest and attention
- Lack of eye contact has a negative effect
Socialization and Early Communication
- how caregivers maintain stimulation
- how interaction affects the infant’s view of environment
- To maintain attention, a caregiver must modify his/her behavior to provided the appropriate level of stimulation
- Exaggerated facial expressions and voice
- Infant - Caregiver bonding is determined by the quality of interaction
- Infant cries, caregiver responds . . .
- Infant develops an expectation that he/she can control the environment
When do infants begin to smile in response to people?
They smile in response to the human face, eye gaze, and human voice (esp. high pitch) develops at 3-6 weeks
When to infants begin to pay attention to eyes?
They pay attention to eyes around 2 months
When does the social smile begin to emerge?
3-6 weeks
Purpose of Crying
Crying is a infant’s means of communicating /as a result of parental responses/
When can parents reliably identify types of infant cries?
Parents can reliably identify types of cries by 3-4 month
Rituals and Game Playing
-Rituals like feeding provide a child with predictable patterns of behavior and speech
- Games like peek-a-boo have aspects of communication:
- -Exchange of rules
- -Rules for each turn
- -Particular slots for words and actions
- Period of face to face play between 3-6 months
- Exposure to emotions and facial imitation
When does interest in objects beyond noise making toys increase in infants?
Interest in toys and objects increases at around 6 months beyond noise making toys
Infant Emotions: Interest, Distress, Disgust
When does it develop?
Interest, distress and disgust are present at birth
Infant Emotions: Fear
When does it develop?
Fear develops around 5-7 weeks
Infant Emotions: Anger, Surprise, Sadness
Anger, surprise and sadness develop around 3-4 months
Communication Intentions: When it develops, what it is
- At 8-9 months, an infant develops intentionality - goal directed behaviors and the ability to share goals with others
- Communicative intentions are primarily expressed by gestures
- 9-month old children use both gestures and vocalizations to accomplish intention
Communication Intentions: functions prior to language
Functions are 1st fulfilled by prelinguistic means prior to language:
- Requesting
- Interacting
- Attracting attention
Importance of Pointing
- Pointing is a widespread, cross-cultural pattern
- By 12 months, infants use pointing to share with others, a communicative act
Development of Communication:
Newborn and infants
- Newborns are prewired for communication
- They prefer the human face, and their vision at birth is perfect for close contact with mother–8 inches focus
- Prefers the sounds of mother’s speech as they’re used to it from in utero and also connected speech
- By three months they prefer all speech over anything else
- They will search for the source of speech and when they find a face, their expression will open up
Development of Communication:
1st month
- week 1: hand gestures, tongue protrusions, mouth opening in response to similar behaviors
- 2 weeks: can discern mom from stranger
- 3 weeks: social smile
Development of Communication:
2nd month
- Visual responsiveness and memory
- Certain people associated with certain behaviors, i.e. mom=feeding
- Cooing develops
Development of Communication:
3rd month
- Infant learns they can control environment by crying out, requesting attention and receiving care
- Broader smile
- Loses interest in expressionless faces and faces that don’t fit baby’s face schemes–too far off and they lose interest or cry
- Caregiver has to change vocal pitch, energy, etc to keep baby’s interest
- Infant can be interested for longer periods
- Levels of maternal sensitivity, playfulness, encouragement, pacing at 3 months positively related to the security of attachment at 9 months
- Communication dialogues increased even though handling has decreased 30 percent
Infant Directed Speech: characteristics
-simplified speech helps children learn language
Characteristics:
- Short utterance length
- Simple syntax
- Small core vocabulary
- Frequent paraphrasing and repetition (high rate of redundancy)
- More frequent facial expressions and gestures
- Higher pitch
- Object centered
Caregiver Response: importance
- Appropriate and consistent adult responsivity is important in the emergence of early communication
- Communication results when the caregiver attributes meaning to a baby’s behaviors
- Child learns that his/her behavior results in consistent, predictable effects
Infant Directed Speech: purpose
- Appropriate and consistent adult responsivity is important in the emergence of early communication
- Communication results when the caregiver attributes meaning to a baby’s behaviors
- Child learns that his/her behavior results in consistent, predictable effects
Eye Gaze
- Caregivers change their typical gaze and speech patterns during infant interactions
- Caregiver monitors infant’s gaze and adjusts
Joint Referencing: the basics
- Two or more individuals share a common focus on one object
- Look: serves a notice function
- Conveys attention to a conversational partner
- Important for language development
Joint Referencing: the 3 aspects
- Indicating: Can take a gestural, postural, or vocal form
- Deixis: Use of spatial, temporal, and interpersonal features of the content to aid joint reference. Found in words: here, there, this, that, before, after, you, me
- Naming: Infants associate names with their referents prior to producing names meaningfully
Importance of Games
- Anticipatory body games Ex. Peek-a-boo and tickling games
- Reciprocal interaction such as copycat games
- Games allow for shared, meaningful, nonverbal communication
- Play demonstrates many characteristics of conversation
- Turn taking in infant/caregiver “conversation”
