Exam 2 Flashcards
What are the 3 criteria for a true “first word?”
- purposeful
- Consistent pronunciation similar to adult form
- Used consistently beyond context in which it was learned
What is phonetically consistent form? (PCF)
- Word like production that a child uses consistently but is NOT similar to the adult form
- example: iiiii for water being used consistently
Toddlers continue to use and rely on ____ to support language learning as they transition from prelinguistic stage to first words
Gestures
What are the two types of gestures that toddlers use during the transition stage?
Referential and Deictic
Referential gestures details
-Precise referent and stable meaning across contexts (wave bye-bye)
Deictic gestures details
- Pointing, showing, giving
- imperative pointing: pointing used so adult will get an object
- Declarative pointing: pointing used to call adult’s attention to something, make a comment
Gesture use at 14 months predicts ___ size at 3;6
vocabulary
Characteristics of first words
Lots of nouns
Present in child’s environment (people, food, clothing, body parts, animals, household items)
Things that are important to them, community and culture
Toddlers continue to rely on ____ to support language development during transition from prelinguistic stage to first words
Gestures
What is the relationship between word comprehension and production during semantic development?
Children need to understand language before they are able to produce it
Children typically understand around __ words before they learn to say their first __ words
10
50
For the first 50 words, the rate of comprehension is ____ as fast as production
Twice
What is the timeline for word spurt?
1;0 first words appear
1;0 to 1;6, children slowly acquire 50 words or so
1;6 to 2;0, word spurt and word combinations begin
On average, word spurt occurs around _, first __ words are acquired
1;6
50
What are the two styles of word learning?
Expressive
Referential
Expressive word learning details
- More even distribution across categories (nominals, action words, personal-social words, modifiers)
- Higher use of social-personal words
Referential word learning details
• Dominance of general nominals vs personal-social words, action words and modifiers
Why is there separation between referential and expressive learners?
Environmental influences
Individual preference
Semantics: What are Nelson’s categories of meaning?
Personal-social words
Nominals
Modifiers
Action words
Nominals can be broken up into two categories, ____ and _____
Nominals (definition)
General and specific
Most frequent type in production, Another word for noun
General vs specific nominals (definition and examples)
General: All members of a category, Banana, cup, hat, etc
Specific: Names of individual examples in a category, Specific cat named fluffy, teddy bear named Bobo
Nominals examples
- Sound effects and animals: moo, meow, quack, dog, cat
- Food and drink: juice, milk, cookie, apple
- Body parts/clothing: nose, eye, mouth, shoes, hat
- House/outdoors: clock, light, cup, bottle, tree
- People: baby, family members
- Toys and vehicles: ball, block, car, boat
Action words definition
Most frequency type in comprehension
Words that describe or accompany an action
Types of action words + examples
- General actions: Up, sit, go, eat, see, down
- Locatives (preposition, location words): In, on table, bed
- Social-action games: Peekaboo, where’s baby
Personal social words definition
Words that express affective states or social relationships
Personal-social words examples
- Assertions: Yes, no, want, hmmm, mhm
* Social expressive actions: Hi, bybe-bye, nite-nite, please, thank you
Modifiers definition
Words that refer to properties and qualities of things or event
Modifiers examples
- Attributes (often adjectives): Big, little
- States: All gone, hot, happy, more, dirty, cold
- Locatives: There, come-here, here
- Possessives: Mine, Daddy bed, mommy food, etc.
What is word mapping?
Forming a link between a referent and a symbol
Tier 1 principles are the basic skills that infants bring to word learning, what are the three principles:
Reference words
Extendibility words
Object scope words
Reference words details
Symbolize things in our world
Extendibility words details
Extendibility words: Words label categories or objects
Object scope words details
Words label whole objects not parts, I.e. what is the scope of an object?
Tier 2 provides principles that are used to refine tier 1 words, what are the three?
Conventionality, categorical scope, novel-name or nameless category
Conventionality details
Words are refined based on how they are used in a community
Categorical scope details
Limits extendibility of words to items within the same category
Novel name or nameless category details
- Children select an unknown object when presented with a novel label
- Process of elimination
How are new words learned?
