Exam 2 Flashcards
Infancy
birth-12 mos; understand some words, started comm w/ gestures & tone of voice; commonly produce first recognizable word
Infant capabilities that contribute to language development
infant speech perception
awareness of actions & intentions
category formation
early vocalizations
Infant speech perception
ability to attend to prosodic/ phonetic regularities of speech
Infant prosodic regularity - prosody
music of language; gives language its rhythm, timing and intensity level
3 features of prosody
loudness, pitch, duration
can be applied at word OR phase level
Ex: entrance (entry way) vs. entrance (in awe)
phonetic regularity
words that adhere to a regular letter/sound correspondence structure (84%) so we can sound them out
Categorical perception of speech
- categorical & continuous
- we categorize input in ways that highlight differences in meaning
- initially involves ‘speech’ vs. ‘nonspeech’ sounds
- then comes more complexity like voice vs. voiceless then allophones after that
Infancy awareness of actions & intentions
- sensitive to actions & movements
- spend longer time looking at movement than nonmovement
- focus is on INTENT of action
- over 1st year, they learn to see action as goal-directed
Why is the ability to understand that goals underly action important to language development?
- speech is a goal directed behavior
- babies can engage in purposeful communication by pointing, gesturing, & eventually speaking
Infant Category Formation
ability to categorize group items and/or events according to shared features (perceptual or conceptual)
perceptual features
- what object looks and/or feels like
- color, shape, size, etc
- ex: uses cat for dog, sheep, cow, or horse
conceptual features
- what objects do/mean
- roll bark, fly, etc
- ex: uses cat for any cotton/soft material
category formation hierarchy
- superordinate: generic category like fruit
- basic (learned first): general items in that category like apples and oranges
- subordinate: specific item within the basic group like honeycrisp or mandarin
Early Vocalizations
prelinguistic
- increases the behavior & sets stage for reciprocal give & take of social convo
- predictable pattern of development
Infant stages of Vocalization (STARK)
- reflexive
- control of phonation
- expansion
- basic canonical babbling
- advanced forms
Reflexive stage (STARK)
- 0-2 months
- sounds of discomfort/stress
- vegetative state (burp, cough, etc)
- no control over these sounds
- parents respond like it’s communication
Control of phonation stage (STARK)
- 1-4 mos
- cooing sounds
- vowel-like sounds
- might comine w/ consonant sound (uum)
- isolated consonant & nasal sounds
- raspberries, clicks
Expansion stage (STARK)
- 3-8 mos
- gain more control over articulators
- produce adult-like vowel sounds
- play w/ pitch & loudness (squeals)
- marginal babbling CV or VC sounds combos ( baa, maa, uum, etc)
Basic Canonical Babbling stage (STARK)
- 5-10 mos
- single CV syllables (ba, ga, etc)
- reduplicated babbling (ba-ba-ba)
- nonreduplicated /variegated babbling (da, ma, goo, etc)
- long sequences of vocalizations
Advanced forms stage (STARK)
- 9-18 mos
- begin producing diphthongs
- complex syllable forms (VC, CCV, VCV)
- jargon (meaning not conveyed)
Infant early foundations for language development
- Infant (Child) Directed Speech
- Joint reference & attention
- daily routines
- caregiver responsiveness
Infant (Child) Directed Speech
- motherese/baby talk
- higher pitch
- regular rhythm
- refer to objects in here & now
- long pauses
- slowed rate
- shorter utterances
- exaggerated facials
- simple sentences
- repetitions
- loudness variations
Purpose of IDS
attract infants’ attention
- research shows infants prefer IDS> adult directed speech
- aids in auditory processing of sounds, specifically vowels
- highlights content words (nouns & verbs)
Joint Reference attention
- rooted in social-interactionist theory
- adults assume infants’ interactions are meaningful
- researchers propose interactions are meaningful
- 3 phases
- adults support infants’ expressions @ each phase
Joint reference attention phase 1
- attendance to social partners (birth-6mos)
- sustained periods of engagement
- special interest in faces
- caregiver responsiveness is critical @ this stage
- infants demonstrate expression w/ head, body, & limbs
- react to others’ reaction to their reaction
Joint reference attention phase 2
- emergence & coordination of JA (6mos - 1 yr)
- interest in looking @ & manipulating objects
- begin shifting attention b/t objects & people
- marks emergence of JA
- sharing toys, reading books
- track eye mvmt to see which object goes w/ the word said (autism struggle)
Suppported JA
- adults share task of sustaining infant’s participation in JA
- use IDS to engage infants
- impacts infant’s sustained attention availability @ 18 mos
- infants w/ longer periods of JA w/ caregiver have larger vocab @ 18 mos
- following child’s lead is most effective
Why is JA important?
