Infant Terms

Question 1

Non-speech reflexive sound

Answer 1

Sounds that do not have communicative purposes

- ex. babbling

Question 2

Speech Perception

Answer 2

The ability to devote attention to prosodic and phonetic regularities of speech
- ex. patterns, rhythm, combos of specific sounds

Question 3

Phonetic Regularities

Answer 3

The phonetic details of a child’s native language including the permissible patterns/combos in one’s native language

Question 4

Perceptual Narrowing

Answer 4

The focusing on perceptual differences in phonemes of native and non-native languages

Question 5

Pre- linguistic abilities/period

Answer 5

Communication before one is able to speak is referred to as prelinguistic communication. In typically developing infant, this stage is from birth to twelve months. Prelinguistic communication has three major milestones; the first being recognition of sounds and deciphering phonology
- ex. vegetative sounds, cooing, and laughter, vocal play, and babbling

Question 6

Vocalizations

Answer 6

Sounds used for communication are classified in stages

Question 7

Cooing (and gooing)

Answer 7

Control of phonation with the production of vowel like sounds
- made by newborns and young babies whenever they appear to be relaxed or satisfied

Question 8

Marginal Babbling

Answer 8

Early stage of babbling containing consonant and vowel like sounds with prolonged transitions between consonant and vowel sounds

Question 9

Babbling

Answer 9

Canonical babbling is different from early vocalizations, produces more than 2 c-v syllables in a sequence

• reduplicated: repeating C-V pairs
• non-reduplicated: non-repeating C-V pairs

Question 10

Jargon

Answer 10

Special type of babbling with at least two syllables and at least two different consonants and vowels; also has varied stress or intonation patterns- may think you’re hearing questions, statements, etc

Question 11

Infant directed speech

Answer 11

Speech directed towards infants with unique paralinguistic, syntactic, and discourse features
- Parentese

Question 12

Joint attention

Answer 12

Joint/shared attention is the shared focus of two individuals on an object. It is achieved when one individual alerts another to an object by means of eye-gazing, pointing, or other verbal or non-verbal indications

Question 13

Intersubjective awareness

Answer 13

Awareness or recognition that someone shares a mental focus on some external object or action
- relating to TOM

Question 14

Declarative and imperative pointing

Answer 14

Imperative: requests to adults to retrieve an object
Declarative: call attention to an object, to comment on an object

Question 15

Caregiver responsiveness

Answer 15

Caregivers attention and sensitivity to infants vocalizations and communicative attempts. Helps teach infants that other people value their behavior and communicative attempts

Question 16

Multi-word utterances

Answer 16

2+ words to create a statement, thought, etc

- Mommy go, I want cookie

Question 17

Expressive language

Answer 17

Expressive language is most simply the output of language, how one expresses his or her wants and needs. This includes not only words, but also the grammar rules that dictate how words are combined into phrases, sentences, and paragraphs as well as the use gestures and facial expressions

Question 18

Receptive language

Answer 18

Receptive language is the understanding of language input. This includes the understanding of both words and gestures. IT goes beyond just vocab skills, but also the ability to interpret a question as a question, the understanding of concepts like “on” or accurately interpreting complex grammatical forms

Question 19

Language development rate

Answer 19

Language development is a process starting early in human life. Infants start without knowing a language, yet by 10 months, babies can distinguish speech sounds and engage in babbling
- receptive and expressive language abilities

Question 20

Language learning styles

Answer 20

Toddler uses recognizable styles as they develop their language abilities. The referential style is a style of early language learning in which toddlers use language mainly to label objects
- expand their comprehension of words