Child Directed Speech Flashcards
What claim of Chomsky’s did early studies sought to debunk?
Child Directed Speech was a poor sample of the language being learnt
What is child directed speech?
Slower tempo, higher pitch and exaggerated intonation. Short well formed utterances and fewer complex sentences closely tied to the immediate context ‘here and now’ language
Why is child directed speech highly redundant?
Lots of whole and partial repetitions
What are questions and expansions used for in child directed speech?
Questions - create illusion of conversation
Expansions - clarify and upgrade child contributions
What is contingent talk?
Tendency to tune into and talk about whatever is the child’s current focus of attention. This makes it easer for the child to understand the relation between word and referent.
What did Tomasello and Farrar in relation to child directed speech?
Video recorded mothers playing with their infants in the home environment. Children whose mothers talked about objects that were the focus of the child’s attention at 15 months had larger vocabularies at 21 months
Why is early child speech often described as telegraphic?
Includes content words e.g. mummy and leaves out function words e.g. is and word endings
How do some caregivers respond to telegraphic speech?
By expanding, recasting or filling in the gaps
What did Farrar find in relation to child directed speech?
Found positive effects of recasting at 22 months on children’s use of plural and progressive at 28 months
What did Huttenlocher find?
Found significant relation between the lexical diversity of mother and child speech in 2 to 4 year olds and relation between mothers and teachers use of complex sentences and 4 year olds use of complex sentences
How is joint book reading rocket fuel for language development?
Encourages joint attention and contingent talk, promotes dialogic interaction and provides opportunities for expanding and recasting, increases lexical and syntactic diversity of adult speech,
What was the difference between speech addressed to children in professional families compared to families on welfare.
Professional - 2153 words an hour
Welfare - 616 words an jour
How are children on welfare disadvantaged at age 3?
Know less than half the words known by their disadvantaged peers
How are children on welfare disadvantaged at age 13?
Have reading ages more than 5 years behind their advantaged peers
What did almost 60% of children from low income families have?
A delay in language by the time they started school. Are on average 16 month behind their high income counterparts at age 5.