- creates word-learning opportunities as objects & events are pointed out
- infants begin to associate words w/in speaker’s line of sight
- helps infants realize they can share mental focus w/ another person, so begin to be intentional
Importance of pointing
bridge b/t nonverbal & verbal
- 2 types ( imperative & declarative)
Imperative pointing
- about 10 mos
- “get that for me”
Declarative
- social process
- call adult’s attention
- later than imperative
Joint reference attention phase 3
- transition to true language (1+ yrs)
- begin to incorporate language into interactions w/ other people
- engage socially
- use language to represent events & objects in these interactions
- caregiver input still critical @ this stage
Caregiver responsiveness
how caregivers respond to infant’s attempts @ communication
- NOT the same as IDS
- permits long periods of JA & more motivation to communicate
- more responsive maternal language input linked to age of 1st word & production of 2-word utterances
- Still face experiment
Characteristics of Caregiver responsiveness
- waiting & listening
- following child’s lead
- joining in & playing
- being face-to-face
- variety of Qs and labels
- encourage turn-taking
- expanding & extending (repeat child & add to it)
Infancy achievements in form
- Phonology: produce sound soon after birth; progresses from reflexive to mature CV combos
- Morphology: minimal; 1st word around 12 mos
Infancy achievements in content
- Semantics: 1st word; refer to people in child’s everyday world
- True Word: said w/ intention; pronounced adult-like; generalizes beyond a single context
Infancy achievements in use
- Pragmatics: listening, observing, learning
- Preverbal Language Functions: book page 144
Infancy individuality in achievement
- Intraindividual Differences: all aspects of language aren’t acquired @ same rate (receptive vs expressive)
- Interindividual Differences: variation in language development rate; variation in language-learning styles; variation @ extremes of language learning
The Extremes
- Late talkers: producing <50 words by age 2; 10-20% of gen. pop.
- Early Talkers: produce on average >400 words by 21 mos
Infancy Milestones
- @ birth: discriminate mother’s voice from others; see best @ distance of 7 inces; sensitive to actions & mvmt
- by 3 mos: distinguish b/t cats & dogs ( category formation)
- by 4 mos: distinguish b/t animals & furniture
- by 5 mos: realize their vocalizations have impact
- by 6 mos: show expression; sustained periods of engagement
- ab 6 mos: discriminate among stimulus of nonnative sounds & faces diminishes
- by 9 mos: show preference for major stress pattern of their native language
- ab 10 mos: imperative pointing
- by 1 yr: shift attention b/t people & objects
- ab 1 yr: 1st true word
- In 1st yr: pass through the 5 stages of vocalizaion
Perceptual narrowing
discrimination among stimulus of nonnative sounds & faces
Language in Toddlerhood
b/t ages 1-3
- time of exploration
Major toddlerhood language development milestones
- first words
- gestures (gesture use & mirror neurons)
Theory of Mind
- understanding one’s own mental & emotional state
- realizing others have mental & emotional states
- realizing the 2 may not be the same
- connection b/t TOM & language development strengthens in toddlerhood
Toddlerhood achievements in form
- Phonology: rule-governed phon. processes (Table 6.1); syllable structure changes; assimilation; place of artic. changes; manner of artic. changes
- Phonological Perception: recognize same word, different speakers; recognize words from parts (incremental processing)
- Morphology: biggest achievement during this period is emergence of grammatical morphemes; GMs are inflections; change in form of a word (NOT part of speech or word class)
Mastery
90% correct usage in obligatory contexts
Free morphemes
stand alone
Bound morphemes
carries meaning but can’t stand alone
- derivational & inflectional
Derivational morphemes
Prefixes (ex: de-, pre-, in-, un-)
Suffixes (ex: -ion, -ly, -able, -er)
Inflectional (grammatical) morphemes
Suffixes (ex: plural -s, -ing, -ed) ONLY
Brown’s 14 grammatical morphemes
- present progressive -ing
2&3. prepositions in & on - regular plural -s
- possessive ‘s
- regular past tense -ed
- irregular past tense
- regular 3rd person singular -s
- articles a, the, an
- contractible copula ‘be’ - ex: I’m late
- contractible auxiliary - ex: I’m going
- uncontractible copula ‘be’ - ex: He was sick NOT he’s sick
- uncontractible auxiliary - ex: he was playing
- irregular 3rd person past tense - ex: he broke it
Toddlerhood achievements in Syntax
- inflecting words with GMs AND creating multiword utterances (mommy go)
- marks TRUE beginning of syntax (basic rules of combining words into sentences
- express more communicative functions (commenting, negating, requesting, questioning)
- MLU measures complexity of child’s language
- early sentences (mommy go, that puppy)
What toddlers do with syntax
- telegraphic speech sounds with GMs & word combos (movie downtown tonight)
- omission of function words (mommy no go, fishy swims)
- misuse or omit pronouns (me do it, her going)
- begin using ‘Wh’ questions, make commands & using negation
Why calculate MLU?
