Chapter 8 Flashcards
True or False. Teaching hearing children to use sign language neither helps nor hinders the development of spoken language.
True
phonology
The sound patterns of a particular language and the rules for combining them.
semantics
A particular language’s system of meaning and the rules for conveying meaning.
syntax
The rules for forming sentences in a particular language.
prelinguistic phase
The period before a child speaks his or her first words
What are the characteristics of cooing and babbling?
Cooing is the first type of communicative sound that a baby produces.
It is made up of repetitive vowel sounds.
Vocalizations that include strings of consonant and vowel sounds appear around 6 months of age and are called babbling.
Babbling gradually changes until it reflects only those sounds that are included in the language that the baby is learning to speak.
expressive language
Sounds, signs, or symbols used to communicate meaning.
receptive language
Comprehension of spoken language
What have researchers learned about infants’ receptive language skills?
By 10 months of age, infants understand 30 or more words, though their speaking vocabulary is still extremely limited.
By 13 months, an infant’s receptive vocabulary increases to 100 words.
Babies as young as 9 to 12 months understand simple instructions.
How does gestural language develop among infants with hearing impairments?
Infants who are deaf develop nonverbal language similarly to hearing infants.
As they acquire sign language, they display a sort of sign babbling that is similar to the vocal babbling of hearing children.
hey also vocalize.
Referential signs appear in their nonverbal communication about the same time that the hearing infants speak their irst words.
Research shows that nonverbal gestures clearly difer from symbolic signs in young children who are deaf and develop similarly to those of hearing children
What are the trends in word learning over the first 2 years?
The earliest words appear at about 1 year of age.
he irst words are simple and are typically used only for speciic objects or situations.
Vocabulary grows slowly at irst and then usually spurts in a naming explosion.
By 16 months of age, most children have a vocabulary of about 50 words.
The earliest words are typically highly speciic and contextbound in meaning; later, children typically overextend word usage.
About how many words can one say at 6 months old?
30
About how many words can one say at 16 months?
50
Spurt known as the naming explosion
About how many words can one say at 24 months?
320
True or False. Children typically learn verb words before they learn noun words.
False
True or False. Studies of children learning other languages show very similar patterns.
True
underextension
The use of words to apply only to speciic objects, such as a child’s use of the word cup to refer only to one particular cup
overextension
The inappropriate use of a word to designate an entire category of objects, such as when a child uses the word kitty to refer to all animate objects
How does word learning proceed in early and middle childhood?
Children add approximately 10 words a day by the time they are ready to begin elementary school.
About how many words can one say at 2 1/2?
600
About how many words can one say at 5-6?
15,000
fast-mapping
The ability to categorically link new words to real-world referents
Child forms hypotheses, tests hypothesis by using the word, responds to feedback.
About how many words are added to vocabulary each year during middle childhood?
5,000-10,000
derived words
words that have a basic root to which some prefix or suffix is added. happily, unwanted
constraint
As used in discussions of language development, an assumption that is presumed to be built-in or learned early (a “default option”) by which a child figures out what words refer to. Examples include the principle of contrast and the whole object constraint.
principle of contrast
The assumption that every word has a different meaning, which leads a child to assume that two or more different words refer to different objects.
whole object constraint
built in assumption that words refer to whole objects and not to their parts or attributes
mutual exclusivity constraint
assumption that objects only have one name
True or False. Developmentalists continue to debate whether constraints are inborn or developed by experience.
True
holophrase
A combination of a gesture and a single word that conveys more meaning than just the word alone; often seen and heard in children between 12 and 18 months old.
telegraphic speech
Term used by Roger Brown to describe the earliest sentences created by most children, which sound a bit like telegrams because they include key nouns and verbs but generally omit all other words and grammatical inflections.
True or False. Even at the earliest stages, children create sentences following rules.
True. They may not be adult rules, but they follow rules nonetheless.
What is the significance of the grammar explosion?
During the grammar explosion, the child quickly adds many grammatical inlections and learns to create questions and negative sentences.
overregularization
Young children’s applications of basic rules to irregular words.
What grammatical skills do children acquire in the preschool, elementary, and teen years?
By age 3 or 4, most children can construct remarkably complex sentences. They begin to incorporate conjunctions like and, or, but. Later skills are primarily refinements of established skills, such as learning to understand and use passive sentences.
pragmatics
The rules for the use of language in communicative interaction, such as the rules for taking turns and the style of speech that is appropriate for different listeners.