Segment words from continuous speech
Find examples of the word in the world
Map the word to its referent and concept
What is the complete word mapping process? (2 steps)
- Fast mapping: Child gets an initial, tentative definition connecting the word to available information, association
- Slow mapping: Extended phase where the child gradually refines the definition with new information gained with additional experience, Refine the meaning
What are the three word learning strategies discussed in class?
cognitive strategies, linguistic strategies, expressive strategies
Cognitive word learning strategies are best for learning ___
nouns
Cognitive strategies details and assumptions
- Whole word assumption: Words refer to whole objects, Corgi is the whole animal
- Type assumption: Words refer to a category, not an individual, Corgi is a type of dog not the name of the dog
- Basic level assumption: Words refer to objects that are alike in basic ways, Corgi is not a word for animals, but for a class of animals
- Mutual exclusivity: Words differ in meaning, Corgi does not mean dog, nose or other words that the child knows
Linguistic word learning strategies are best for learning ___
verbs
Linguistic word learning strategies involve ___ and ____
Bootstrapping and language structures
Linguistic word learning strategies: bootstrapping details
o Using what you know to support what you don’t know
o Semantic bootstrapping: use semantic knowledge to figure out unfamiliar syntax
o Syntactic bootstrapping: use syntactic knowledge to figure out unfamiliar meaning
Linguistic word learning strategies: Language structures details
o Provide insight to word meanings o Articles indicate members of a class o Lack of articles indicates names and classes o This is a dog vs This is Ben vs These are dogs.
Expressive word learning strategies involve ___, ____, and ____
Making statements, testing hypothesis, asking
Expressive word learning strategies: making statements details
o Child says a word and waits for a response
o May be used when the child is certain of the word or in trial and error mode
o More intentional in wanting a response
o Horsie. Cup. Big.
Expressive word learning strategies: testing hypothesis details
o Child says word with rising intonation awaiting reassurance or confirmation by the conversational partner
o Asking a question but have not learned how to ask a full question
o Doggie? Run? All-gone?
Expressive word learning strategies: asking details
o Child is unsure of the word so asks
o What’s that?
What is the purpose of overextensions, underextensions, and appropriate use?
Refine semantics in the categorical scope
Children are making hypotheses as they are learning language, then refine words based on experience
What is overextension?
Using wider range of meaning than the adult form
What are the three types of overextensions?
Categorical, analogical, relational
Categorical overextension details
o Extend word to a referent in the same or close category
o Dada for mother, truck for bus, apple for all fruits
o Most common type of overextension
Analogical overextension details
o Extend the word to a referent that is perceptually similar
o Tick for sound of dripping water, hat for basket on the head
o Relating to one of the five senses
Relational overextension details
o Extend the word to a referent that is semantically or thematically similar
o Hot for objects that are forbidden to touch, bird for a plane
o Something that is the same theme, does not involve the senses
What is appropriate use + examples?
Word used appropriately
Example: Sees a ball and calls it ball
What is underextension + example?
A more limited range of meaning than the adult form
Most common and often goes unnoticed, more common than overextension
Example: Only calls a ball a ball when seen in a picture book
What do underextensions show?
Shows that children tend to use words cautiously and conservatively when learning
Children can sometimes develop associative complexes which are ….
String of associations
Why do word use errors happen?
o Category membership errors (still refining the categories and their features)
o Retrieval error
o Incomplete knowledge of semantic features
o Limited vocabulary so using known word for unknown word
o Phonological simplicity: Word is too hard to say so they say something simpler
Semantic feature analysis works to improve ____ by activating elements of a ____ network, helps to better distinguish and ___ each category
word retrieval
semantic
define
What are Dale’s four stages of vocab knowledge development?
o Stage 1: no knowledge of the word
-I’ve heard of it but don’t know what it means
o Stage 2: emergent knowledge
-I’ve heard it but do not know what it means
o Stage 3: contextual knowledge
-I recognize it in context – it has something to do with ….
o Stage 4: full knowledge
-I know it.
What is the 30 million word gap study and its significance?
o Based on research by Hart and Risley, 1980s
o Researchers looked at words produced by various income levels
o Showed 30 million word gap between professional and welfare level families
o Children had much less word input
What is phonology?
o Set of rules that govern the occurrence and distribution of phonemes
o Specific to each language
Phonology determines:
- Phonemic inventory: which phonemes occur in a language
- Phonotactics of the language: sequence of phonemes that are allowed in a language
What are phonological rules?
o Rule that determines
Change that happens between the phonemic (mental representation) and phonetic level (what we actually say)
Variations of a phoneme occur
What are phonological rules?
o Rule that determines
- Change that happens between the phonemic (mental representation) and phonetic level (what we actually say)
- Variations of a phoneme occur
What is it called when phonological rules predict allophonic variation?
o Complementary distribution
Working memory and long term memory’s role in phonology and learning first words
o Working memory: holds incoming information so it can analyzed
o Long-term memory: new words are stored
While learning first words, ____ is key and leads to better understanding of the symbol
Association
Make sure to consider these two elements during phonological development
Phonological characteristics of the words that the child is learning
Child’s emerging phonological system
What are the two different word representations and the corresponding storage type used during phonological development?
