Final Flashcards
Pragmatic Development Overview
◼Increased theory of mind
◼Increased social skills
◼Talking rules: classroom vs. casual convos
◼Non-egocentrism: take perspectives of others
◼Increased knowledge of language structure = increased ability to cater language to audience
Pragmatic Development: Narratives
◼Anecdotal → 70%
◼Accounts: highly individualized spontaneous narratives; share their experiences
- Recount: share past experiences
- Eventcast: explain current or future events (can be used in imaginative play)
◼Stories: main character must overcome problem
Development of Narratives
◼2-10 years: stories have more and more mental states, motivations, and causal links
◼6 years: narratives = causally coherent (e.g., Plans, scripts)
◼5-7 years: plots emerge
◼7 years: beginning, problem, plan, resolution
◼8 years: plots in fictional narratives emerge
Pragmatic Development: Conversational Skills
◼Inter-individual variability
- Some 7-year-olds more adept than adults
◼Successful communicators:
- Ask questions before introducing a potentially unfamiliar topic
- Recognize communication breakdowns quickly
- Offer further explanation or repair
◼Conversational skills increase style-switching behaviour
◼Peers: more nonlinguistic noises, exact repetitions, more ritualized play
◼Adults: different codes for parents vs. others
◼Topics evolve: concrete (8 years) vs. sustained abstract discussions (11 years)
◼Politeness evolves: directly asking, commanding, forbidding (5 years) vs. indirect forms (7 years+)
◼Conversational repairs evolve: elaboration of some elements, repetition (6 years) vs. providing additional input (9 years)
◼Bottom line: improved language abilities = better able to concentrate on language USE
Semantic Development: Vocabulary Growth
◼1st step: children add features common to adult definitions of terms (slow-mapping)
◼2nd step: children bring together all definitions that fit a single word
◼3rd step: children add adverbs of magnitude
◼Growth in interrelated semantic concepts, semantic classes (taxonomies), synonyms, homonyms, antonyms
◼11 years: word definitions = adult-like
◼HS graduation: ~80k words
Semantic Development: Related Cognitive Processing
◼Chunking: group semantically related info into categories for remembering
◼Semantic relations: help resolve word ambiguities (e.g., bank can mean several different things, hot and cold mean opposite things)
Semantic Development: Figurative Language
◼Non-literal language (imaginative or emotional expression; metaphors, idioms)
◼Correlated with teen literacy skills, word knowledge (your use of it increases as you read, you come across figurative language as you read, reading adds context to that language)
◼Greater word knowledge, and bigger vocab also associated with better understanding and usage of figurative language
◼9-10 years: rate sarcasm as more “mean”
◼Metaphoric transparency: extent of literal- figurative relationship, how easy is it to literally interpret something
Syntactic (grammar) and Morphological Development: Background Info
◼Language output + syntactic complexity = function of language task + familiarity (easier to talk about things that are familiar, showcases grammatical skills)
◼Syntactic development = increased length + complexity of sentences
- Greater during explanations, especially areas of expertise/familiarity
Morphological Development
◼How do children learn the rules?
- One hypothesis: they learn words in sets (chunking) = treat sets in a certain way grammatically
- Start making morphological generalizations
- E.g., words ending in “ed”
◼Main developments in Morphology:
- Learning inflectional prefixes (e.g., back-pack, back-porch, back-fire)
- Learning derivational suffixes (e.g., colour, colour-ful, colour-ed)
◼Morphological knowledge = crucial for processing new words (semantic decoding: figuring out the meaning)
Syntactic Development
◼Prosody helps segment linguistic units
◼5-7 years:
- Use most elements of noun + verb phrases, but omit many elements
- Trouble with some prepositions, verb tenses, plurals, some passive sentences
- Rule exceptions (e.g., irregular past + plurals) are esp. hard
Phonological Development: Background Info
◼Early school years
- Phonetic inventory completed (have capacity to produce all sounds)
◼Morphophonemic development
- Learn to place stress on certain syllables or words, learn that this is often a grammatical function
◼Pitch contours integrated into larger units than words (melodic vibe of multiple words)
◼12 years
- Full adult stress and accent acquired
-Accent at 12 is very adult like (quality of voice sounds similar)
◼Increased speech motor planning (planning what you are going to say, takes planning) = building a foundation in grade school years because you need a lot of executive functioning skills
Metalinguistic Abilities: Background Info
◼Ability to consciously reflect on nature and structure of language
◼~7-8 years starts to develop (faster in some kids, slower in others)
◼After ~ 7-8 years, decentration helps children concentrate on and process message meanings and linguistic correctness at same time
- At 1st = detect syntactic errors
- After, judgement tasks (age, working memory, phonological skills)
◼Correlated with: Language use, Cognitive abilities, IQ (higher IQ = higher metalinguistic abilities), Reading abilities, Academic achievement, Environmental stimulation, Play (free play helps them manipulate language)
Bilingualism and Language Differences: Background Info
◼Some evidence that simultaneous bilinguals may be at an advantage in school (excersises executive functioning)
◼Some evidence that sequential bilinguals may experience some difficulty in school (were not exposed to L2 when very young), most do catch up