- provides estimate of syntactic growth
- allows for phonological inventory
- specifies which grammatical morphemes have been acquired
- specifies what semantic relations are being expressed
Toddlerhood achievements in language content
- large gains in receptive & expressive lexicons
- expert word learners
Toddlerhood learning new words
- segment the speech stream
- identify objects, actions, concepts
- map those to referent
mapping is KEY to learning new words
Quinean Conundrum
the mapping problem
- uncertainty surrounding mapping of a word to what it refers to - given all the possibilities
Theories of word learning
- lexical principle framework
- social-pragmatic framework
Lexical principles framework tier 1
does not require linguistic sophistication & depends on cognitive-perceptual abilities
- reference: words symbolize objects, actions, events & concepts
- extendibility: words label beyond the original
- object scope: words map the WHOLE
Lexical principles framework tier 2
requires greater linguistic sophistication as children refine their ideas about nature of words
-conventionality: recognize some of their baby names aren’t recognized ‘blankie’
- categorical scope: words can only be extended in same category
-novel name-nameless category: mutual exclusivity (process of elim)
Social-Pragmatic framework of word learning
Social cues
- joint attention
- gestures
- voice direction
- body language
use social cues to determine what someone is talking about
Toddler fast mapping
typically developing toddlers can fast map
- exposure 1, exposure 2, then got it
- child with language delay need multiple exposures
- with hearing delay, double amount of exposures
Toddler thematic roles: content knowledge
part a word plays in an event
- agent; doers of action (ex: Abby)
- action (ex: run)
- object (ex: balloon)
- location (ex: here, chair)
- possession (ex: mine)
- rejection (ex: no)
- disappearance (ex: all-gone)
- nonexistence (ex: no)
- denial (ex: no)
ICA semantics relations
- agent-action: mommy go
- agent-object: daddy ball
- action-object: blow balloon
- action-location: come here
- entity-location: spoon in
- possessor-possession: my dolly
- demonstrative-entity: that puppy
- attribute-entity: big truck
Classifying 1st words: Lois Bloom
2 types of early words: substantive; cause action (agents & objects) & relational; receive action (actions & states of being)
Classifying 1st words: Nelson
5 major categories
- nominals: objects specific & general
- action words (go, up)
- modifiers (hot, big)
- personal-social words (no, please)
- functional words (for, that)
Mental lexicon
explosive period between 18-24 months
- receptive lexicon: words I understand
- expressive lexicon: words I say (don’t always use in an adult way)
Overextension/overgeneralization
very common; 3 kinds
- categorical: all 4-legged animals are dogs
- analogical: knows ball so all round things are ‘balls’ (moon, orange)
- relational: flower is used to label watering can or flowerpot
Underextension
use word that’s very restrictive in meaning compared to adults; more common than overextension
- only use ‘bottle’ when referring to their own bottle
Why overextension or underextension
- may truly believe ‘cow’ is a ‘horse
- may know 2 things are similar but may only have word for 1
- may have challenges retrieving a word - so use a close second
Toddler achievements in language use: pragmatics
discourse functions & conversational skills
Discourse functions
- instrumental: ask for something
- regulatory: control behaviors of others
- interactional: establish/maintain social interaction
- personal: express emotion. attitude, interest
- heuristic: find out info
- imaginative: us language to play
- informative: share knowledge
Toddler conversational skills
- NOT very skilled in convo
- may start convo but lasts for 1-2 turns
- sharing reference not always clear
- not clear on obligatory turns
- don’t seek clarification
- not about eye contact, gestures, or extralinguistic cues
Toddlerhood intra-individual differences
within same child
- spurts & plateaus
- receptive lexicon ALWAYS exceeds prductive (if not, red flag)
Toddlerhood inter-individual differences
between children
- effects of gender (boys lag behind)
- effects of birth order (1st born more advances language skills)
- SES & parental education (lower SES tend to perform more poorly on standardized language tests)
How do researchers and clinicians measure language development in toddlerhood?