- Holistic storage: Whole word representation during the one word stage
- Segmental storage: Phoneme level representation, starts during the two word stage
- Example: cat being broken down into individual phonemes
Expressive phonology is ….
- Learning to articulate phonemes
- Vowels, consonants, syllables, words
Receptive phonology is ….
-Learning to represent words
• Mental representation: how is it supposed to sound?
• Does the child have a receptive concept of the word?
• Rich (adult specific) vs lean (child, general)
What are the 3 lexical characteristics related to phonology?
Word frequency, neighborhood density, phonotactic probability
Lexical characteristics: Word frequency details ……
- High frequency words are more recognized and produced more easily
- How often do we encounter the word in the world
- Is the word used frequently or not in a language?
Lexical characteristics: Neighborhood density characteristics
- Think of: number of minimal pairs that a word has
- The number of possible words that differ by one phoneme
What are the two types of neighborhood density?
- High density
- Words have lots of neighbors or minimal pairs - Low density
- Words have few neighbors are not many possible minimal pairs
- Easier to learn possibly due to uniqueness
___ density words are easier to learn
Low, possibly due to uniqueness
Lexical characteristics: phonotactic probability details
- Likelihood of a sound sequence occurring in a language
- Common sequences are perceived and produced more easily
- Ability to discriminate phonotactics of native language emerges around 9 months (perceptual narrowing)
English phonotactics: English words must have one ___ with at least one ___ also called the nucleus
syllable, vowel
English phonotactics: English words can have up to _ consonants in the onset
3
_ _ _ vowel _
English phonotactics: English words can have up to _ consonants in the coda
4
_ vowel _ _ _ _
What is speech perception’s role in phonological development?
- Ability to discriminate non-native phonemes disappears around 10 months of age
- Babbling practice helps form phonological template of the first words, syllable shapes expand in toddlerhood
What are the components of independent analysis?
Word and syllable shapes (mean babbling level and syllable structure level)
Phonological inventory
What is mean babbling level and what is it used for?
- Analysis of the phonetic and syllable shape complexity of babbling
- Used for prespeech independent analysis
- Points assigned based on the level of complexity
What is syllable structure level and what is it used for?
- Analysis of phonetic and syllable shape complexity of early word production
- Used for meaningful speech independent analysis
- Points assigned based on the level of complexity
First words are phonologically ___, ___ increases by adding ___ syllables and ____ clusters
simple
complexity
multiple
consonant
Children come up with ____ _____ called __ ___to accommodate complex word into their phonetic repertoire
Different strategies, phonological processes
What is phonological inventory and what is it used for?
- Used for independent analysis
- Phonemes that a child can say
- This is unique to each individual (universal phonetic tendencies + individual variation)
Some children prefer certain types of ___ and favor learning of words with those sounds
Sometimes the order of acquisition for ____ is affected by how ___ a ____ occurs in a child’s environment
Phonemes
Phonemes, often, phoneme
What is the Neo-Jakobson approach to the theory of phonological development?
-Start with syllable structure and then acquire features of phonemes that help distinguish phonemes from each other
The theory of phonological development is different in between languages in ….
- Phonological inventories
- Phonotactics
- Functional load: number of contrasts for a particular phoneme
- Order of acquisition is influenced by the number of words that a phoneme occurs in the language
What are two types of phonological analysis?
Relational analysis and independent analysis
Independent analysis details
- Aims to examine the child’s unique sound system independent of the adult target
- Looking at what the child is doing and what they can do?
- Phonemic inventory and word shape inventory
Relational analysis details
- Aims to examine the child’s production in relation to the adult form
- Want to see what is different
- PCC, pMLU, Phonological process, proximity
How is phonological analysis performed?
- Articulation tests (Goldman Fristo Test)
- Speech samples
- Gather words produced spontaneously used by the child
What are the relational analysis measures?
PCC, pMLU, Proximity, Phonological processes
What is PCC and how is it calculated?