Code-Switching Development
◼Internalized functional and grammatical principles of both languages, can go between both languages
◼Complex skill
◼Rule-governed, words still fit with other language rules
◼Influenced by context/situation
◼Influenced by language proficiency, language preference, and social identity
◼Mostly in conversation (informal settings)
◼May help first language retention, active use of that language (avoid attrition)
Background Information on School-Aged Children
◼5 years
- Good body awareness
- Good sense of time
- Use adult-like language, BUT some syntactic structures missing
- Tell stories, sense of humour, tease, discuss emotions
- Expressive vocab = ~2,600 words, but know many more
◼8 years: brain = adult-size, but still developing
◼12 years: language + cog abilities = adult-like
◼7-11 years: 4 major cognitive developments
- Inferred Reality: inferences about problems, based on appearances and internal info
- Decentration: consider several aspects of problem at once (dimensions, perspectives)
- Transformational Thought: viewing a problem as existing in time and anticipate consequences
- Reversible Mental Operations: change can be undone or reversed
Literacy
◼Not simply speech in print
◼Early speech = critical to reading
◼Narratives = critical to reading
Reading Processes
◼Oculomotor system: eye movements (saccades: moving your eyes from one point to another) + fixations (pauses)
- Saccadic suppression (when your moving your eyeballs, your brain is not extracting that information, which is why you need to fixate, your brain cannot process when you are moving your eyes)
- Vergence movements:bringing your focus/gaze in, converging your gaze inward
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◼Orthographic decoding: written forms of words (orthography of a language: written form of that language e.g., decoding “squiggly lines” which form letters which represent sounds)
◼Phonemic decoding: sound forms of words (breaking it into sounds)
◼Syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics→ comprehension
◼Executive functions (attention, inhibition, working memory, self-monitoring, connection with prior knowledge), mental imagery, summarization → comprehension
Reading Processes: Phonological Processing
◼3 main components
- Phonological awareness
- Sounds, syllables (blending* which is putting individual sounds together, segmenting* which is removing sounds,
phoneme identification, rhyming)
- Best predictor of spelling - Phonological memory
- Sounds of language are stored in long term memory - Rapid naming
- Retrieval (need to be able to pull it out phonological knowledge out of memory quickly)
◼SES, age, speech sound accuracy, vocab→ phonological processing, esp. awareness
Reading Processes: Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing
◼Bottom-up: lower-level perceptual and phonemic influences (e.g., grapheme-phoneme correspondences, lexical retrieval)
◼Top-down: cognitive aspect of accessing meaning (e.g., concepts, inferences, levels of meaning)
- Have expectations of units of language, have knowledge and concepts already formed
- Unfamiliar or upcoming words in texts
◼Reading materials (isolated words vs. texts), reader skill (bottom-up→top-down, but simultaneously)
A shift to top-down processing as you become more skilled at reading
Reading Processes: Reading Fluency
◼Rapid retrieval of orthographic, phonological, and
semantic processes
◼Engage in sight-word reading as we get more skilled (skip right to semantics because we recognize the word visually)
◼Word recognition: 0.5 seconds for familiar words in kids vs. 0.25 seconds in adults
Reading Processes: Comprehension
◼Most basic level = decoding
◼Highest level = critical literacy (interpret, analyze, synthesize)→executive functions, self-regulation
◼Information processing theory: processing facilities = limited (too much lower-level decoding = less time on higher-level comprehension)
Reading Development
◼Toddlers: pre-reading (recognizing printed symbols,
sounds, making associations)
◼3 years: more print awareness, fav books, reading direction, recognizing letters
◼Words can be stored by visual features
◼4 years: can recognize names, some memorized words, syllable structures
◼Grade 1: phonics (letter-sound correspondences)
◼Grade 3: read silently, different content areas
◼Shift from learning to read… to reading to learn
◼Grades 5-6: skilled readers
- Little cognitive energy on pronunciation
- Language and world knowledge→text understanding
- Word prediction
- Sight word reading
- Concepts formed + modified
- Consistently strong, unless neuropathology
- Vocab + knowledge = READING
Neuroanatomy of Reading
◼ Visual Word Form Area:
- Left fusiform gyrus, in the temporo- occiptal region (Brodmann Area 37)
◼Identifying letters and words
◼Area is actively debated
◼ Loss of ability to read = alexia
Writing Processes: General Info
◼Consider the audience
◼More abstract than speech
◼When writing = automatic, grammar = more advanced than in speech
◼Text construction, handwriting, spelling, executive functions (planning, shifting, working memory)
◼9-10 years: more mature than speech
◼Lags behind reading comprehension
◼Orthographic knowledge: represent spoken language in written form
1) Stored mental representations: specific words or parts of words → mental graphemic representations
2) Orthographic patterns: how oral language = rep in writing, alphabetic knowledge (letter-to-sound rules)
Spelling
◼Self-taught, trial-and-error (e.g., invented spelling)
◼~4,000 explicitly taught in elementary school
◼What makes for a good speller?
