Child Language Acquisition Flashcards
What is a virtuous error?
Where general grammar rules are applied to irregular words e.g Run = Runned
What is the behaviourist approach?
Children acquire language through imitation
What did Skinner suggest?
Interactionism
Children imitate their caregivers and this is reinforced by positive or negative reinforcement
How are developmental milestones a limitation of Behaviourism?
Most children go through the same developmental milestones apart from extreme cases of abuse
What did David McNeill state about behaviourism?
Children are often unable to repeat directly what a parent has said especially if they have not learned the syntax yet
What is the critical period?
The period under the age of seven where children need to learn to speak otherwise they will never catch up
What does the innate theory suggest about language acquisition?
That children must have an innate language acquisition device to learn language.
What is the language acquisition device?
A supposed part of the brain that establishes how children learn to speak through influencing how they process words from those around them
What is the Wug Test?
- Designed to understand how children acquire plurals
- To show that children learn language through patterns and not imitation
- 76% of 4-5 year olds effectively applied the ‘s
What did Slobin state to support Innateness?
- That human anatomy is adapted to facilitate speech
- Areas of the brain such as Broca’s area are identified as being part of speech development
How does sign language support innateness?
Fully grammatical language
Children learning to sign as a first language pass through similar stages
What is the main limit of Chomskys work?
His study was theoretical
Did not study actual children and their carers
Didn’t take into account the functions of language
How do Bard and Sachs study disprove Chomsky?
- Studied CODA named Jim - hearing son of deaf parents
- Watched TV,listened to radio etc but his progress was limited until a speech therapist was enlisted
What is the cognitive theory?
- Piaget
- Children can understand a concept before they can acquire language forms
- Language can’t develop until cognitive development
- e.g. children can’t use comparatives
What is seriation?
The point in a child’s intellectual development where they can compare by size
What is object permanence?
The idea that children have a limited understanding of objects they cannot see. This limits understanding of labels
What does Nelson say in contrast to innateness?
- Imaginary play means language is an extension of a child’s meaning making capacity
What did vygotsky state about the zone of proximal development?
- The gap in knowledge between the development on their own and the development under adult guidance/ in collaboration with more knowledgable peers
What does the interactionist theory say about language acquisition?
- The importance of language input from caregivers
- Bruners Child directed speech says that it provides context of interaction
What are the features of child directed speech?
- Change in pits
- Slower speech, lots of pauses
- Repetition and clearer speech/recasting
- Grammatically simpler sentences
- Tag questions
- Use of nouns in place of pronouns
What is Expansion in Child Directed speech?
When adults develop or add details to a child utterance
What is recasting in child directed speech?
When a caregiver repeats the child’s utterance but corrected
What are mitigated imperatives for CDS?
A command that doesn’t appear as a command but more as a suggestion
IRF (Initiation, response,feedback)- Sinclair and coulthard
- Models pragmatic/discourse conventions
What did Shieffelin and Ochs study?
- That in some cultures child directed speech is not a universal concept.
- That this doesn’t affect language acquisition
What is the language acquisition support system (LASS)
- gaining attention- gain babies attention
- Query- ask baby about it
- Label- label it
- Feedback
What did Wells find?
That children’s language development was proportional to the mothers speech to a child during shared activities
Karmiloff and Karmiloff-Smith?
That none of the theories explain language on its own so we need to take all of them into account
Features of pre-verbal stage?
- Cooing used as an attempt to respond
- Crying to communicate physical needs
Features of Holophrastic stage?
- ONe word utterances