Percent of Consonants Correct
Score the most complete version of the word, give one point for each consonant
Pre and post vocalic /r/ are consonants but rhotacized r is not counted
What is pMLU and how is it calculated?
- One point for each phoneme in the word (both consonants and vowels)
- Give one additional point for each correct consonant that’s in the correct position
- rhotacized vowels are one point as well
What is proximity and how is it calculated?
- Child pMLU/adult pMLU * 100 = proximity
- Calculates how close the child is to the adult target
What are phonological processes?
- Linguistic rules children apply in order to simplify speech
- Rule for how and when the phonemic representation (mental representation) becomes the phonetic representation (what is said)
What are the different classes of phonological processes?
Syllable structure, substitution, assimilation processes
Syllable structure processes definition and examples
Definition: child simplifies syllable shape closer to CV or simpler shape Examples: Final consonant deletion Weak (unstressed) syllable deletion Cluster reduction Epenthesis Reduplication Initial consonant deletion (atypical)
Substitution phonological processes definition and examples
Definition: substitute harder sound for easier sound Examples: Stopping Fronting Depalatalization Gliding Vowelization Metathesis Backing (atypical)
Assimilation phonological processes definition and examples
Definition: phonemes influence each other Examples: Assimilation (place, manner, voicing) Consonant and vowel harmony Prevocalic voicing Postvocalic voicing
What is a morpheme?
Smallest unit of meaning
Morphemes: Bound morphemes definition
Need to be added to something else for meaning, cannot stand alone
Types of bound morphemes and their definitions
Derivational: creates a new word using prefixes and suffixes, change the meaning of the word
Inflectional: creates new forms of the same word using suffixes (aka grammatical)
Morphological learning requires ….
o Categorization of words into semantic classes
o Segmentation of words into morphemes
o Takes several years to acquire morphological competence
Morphological learning follows a pattern:
- Initial learning of the morpheme
- Overgeneralization errors occur as the child tries to extend the use of the morpheme
- Correct use of morpheme as the child learns the rule for using the morpheme
Morphological learning may involve …..
- Comparing an inflected word with an uninflected word (dogs vs dog)
- Hypothesizing the function of the morpheme (Is it used for more than one item?)
- Forming a rule for that morpheme
Morphological learning requires…. (cognitive skills)
Processing speed
Store new inflected word in working memory (shoes)
Retrieve uninflected form from long term memory (shoe)
Compare the two forms
Factors that influence morpheme acquisition ….
- Complexity (semantic and syntactic)
- Perceptual salience (position of morpheme in the word, free/bound, stressed/unstressed, etc)
- Frequency
- Allomorphs (variants of a single morpheme)
What are allomorphs?
Phonetic variations of a morpheme
Governed by morphophonemic rules
Due to influence of the phonemes around morphemes
Children need to master all _____ to fully acquire a ______
Allomorphs, morpheme
What is overgeneralization during morphological acquisition?
Misapplication of a morphophonemic rule, in a context where it does not apply
Examples of overgeneralization during morpheme acquisition
One foot, two foots
Today I go, yesterday I goed
Overgeneralization is proof that children are using morphological rules _____
Productively
Cazden study: Data showed that
_____ use precedes overgeneralization
____ only occurs when there is a ___ rate of success (productive use of the inflection
Inappropriate
Overgeneralization, high
Berko Gleason study showed:
Order of acquisition is ___ to ____ to ____ to _____
Plurals to possessive to past tense to third person
Marcus et al. Study results showed:
Irregular forms are _____, and a rule is generated for ___
Retrieval of the ____ blocks application of the rule
Errors are ___ errors, when ____ fails, the rule is applied
Memorized, regulars
Irregular
Retrieval, retrieval
How is MLU calculated?
of morphemes/# of utterances
What is MLU3-m?
MLU calculation taken from the longest three utterances the child produced
Used in MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI)
What is percent of obligatory occurrence?