- Memory
- Reading experience
- Reading-related knowledge
◼Spelling representations = formed through increased print exposure
Writing Development
◼1st: forming letters and learning to spell
◼Later: text generation and executive functioning
Neuroanatomy of Writing
◼ Exner’s area
◼ Above Broca’s area and anterior to the primary motor cortex (Brodmann Area 6)
◼ Is very close to the area that controls hand movement, and thus, is involved in writing
◼ Was discovered by Austrian physiologist Sigmund Exner
◼ Loss of the ability to write = agraphia
Writing: Role of Executive Functioning
◼Early school-age: little attention to format, spelling, spacing, punctuation
◼Once one can produce true spelling, one can generate texts
◼Increases organization, narratives, different styles of writing
Adult Language: General Info
◼Development throughout adulthood
◼Early adulthood (early/mid twenties)
◼Myelination = complete
◼Development of prefrontal cortex = complete
◼Late adulthood (60-65 years+)
◼Age-related cognitive decline (healthy vs.
pathological)
◼Reduced exec. functioning
◼Reduced processing speed
◼Sensory decline (vision, hearing)
Pathological Aging: Dementia
◼Wide range of symptoms reflecting declines in
neurocognitive functions
◼Include memory, thinking, language, emotional regulation, and motivation
◼Can reduce functional independence
Three major types:
◼Alzheimer’s Disease (most common form of dementia, disproportionately affects women, genetic component)
◼Vascular Dementia (dementia due to disruption in blood flow to the brain)
◼Lewy Body Dementia (caused by build up of Lewy body proteins)
Alzheimer’s disease
◼Most common form of dementia (60-80% cases)
◼Progresses through three main stages: mild (forgetting names/events), moderate (getting lost), severe (loss of control of bodily functions)
◼Early symptoms: trouble remembering names and recent events
◼Later symptoms: impaired judgement, disorientation, confusion, behavioural changes, trouble speaking, trouble walking
Brain changes:
◼Amyloid Plaques
- Clusters of beta-amyloids (proteins) that destroy neuronal connections (disrupts communication, can kill brain matter)
- Usually broken down and eliminated, but in AD, they form hard “plaques”
◼Neurofibrillary Tangles
- Knotted clusters of hyperphosphorylated tau protein
- Tau forms microtubules (transports nutrients between neurons); they are collapsed in AD
◼Atrophy to hippocampus, as well as other parts of temporal lobes and parietal lobes
◼Degree of atrophy is variable across patients
Alzheimer’s Symptoms
Most common symptoms include:
- Memory loss (e.g., forgetting to pay bills, eat, take medication)
- Difficulty finding words
- Verbal repetition (e.g., repeating the same stories)
- Visual-spatial disorientation (prone to getting lost)
- Impaired Reasoning
- Impaired Judgment
- Patients often lack insight (do not realize they have memory issues)
Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)
◼Reflects earliest stage of dementia; symptoms are just beginning to show (e.g., milder forms of forgetting, trouble finding words)
◼About 70% of patients diagnosed with MCI progress to dementia
Pragmatics in Adulthood
◼Many registers + special communication rules
- Based on exposure and need
- Cognitive health
◼Narratives improve in themes and details
- Decrease in late 70s
- Flexibility, word retrieval (aka lexical access), and morphosyntax skills decline
◼Potential gender differences (e.g., conversation styles in men vs. women)
Semantics in Adulthood
◼New words learned throughout lifetime
◼Older Adults:
- Generally bigger vocabularies due to more exposure to language but…
- Slower + less accurate lexical access in reading and naming
Syntax and Morphology in Adulthood
◼Length + syntactic complexity increases until middle aged
- Especially to explain procedures vs. convos
◼More abstract thinking = better integrating new info + more complex language use
Phonology in Adulthood
◼Finer aspects of speech development = refined in late teens
◼High neighbourhood density facilities word learning in adults (vs. hinders in children, remember?)
◼Phonotactic probability = helpful throughout lifespan
◼Speech fluency (articulation) increases into early adulthood
Literacy in Adulthood
◼Pleasure reading decreases in teens, especially for men
◼Adults read more than teens, esp. at school or work
◼Literacy skills refined throughout adulthood, but age-related decreases
◼Adults use longer / more complex sentences, abstract nouns, metalinguistic words than teens
Bilingualism in Adulthood
◼Critical periods: language learning after puberty = non-native mastery
◼Adults (both young, middle, and older) experience reduced lexical access, especially in L2, compared to monolinguals
◼Some evidence that bilingualism can stave off AD by 4 years
