Chapter 7: Language Development

Question 1

When do infants produce telegraphic speech? What is this?

Answer 1

From 18 to 24 months.

This is a short-hand version of speech where infants combine a subject and a verb.

Question 2

When do most languages become enjoyable to read?

Answer 2

Roughly around grade 5.

Question 3

With rapid language learning comes what problem, described by whom?

Answer 3

The problem of reference.

Quine pointed out that there are literally an infinite number of possible referents for new words: colour, shape, size, etc..

Described by Willard Quinte.

Question 4

What age seems to be the cutoff for native-level speech capability?

Answer 4

Must start learning before age seven.

Question 5

How did Piaget view language development?

Answer 5

Piaget believed that language development was dictated by the same processes as normal knowledge acquisition.

This was a part of symbolic play during the pre-operational stage.

Question 6

What are three ways that infants tend to overcome the problem of reference? Provide a short definition for each.

Answer 6

Whole-Object: Children assume that novel words will refer to the entire object.

Taxonomic: Children assume that objects are grouped conceptually or categorically rather than thematically.

Mutual Exclusivity: New words are not synonyms for words that they already know.

Question 7

“According to some researchers, language development occurs hand-in-hand with children’s understanding of others as ____________…”

Answer 7

Intentional agents.

Researchers see an understanding of the other person’s sphere of life as a key aspect of developing language.

Question 8

How do deaf infants babble?

Answer 8

They will make characters with their hands.

Question 9

When do infants begin showing signs of categorical perception with language? What does this indicate?

Answer 9

One month.

This is the beginning of specialization. Infants give up a continuous hearing range to specialize in their native language.

Question 10

Differentiate between a Pidgin and Creole language.

Answer 10

Pidgin languages are produced by two or more adult groups that do not have a language in common. These will not have a standardized grammar.

Creole languages are produced by the children of those who developed a pidgin language. Because children have a competency for grammar, this language will develop a standardized grammar.

Question 11

How do 27 month old toddlers indicate an understanding of word order?

Answer 11

In the Sesame Street study, toddlers were more likely to look at the correct tickling image despite not being able to produce language themselves.

They use the subject-verb-object order of language to infer this–as has been supported by other studies.

Question 12

When do bilingual infants develop the ability to distinguish between languages?

Answer 12

Around four months.

Question 13

When do infants show an intuitive understanding of grammatical clauses (as indicated by a violation of expectation study where incorrect pauses were placed in speech)?

Answer 13

From seven to ten months.

Question 14

Why did we develop critical periods surrounding language acquisition?

Answer 14

“If language learning can be accomplished once, early in life, then the individual should not bear the cost of having a costly language acquisition device sitting around doing nothing.”

“In our EEA, people were not emigrating from Asia to North America in a single lifetime…”

Question 15

What does it mean for an infant to code-mix?

Answer 15

Code-Mixing: Using vocabulary and grammatical construction from multiple languages in a sentence.

Question 16

An understanding of word order appears at what age? What error develops alongside this?

Answer 16

Two to three years.

Over-regulation develops at this age too: the over-extension of newly learned grammatical rules.

Ex. “I have two feets, and you have two feets!”

Question 17

Scientists find a gene that appears to disrupt language. Why is this?

Answer 17

It is a recent mutation that breaks a pre-existing structure.

Question 18

What are the two primary jobs of a parent regarding language teaching?

Answer 18

1) To use infant-directed speech (culture-specific).

2) To correct factual but not grammatical errors.

Question 19

Does grammar require input to develop?

Answer 19

No.

Question 20

How is the developmental trajectory of bilingual children different from that of monolingual children?

Answer 20

Bilingual children are originally slower to develop full competence in each language, but will eventually possess superior executive control.

Question 21

Provide two pieces of evidence that support the claim, ‘children are specialized to perceive language’.

Answer 21

1) Infants prefer tones within the human vocal range over pure tones.
2) Using the head-turn procedure, it has been found that infants can distinguish between phonemes outside of their native language.

Question 22

How do we know that infants have knowledge of their native language, and aren’t just equally open to all language?

Answer 22

Infants (four days old) will increase sucking behaviour when they hear anybody speaking their mother’s language.

This is true when the voice is muffled, hidden behind a melody, or is simply just native vocal inflections.

Question 23

Infants have a unique ability to learn new words based upon selective exposure. What do developmental psychologists call this?

Answer 23

Fast mapping: The learning mechanism that allows a children to learn a new word based upon selective exposure.

Question 24

There are four key arguments against an associationistic view of language development. What are these?

Answer 24

1) Learn near-perfect language from imperfect input.
2) Learn rules about deep structure that allow them to interpret two varying sentences similarly.
3) There is a universal grammar across languages that mandates adjective order, as a single example amongst many.
4) Commonly generate novel combinations of words.

Question 25

How is a human’s larynx placed differently than an apes? When does this formation take shape?

Answer 25

The human larynx is unable to fully close, allowing us to make the odd sounds that we do. This, however, means that we are unable to drink and breath simultaneously.

An infants larynx is able to close until roughly three months. This prevents them from choking, but also means that they are unable to produce human speech sounds.

An ape’s larynx can always close.

Question 26

Across all of the ape-language studies what did we learn.

Answer 26

Humans are the only animal with an infinitely generative language ability.

At best, an ape is able to learn 25 words through extensive conditioning.

Question 27

Over what age range does the language explosion occur? How many words are learned in this time?

Answer 27

1.5 to 6 years.

10,000 words are learned in this period—roughly six a day.

Question 28

What are the three ‘pragmatic’ cues that infants use when learning words? And what developmental age are most of these tested at?

Answer 28

1) Attention
2) Emotion
3) Intention

18 months.

Question 29

Describe when each of these stages occur, and what occurs within them.

1) Cooing stage
2) Babbling stage
3) Complex babbling stage

Answer 29

1) Cooing stage (2-months): include vowels in speech.
2) Babbling stage (6-months): add constants to vowels.
3) Complex babbling (8-months): Non-random usage of vowels and constants.

Question 30

When do infants tend to lose their universal phonemic sensitivity? How rapidly does this occur?

Answer 30

Roughly at one year of age. This decline seems to mainly occur over the final two months before this birthday.

Question 31

Why are written and spoken language developmentally unique?

Answer 31

Spoken language is a part of human psychology.

Written language is an artifact.

Question 32

What is the relationship between shared attention and language development?

Answer 32

Shared Attention: “an individual’s ability to tell when he or she shares an object of attention with another person.”

“Mothers who engaged their infants in more shared attention between the ages of 6 and 9 months had infants who developed better communication skills.”

Question 33

The later an individual begins learning a language the more the _____ area of their brain is activated when speaking.

Answer 33

Right.

The left hemisphere is traditionally associated with language comprehension and production.

Question 34

What unique characteristics does infant directed speech contain?

Answer 34

Speech with higher pitch, lower speed, exaggerated intonation, and fewer grammatical errors.

Question 35

What is phonological awareness, and when should we expect it to develop?

Answer 35

This is a developed relationship between letters and sounds.

Typically develops from ages 3 1/2 to 10 years.

Question 36

When does a deaf infants language development become non-normative?

Answer 36

At the complex babbling stage, or around 8 months.

This stage requires perceptual input to reach.