Introduction Flashcards
Language
systematic and conventional use of sounds or signs for the purpose of communication or self-expression
Perceptual Precursors
- attention to language/speech
- discriminate speech sounds
-remember sequences - discriminate sequences
- remember/recall
discriminate intonations
Measuring Infant perception: Physiological Measures
- Heart rate
- ERP
-fNIRP
Measuring Infant perception: Habituation Dishabituation
-high amplitude sucking
head-turn technique
preferential listening
Innately Guided Learning
- evidence of response to loud sounds by 26th week of gestation
- fetuses not only hear but they remember
Hydrophone Studies: with sheep
Armitage
Hydrophone Studies: with humans
Querleu and Renard
Listening in Utero
sounds with frequency 1000 Hz or less are transmitted with little attenuation, whereas higher freq. are greatly attenuated
Babies prefer:
- native language
- mothers voice
- particular stories
Development of Responses to Sound: Newborn
-startled by loud noise
-turns head to look in direction of sound
-calmed by voice
- prefers mother’s voice
- discriminates many speech sounds
Development of Responses to Sound: 1-2 months
-smile when spoken to
Development of Responses to Sound: 3-7 months
-can perceive intonation, responds differently to friendly vs angry voice
Auditory developments post birth
-higher thresholds (dB) throughout the first year
- babies who are hard of hearing are not born with the same thresholds at birth
spacial localisation
- newborns generally turn head in correct direction, general areas
- minimal audible angles, approx 19 degrees at 7 months
-poor localisation even at 5 years
Visual Perception
- newborn vision 20/400
- 6 times worse than normal adults (but good enough to see facial features, hands)
- at birth, lens is fully developed
- poor control of ciliary muscles
- increases to 35% by 10 weeks
Prefer visual objects such as:
-sharp contours
-moving objects
- faces
- light/dark contrasts
Auditory/Visual Links Dodd 1979
- recognises synchrony at 10-16 weeks
- looked longer ash the face in front of them when the speech was in synchrony with facial movements
Auditory/Visual Links Kukl and Meltzoff 1982, 1984
-recognize correspondence between sight and sound of speech by 18 weeks
cocktail party problem
-noise in the environment can play a large role in how children perceive speech
noise with younger infants
- infants ability to recognise their own name in the presence of background noise
- ex. client with language disorders
Categorical Perception
- the ability to differentiate speech sounds
- speech sounds are perceived categorically rather than continually
- adult listeners cannot distinguish all speech sounds
- adults only distinguish the speech sounds that result in meaningful differences in their native language
speech perception over the lifespan
-infant perception is quite good for native as well as non-native contrasts
- by 10 months, discrimination of non-native contrasts declines
critical period in language acquisition
- idea that there is a window for learning language
innateness hypothesis
-the idea that infants are born with a certain degree of knowledge regarding the fact that languages have features and they are supposed to “figure out” what those features are
linguistic universals
- the concept that there are nouns and verbs
universal grammer
- the set of known features shared by all languages
critical period hypothesis
-“normal” language acquisition must occur in early childhood
- there is a circumsized developmental period before adulthood during which either first or second language acquisition is essentially guaranteed, and after which mastery of a language is not attainable
empathetic stress
- how are you emphasising the words
- highlighting the words that the baby may not know or they want the child to learn
Vocalisations: Stage 1
reflexive vocalisations (crying, burping, coughing)
Vocalisations: Stage 2
cooing and laughter
Vocalisations: Stage 3
isolated vowel-like sounds (ah-ah)
Vocalisations: Stage 4
canonical babbling
- consonant vowel cluster
- rhythmic
“gaga gaga”
Vocalisations: Stage 5
jargon babbling
- no real words but has prosody to depict what they are speaking
overextensions
sees any man and calls them all daddy
sees any animal and calls them all dog
under extensions
- if you have a dog and call your dog, dog, and see another dog out of your house and dont call it dog
-less common than overextensions - children attempt to be conservative in their use of language
-seen in older children with larger vocabularies
word spurt
- happens around 50 words/18 months
- 20-40 new words a month
debate on existence of the spurt
Typical 2 year old
- has at least 50 words
- has begun to combine words into two word combinations
Langauge Mixing/Code switching
- a speech style in which fluent bilinguals move in and out of two (or more) languages when speaking
language borrowing
- use of a word from another langue, which demonstrates morphological and phonological adaptation to the native language
- if there is not a word for a thing in the language you are speaking you borrow a word from another language