Provides a measure to compare the child’s morphemic use with adult standard
Shows how often a morpheme is used correctly when/where it is required
Brown’s grammatical morphemes: Stage I
No grammatical morphemes are acquired
Brown’s grammatical morphemes: Stage II
Present progressive (-ing)
Plural (-s)
Preposition: in
Brown’s grammatical morphemes: Stage III
Preposition: on
Possessive (-‘s)
Brown’s grammatical morphemes: Stage IV
None
Brown’s grammatical morphemes: Stage V
Reg. past tense (-ed) Irreg. past tense (went, came) Reg 3rd Sing (-s, jumps) Articles (a, an, the) Contractible copula (He is tall, he's tall)
Brown’s grammatical morphemes: V+
Contractible Auxiliary (She is leaving. She's leaving) Uncontractible copula (There it is) Uncontractible auxiliary (Are you going?) Irreg 3rd sing (does, has)
Grammatical morpheme considered acquired when used correctly ____ of the time
90%
What is a copula?
Connecting verb, think of as a grammatical equal sign
Sky = blue, They = my friends
What is an auxiliary verb?
Two verbs together, think of helping verbs (is coming, can swim, will help)
In early syntactic development, specific syntactic forms are used to convey specific types of ____ meaning
Semantic
What is semantic bootstrapping?
Syntactic categories are inferred from semantic relations children experience
Examples of semantic bootstrapping
Noun - name of person or thing
Verb - action or change of state
Subject - agent of action, cause of event, instrument of action
All learned through semantic relations children experience
In early synctactic development, Toddlers’ vocab size predicts later ____ _____
In preschool age, there is a strong correlation between ___ ___ and ____ ____
Utterance length
Vocab size, grammatical development
General trends of early syntactic development
Takes years
Children learn that adjectives come before nouns early on
Syntactic complexity: Adjectives in English require a ___ ____
Particular order
5 Stages of syntax
- Holophrases: one word represents a whole sentence
- Two-word utterance: (boat river)
- Telegraphic speech: drop out function words (see boat river)
- Simple sentences: subject and verb (the boat is on the river)
- Complex sentences: embedding of clauses (The boat we say yesterday sailed up the river)
Do young children have some knowledge of grammar during the holophrastic stage (Stage 1)?
Comprehension studies suggest that children may understand some grammatical rules even though they are not producing multi-word utterances
Most say no, only producing one word so there is no evidence of grammar
Comprehension tasks with holophrastic kids showed that:
Children preferred the ____-___ commands
Two year olds responded ___ to the novel commands
Well-formed
Correctly
Holophrastic productions show a range of meanings in that they represent different ____ and different ____
Functions: command, request, comment
Contexts: represent actor, object, location
Children around ____ show evidence of understanding word combinations
1;6
Before children produce word combinations, they show comprehension of some ___ - ____ combinations
They produce ___ of ____ -___ utterances about a single event
Two-word
Sequences of single-word
Transition between one and two words is showed by successive ____ -____ utterances
Single-word
The two word stage involves the use of ___ grammar
Pivot grammar
Pivot grammar involves two positions ___ and ____
Sentence initial: (pivot + open, more cookie, more play)
Sentence final: (open + pivot, Daddy help, Mommy help)
Pivot grammar involves which two primitive syntactic classes:
Pivot class ( small, frequent, restricted position, can't co-occur, don't occur alone) Open class (large, infrequent, not restricted in position, may co-occur, may occur alone)
What is the general concept of semantic relations and how do they influence syntax?
o Meaningful associations between two or more concepts
o Affects how words are combine
What is a syntactic type?
A unique sentence
First combinations of syntactic types occur around ____
There is an initial slow period of developing syntactic types then ___ of children show a ____ _____
1;6
75%
Syntactic spurt
Telegraphic speech contains more content/open-class or function/closed-class words?
Content/open-class
Pragmatic competence involves language ____ and social ___ to determine ____/____/expected/target communcation
Use, setting, appropriate, successful
Pragmatic competence requires ….
o Non-egocentrism (perspective taking, theory of mind)
o Using language for a purpose (request, greet, apologize)
o Learning linguistic routines (greeting and leave taking)
o Extra-linguistic communication (gesture, topic maintenance, volume, tone)
o Switching dialects, varieties or registers based on the context
What is egocentrism?
Inability to distinguish between self and another
How do children demonstrate egocentrism?
Children’s thoughts and communication are about themselves
Can’t take another’s perspective
As children develop there is a ____ process that occurs and egocentrism reduces
Decentering
Theory of mind: Ability to understand that others have ____ _____ and interpret those_____ in a social context
Unique perspectives, perspectives
How do children demonstrate theory of mind?
Object permanence: objects unavailable to the senses don’t exist to the child, develops in first year of life
Begin to become aware that others have an independent existence
Theory of mind is the basis for many forms of ___ and ____ language
Humor, figurative
