Foundations Quiz #2 Flashcards
Language Theories
Why are theories important to SLPs?
Theories of language development guide our assessments and interventions
What are theories?
Different perspectives on a concept; a supposed system of ideas to explain something
Why were theories on language development developed?
As attempts to understand how language is learned
What are the two categories of language development theories?
Linguistic Theories and Learning Theories
What are linguistic theories?
Attempts to explain why language develops.
The two categories are generativist (nurture) and interactionalist (nurture).
What are learning theories?
Attempts to explain how children acquire language.
There are three categories- behavioral, cognitivist, and social constructiveness.
What is the premisis of the nature vs. nurture debate?
The nature approach (nativist/generativist) believes that children are born with the innate skills needed for producing language.
The nurture (interactionalist) approach believes that the way children develop language is the result of influence of their environment and the language they interact with.
What did Chomsky theorize?
Chomsky was a nativist who believed that children are born with an area in the brain called the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) where they have an innate understanding of syntactic rules.
They know the categories of different types of words, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives- called the Universal Language System- and as they learn words, they put sort those words into categories (like a slot machine). As they grow, they are passive learners of their own language-specific system and they learn the rules of their own language.
According to Chomsky, how would development be similar and different for a child learning English vs. learning Spanish?
Both children would start off with knowledge of the universal language system, and would categorize the words they hear as nouns, verbs, adjectives, ect.
As the children grow, the English speaking child would learn that in English, such as that adjectives come before the noun they describe, and would start to produce short sentences according following that pattern (like “happy kitty”). On the other hand, the Spanish speaking child would realize that in Spanish, nouns come before the adjectives they describe, and would group words according to that structure.
What did Brown theorize?
Brown was a nativist who believed that children are born with innate semantic skills that enable them to understand words as “meaning units”.
When children learn a word, they group it as an agent, action, entity, object, or attribute, according to what the meaning and context of that word is.
According to Brown, if a child says something like “mommy go” or “soft kitty”, how do they know those words make sense together?
The child understands to use “mommy go” because they understand that their mom is a person doing something (going), so their mom is an agent who is doing an action (this is an agent + action phrase).
For “soft kitty” the child is describing a cat, but the cat isn’t actively doing anything, so the cat is an entity and soft is an attribute linked to the cat (this is an attribute + entity phrase).
What is the major difference between Chomsky and Browns theories?
Chomsky believed children have innate SYNTAX skills, and Brown believe children have innate SEMANTIC skills.
What is the interactionalist approach?
Interactionalists believe children learn language through interactions with their environment.
The child takes in language input from observing their caregivers and anyone else they interact with, and they practice repeating what they hear, which leads them to picking up on patterns and rules.
Who developed the interactionalist theory?
Jerome Bruner
According to interactionalist theory, why is the role of caregivers so important in language development?
Children who are around people who use language often develop higher quality language than children who don’t get enough language exposure (such as spending hours stuck in front of a TV).
Children learn patterns from the speech their caregivers model, and feedback from caregivers is necessary for the child to learn how to use language. When parents speak with child directed speech - speaking slowly and using simple words- it is easier for the child to repeat.
