child language acquisition - stages of development Flashcards
What kind of pre-natal development does a baby go through?
- 6 months before birth the ear bones have already formed + hearing happens
- it is likely that babies can pick up the individual intonation and speech pattern of their mother’s voice in the womb
- 3 day old babies can distinguish their mothers’ voice from other sounds
What is the order of the different stages?
- preverbal
- holophrastic
- two word
- telegraphic
- post-telegraphic
For how long is the preverbal stage?
starts at birth and lasts approximately 11 months
What are the characteristics of the preverbal stage?
- babies begin to communicate soundlessly with actions e.g. sucking on a dummy, crying, hand movements, etc
- they learn that making noise commands attention it signals hunger, distress or pleasure
What are the stages within the preverbal stage?
- vocal play (single vowel sound)
- biological noises (coughing, burping, crying)
- melodic utterance (melody, rhythm and intonation develop)
- cooing and laughing (back of the throat)
- babbling (produces phonemes e.g. baba)
What is cooing?
- also known as gurgling or mewing
What is babbling?
- around 6-9 months old
- exercises and experiments with articulators
- continues for several months after the first word
- phonemic contraction (9-10 months) the number of phonemes produced reduces
What are the rules of babbling from easy to difficult?
- stopped sounds (the air is momentarily stopped from being released e.g. ‘p’)
- reduplication (where the same vowel-consonant combination is required)
- variegated babbling (as above except that the vowel sound changes
- consonant cluster (number of consonants are combined e.g. ‘fr’)
- friction words (vibration when air is released)
How do babies use intonation?
- patterns begin to resemble speech e.g. rising intonation at the end
How do babies use gesture?
- the beginnings of pragmatic development
- their desire to communicate through gesture
e.g. point to object and use facial expression
What is the second stage?
the holophrastic stage
How long is the holophrastic stage?
usually between 12-18 months
How is the holophrastic stage characterised?
- the child conveys meaningful utterances that are usually 1- word utterances
- it is a significant stage because they’re deliberately conveying meaning through lexical choices
What did Katherine Nelson (1973) find with the holophrastic stage?
a child’s first words into the following categories:
1. naming things (nouns)
2. actions/events
3. personal/social
4. modifying things e.g. nice, dirty
What is overextension?
- a child uses a more specific word to label a more general noun
e.g. calling all men ‘daddy’ - they have not realised this word only applies to their father
What can overextension be categorised into?
- analogical overextension
- categorical overextension
What is analogical overextension?
- making links between different objects according to similar properties or use
e.g. a child may call a scarf ‘cat’ because it is soft like a cat’s fur - or they may call a cement mixer ‘ball’ because of the similarity in shape
What is categorical overextension?
- a child refers to all objects within the same category with the same name
e.g. when hyponym ‘apple’ takes place of the hypernym ‘fruit’