What are the milestones of pragmatics development?
As early as age 2, children adapt their language to the needs of the listener and begin to follow culturally specific customs of language usage.
Adapt speech to different situations as when speaking to a younger sibling and when speaking to an adult. Children also use language to regulate their own behavior. Private speech.
How do environmental theories explain language development?
Two early environmental explanations, one based on imitation and one on reinforcement, have been largely set aside. Children often speak words they haven’t heard from parents. Parents often reinforce sentences which aren’t grammatically correct.
Poorer families have a tendency to have a more limited language development unless enriched by preschool environment.
More recently, emphasis has been placed both on the helpful quality of the simpler form of adult-to-child language called infant-directed speech, and on the role of expansions and recastings of children’s sentences.
Characteristics of IDS
Motherese
short simple sentences
slower pace
concrete vocabulary
repetition
higher pitch*
expanison or recasting
repeating a child’s own sentences in a slightly longer more grammatically correct form
mommy sock = Yes, this is mommy’s sock.
infant directed speech
The simplified, higher-pitched speech that adults use with infants and young children.
What kind of evidence supports nativist theories?
Nativist theories assume that the child is born with a set of operating principles that focus him on relevant aspects of language input.
There are many similarities in the steps and stages of children’s early language development across languages and among all children.
Children’s production of words that suggest the use of rules (e.g., “feets” rather than “feet”; “breaked” rather than “broke”) rather than imitation of mature speech supports the nativist view.
How do constructivist theories differ from other approaches?
Constructivist approaches difer from the learning and nativist perspectives in that they argue that language development is guided by the same processes that shape general cognitive development.
Constructivist theorists hold that a child constructs language at the same time and in the same way as he constructs all cognitive understandings.
Are differences in the rate of language development related to later measures of proficiency?
Children show diferences in the rate of development of both vocabulary and grammar, differences explained by both heredity and environmental inluences.
Despite these variations in rate of early development, however, most children eventually learn to speak skillfully.
mean length of uttereance (MLU)
The average number of meaningful units in a sentence. Each basic word is one meaningful unit, as is each inflection.
In what ways does language vary across cultural groups?
The sequence of language development is remarkably consistent across all languages.
There are a few exceptions, however.
For example, children learning Turkish produce sentences during the two-word stage that difer with regard to the use of inlections from those of children learning other languages.
phonological awareness
Understanding of the rules governing the sounds of a language as well as knowledge of the connection between sounds and the way they are represented in written language.
invented spelling
A strategy young children with good phonological awareness skills use when they write.
What strategies do educators use to help children learn how to read?
In school, children need specific instruction in soundletter correspondences, word parts, and comprehension strategies to become good readers. They also need to be exposed to good literature and to have lots of appropriate practice in using literacy skills.
systematic and explicit phonics
Planned, specific instruction in sound-letter correspondences.
whole language approach
An approach to reading instruction that places more emphasis on the meaning of written language than on its structure.
balanced approach
Reading instruction that combines explicit phonics instruction with other strategies for helping children acquire literacy.
What does research say about the link between handwriting and brain development?
Brain-imaging studies suggest that children who learn to write letters at the same time they are acquiring other information about them develop more adult-like patterns of brain activation than children who do not receive handwriting instruction.
Researchers believe that the unique motor actions associated with writing each letter are stored along with meaningful information about the letter.
Writing practice may activate the networks of meaning associated with letters and strengthens them.
Touch pads may make handwriting instruction as important to computer use as keyboarding instruction is.
English-language learners (ELLs)
School children who do not speak English well enough to function in English-only classes.
bilingual education
As practiced in the United States, a school program for students who are not proficient in English in which instruction in basic subject matter is given in the children’s native language during the first 2 or 3 years of schooling, with a gradual transition to full English instruction over several years.
structured immersion
An alternative to traditional bilingual education used in classrooms in which all children speak the same non-English native language. All basic instruction is in English, paced so that the children can comprehend, with the teacher translating only when absolutely necessary.
English-as-a-second-language (ESL)
An alternative to bilingual education; children who are not proicient in English attend academic classes taught entirely in English but then spend several hours in a separate class to receive English-language instruction.
submersion
An approach to education of non–English-speaking students in which they are assigned to a classroom where instruction is given in English and are given no supplemental language assistance; also known as the “sink or swim” approach.