- productions tasks (naturalistic observation, elicited imitation tasks, elicited production tasks)
- neuroimaging studies
- comprehension tasks (picture selection tasks, act-out tasks-have cow kiss pig)
- judgment tasks (correct/incorrect, grammatical or not) older kids
- neuroimaging
Toddlerhood clinician measures
- screening
- comprehensive evaluation
- progress monitoring
Language in preschool
ages 3-5
Major Preschool Milestones
- decontextualized language
- emergent literacy
Decontextualized language
- adding decontextualized language to their convo
- no longer grounded in the intermediate context (here & now)
- now can talk about people, places, objects, events not present
- no longer assume that the speaker & receiver share the same knowledge (TOM)
- fundamental to academic sucess
Emergent literacy
idea that learning literacy actually begins at a very early age, long before official lessons
- argues that right after birth, children already in process of becoming literate
Foundations of emergent literacy
- oral language
- must have well-developed phonological system before they can understand grapheme to morpheme correspondence - metalinguistic ability
- use language to talk about language
3 important achievements in EL
- alphabet knowledge
- print awareness
- phonological awareness
Alphabet knowledge
- kids in literate homes show emerging AK during 1st 3 yrs, may recognize a letter or 2 by 2nd bday
- During PS: recognize letters in name, signs/logos, may even write some letters
By 5: letters of their name (own name adv), learn letters at beginning of alphabet before the end
Achievements in print awareness
- print interest
- print functions
- print conventions
- print forms
- part-to-whole
children need to be PROMPTED to pay attention to print
Print interest
exposed to print
- VERY imp kids are exposed to print
Print functions
print has meaning
- ex: grocery list, words in a book
Print conventions
organized in a certain way
- ex: left to right, top to bottom
Print forms
they need to describe - different forms of print
- letters, words
Part-to-whole
letters make words, words make sentences, etc
Phonological awareness
GROUP of skills
*sensitivity to sound structure of words
- emerges incrementally beginning at age 2
- goes from shallow to deep
clinical ideas: word/syllable awareness, rhyming, segments sounds, phoneme blending, segmenting phonemes, number of SOUNDS in a word, etc
Shallow skills
- segment a sentence into words
- recognize rhyming words
- isolate an initial sound
- blend an initial sound with rest of the syllables
- ID sounds at beginning & end of words
- ID words that start with the same sound
Deep skills
- blend phonemes to make a word
- segment a word into phonemes
- count the number of phonemes in a word
- delete, add, rearrange phonemes in aw word
PS Achievements in language form - phonology
refining speech sound repertoire
- by end of PS, most have mastered majority of phonemes in their language
- 4&5 yr olds show minimal difficult with some later-developing sounds
- highly intelligible with adult like phonemic inventory
- phonological processes diminish except gliding (wabbit/rabbit) and stopping (tink or dink / think)
- phonological representations (phoneme-alphabet) continue to develop (know what sounds go with what letter)
PS achievement in language form - grammatical & derivational morphology
- children acquire grammatical & derivational morphemes in about the same order- even in different languages
- most significant achievement in morphology is VERB morphology
- master verb ‘to be’ copula & auxiliary forms (contracted & uncontracted) copula
Contractible vs. uncontractible auxiliaries
Uncontractible: daddy was drinking, they were going to the store, she was leaving early
PS achievements in lang form - syntax
- move from simple S+V+O constructions to more elaborate sentence patterns
- begin to embed phrases & clauses in utterances to create complex & compound sentences
- they do this by using coordinating conjunctions & subordinating conjunctions
Coordinating conjunctions
conjunction that connects words, phrases, clauses, & sentences
Ex: FANBOYS
Subordinating conjunctions
conjunction that intros a dependent clause joining to a main clause
Ex: that, because, if, etc
Phonology
study of the organization of sound; the sound system of a language
Phonological development
how children learn to organize sounds intomeaningor language (phonology) during their stages of growth
Phoneme
units of SOUND that distinguish meaning
Phonics
