Child Langauge Acquisition

Question 1

Define ‘protowords’.

Answer 1

‘Made up’ words that a child will use to represent a word they might not yet be able to pronounce.

Question 2

Give the order of stages of language development in the average child.

Answer 2

They learn to:
-create individual phonemes and phonetic combinations (phonology)
-use a vocabulary of words and understand their meanings (lexis and semantics)
-combine words in a variety of sentence constructions, changing word formations to express different word classes (syntax and morphology)
-use prosodic features such as pith, volume, speech, and intonation to convey meaning (phonology)
-structure interactions with others (discourse)
-the subtleties of speech such as politeness, implicature, and irony (pragmatics).

Question 3

Define non-verbal communication.

Answer 3

Using facial expressions

Question 4

Define ‘holophrase’.

Answer 4

The term given to single words which may convey a multitude of messages. A child may convey a whole sentence worth of meaning in just a single word/ labels things in the environment around them.

Question 5

Give an example of a holophrase.

Answer 5

A child may use ‘milk’ to mean “I would like some milk”, “I’ve spilt my milk”, “Where is the milk?” or as a label. The meaning is derived from contextual requirements such as grabbing hands, pointing, looking distressed/ crying, banging on the table.

Question 6

What happens in the holophrastic stage?

Answer 6

The average child speaks their first word at around 1, between a year and 18 months the child will speak in single-word utterances (e.g. ‘mummy’, ‘teddy’).
Occassionally, the child may use multiple words which have been learnt as a single word unit (e.g. ‘wassat’, ‘allgone’).
Much of what is first learnt serves a naming funtion (e.g. ‘juice’, ‘biccy’, ‘daddy’).
However, sometimes a single word may convey multiple meanings (holophrases).

Question 7

What conclusions can be drawn about a child’s understanding in the holophrastic stage?

Answer 7

They are able to understand more words than they are able to pronounce.

Question 8

What purpose does speech serve in the holophrastic stage?

Answer 8

Expressing wants/ labelling, no complex purpose, function of naming, experimentation.

Question 9

What is required for understanding a child in the holophrastic stage?

Answer 9

Non-verbal communication, context clues (where they are, who they’re with, the time of day, their age).

Question 10

What is the importance of the caregiver at this stage?

Answer 10

Influence attachments of sounds and concepts, pick up common words through association.

Question 11

What happens during the two-word stage?

Answer 11

(The beginning of syntax)
A child’s understanding of language is much more advanced than their spoken language suggests.
Between 12-18 months- respond to 2-word instructions (e.g. ‘kiss teddy’, ‘tickle daddy’).
2-word sentences usually appear at around 18 months (the 2-word stage).
The 2 words are usually in a standard grammatical sequence (e.g. subject/ verb, verb/ object, subject/ object, subject/complement; ‘Stephen sleep’, ‘draw mummy’, ‘Louis juice’, ‘dolly dirty’). When a child repeats adult utterances, some words may be missed out.
Grammatical structure usually mimics that of the caregiver. The words uttered usually carry out meaning (content words).
Adult: “Danielle is playing in the garden”
Child: “play garden”

Question 12

What are the five groups Nelson groups words into?

Answer 12

-classes of object (e.g. ‘car’)
-specific objects (e.g. ‘mummy’)
-actions/ events (e.g. ‘give’)
-modifying things (e.g. ‘dirty’)
-personal/ social (e.g. ‘bye-bye’)
The biggest of these groups is classes of object- it is easier to describe things they can touch, see, or smell.
(Nelson studied the first 50 words produced by 18 children in 1973).

Question 13

How many words will the average child be able to use and understand at 18 months?

Answer 13

Actively use- 50
Understand- around 250

Question 14

How many words can the average 2 year old use?

Answer 14

300

Question 15

How many words can the average 5 year old use?

Answer 15

around 3000

Question 16

How many words can the average 7 year old use?

Answer 16

around 4000

Question 17

What is the estimated vocabulary of an 11 year old?

Answer 17

around 40 000

Question 18

Define under-extension.

Answer 18

When a child uses a word in a very restricted way. For example, when they say ‘hat’ they may only mean the hat that they wear, not just any hat.

Question 19

Define over-extension.

Answer 19

When a child uses a word to refer to several different but related things. For example, they might use the word ‘cat’ to refer to any animal with four legs (e.g. foxes, dogs, etc.)
This is more common than under-extension.

Question 20

What are the two types of over-extension defined by Rescorla (1980)?

Answer 20

Categorical- when a word is used to refer to things in a similar category (e.g. the word ‘car’ is used to refer to buses, trucks, and other forms of four-wheeled vehicle).
Analogical- when a word is used to refer to things that aren’t clearly in the same category but have the same physical or functional relation to each other (e.g. the word ‘hat’ is used to refer to anything connected with the head).

Question 21

What were the three development processes suggested by Aitchison (1987)?

Answer 21

Labelling- when a child links a sound to an object- they are able to correct name.
Packaging- when a child begins to understand the range of meaning a word might have. They recognise that the word ‘bottle’ can cover different shapes and sizes, but that they all have a similar function.
Network building- when a child starts to make connections between words (e.g. they understand that words have opposites like ‘big’ and ‘small’, or know that ‘little’ and ‘small’ are synonyms).

Question 22

What happens in the telegraphic stage?

Answer 22

At around 2 years old, children start to use 3-4 word combinations.
Utterances are formed according to grammatical rules (subject/verb/complement, subject/verb/object, verb/object/object; ‘doggy is naughty’, ‘Jodie want cup’, ‘give mummy spoon’).
Children still focus on content words which carry the most meaning, and omit functional words (e.g. prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and determiners).

Question 23

Which grammatical constructions are children likely to use at age 5?

Answer 23

• Coordinating conjunctions to link separate utterances.
  -Negatives involving the auxiliary ‘do’ (e.g. ‘don’t like it’)
  -Questions formed with ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘what’
  -Inflections like -ed for past tense, -ing for present participles, and -s for plurals.

Question 24

What are the stages of the pre-verbal stage?

Answer 24

Vegetative
Cooing
Babbling
Proto-words

Question 25

Give features of the vegetative stage.

Answer 25

Sounds of discomfort or reflexive actions (e.g. sickness/ gagging, yawning, coughing, crying)
(around 0-4 months)

Question 26

Give features of the cooing stage.

Answer 26

Comfort sounds and vocal play (e.g. ‘oooh’, ‘aahhh’).
(around 4-7 months)

Question 27

Give features of the babbling stage.

Answer 27

Extended sounds resembling syllable-like sequences. Repeated patterns.
(Reduplicated- ‘babababababa’
Variegated- ‘daba’, ‘manamoo’)
(Around 6-12 months)

Question 28

Give features of the proto-words stage.

Answer 28

Word-like vocalisations. (e.g. ‘ray rays’= raisins)
(Around 12 months)

Question 29

At what age does the post-telegraphic stage occur?

Answer 29

36 months
(more grammatically complex combinations)