a way of teaching how to read -matching sounds to letters
Phonemics
the study of phonemes or units of sound
Phonemic inventory
the phonemes one can produce
Phonetics
study of the production and perception of sounds of human speech
Phonotactic
rules governing the possible sequence of sounds in a language
Phonological awareness
the awareness of and ability to work with sounds in spoken language
PS achievements in language content
- fast mapping
- knowledge of semantics & syntax
- shared storybook reading
- relational terms
Fast mapping
- startling pace to word learning (~2 per day for avg preschooler)
- strategies for *learning word meanings differs from what we saw in infancy & toddlerhood
- N3C strategy still used (novel name-nameless category - I know what this is so it can’t be that)
Knowledge of semantics & syntax
- preschoolers use the function (animacy) of an object to decipher meaning - more important than perceptual features
- also use syntactic cues to infer meaning… what class of words does it belong to? (This is dax, who is daxing, etc)
Shared storybook reading
- acquire new words through shared story book reading
- language of storybooks is exceptionally rich
- incidental exposure to new words
- repeated & elaborated exposures facilitate new word learning
- active dialogic reading by adults improves learning of new words
- using an expressive reading style helps with story comprehension
- single most important thing parents can do is read aloud
Relational terms
- specific kinds of language content acquired
- deictic terms
- requires advanced cognitive & pragmatic processes
- mastered by time they get to school
Deictic terms
words that can only be used & comprehended depending on the location of the speaker & listener in a setting
Deixis types
- person: indicates people
- spatial: indicates location
- temporal: indicates time
Why is understanding deictic terms so important?
- requires child to take perspective of another
- individuals with autism lack this ability
Interrogatives
- what, where, who, which, when, how, why
- may respond inappropriately to questions they don’t understand
- teaching who questions answer a person, etc
- can’t teach all at same time, one at a time
- ORDER: what, who, where earlier then why comes later
relational terms - opposites
- those they can perceive physically, they learn first
Ex: HOT/cold, hard/SOFT, TALL/short
PS achievements in language use
- discourse functions
- conversational skills
- narrative skills
pragmatics- how we use language in context
Discourse functions
One way convo
- Interpretive
Ex: I was excited to go to the zoo
- Logical
Ex: let’s do this so we can…
- Participatory
Ex: I wish… I feel…
- Organizing
Ex: first..then
Informative function from toddlerhood still dominates
Ex: using language to convey info
Conversational skills
- increased ability to take turns - 2 or more
- better at initiating conversation - using comments & directives
- still has difficulty recognizing signs of a breakdown in communication
- understands that questions require answers
- knows not to speak when someone else is speaking
Conversational pragmatics
emerging sensitivity in the PS years
Grice’s Maxims
- quality: don’t give false/unsupported info
- quantity: say enough info but not too much
- relation: stay relevant to topic
- manner: be clear, brief & orderly
Narrative skills
- may be about past, present, or future
- develop in a specific way
- stream on info from 1 person rather than a convo
- stykes differ from culture to culture
- can be personal or fictional
intraindividual differences
Each child has
- their own language profile with strengths & weaknesses across the language domains
- their own literacy profile like competency in PA or narrative structure
profiles help us individualize our treatment & educational programs
interindividual differences: SES
- benefits of attending preschool programs (SES)
- quality of teacher-child interactions in the class & quality of teacher language in class positively impact language growth in preschool
- teachers can be trained to incorporate high-quality language interactions
Measuring PS language development
Lang Sample Analysis
TNW: total number of words
TTR (VOCD): type token ratio
MLU (syntactic complexity): mean length of utterance
- code for pragmatics
- % response to questions
Grammaticality Judgment Tasks
- Does this sentence sound good or bad?
- would it be OK to say…
vgClinicians measuring PS language development
- screening
- comprehensive evaluation
- monitoring progress
