Language Acquisition Flashcards
Between __-__ weeks in the womb, babies heart rates change in response to noise, suggesting the ability to ____.
29-35 weeks babies can hear
Trans-natal learning is the ability to do what?
express info learnt in the womb after birth
DeCasper and Spence (1986) showed that babies will change their _______ pattern in response to a story they heard _____ ______.
Babies will change their sucking pattern in response to a story they heard in the womb
prosody refers to the ____ of a language
A Appearance
B Harshness
C Rhythm
D None of the above
C Rhythm
The ability for infants to distinguish between english and japanese, but not english and danish, suggest babies use ________ to distinguish between languages.
prosody
Phonemes refer to ________ ______ ______.
Phoneme boundaries refer to changes from one ________ to _________.
Phonemes refer to distinguishable sound units
Phoneme boundaries refer to changes from one phoneme to another
In the High Amplitide Sucking (HAS) paradigm (Eimas et al 1971) , for familiar sounds sucking ______, suggesting habituation or ________, but for novel sounds, sucking ________, suggesting _______.
HAS - familiar sounds sucking decreases suggesting habituation or disinterest
novel sounds - sucking increases suggesting interest.
Newborn babies have the ability to make any ______ ________, whereas adults do not.
babies can make phonetic discriminations better than adults
not yet learnt
How does the conditioned headturn paradigm work ?
babies learn that when change in auditory stimulus occurs, a toy pops up
they will look at toy and turn their head
therefore if they can discriminate a change they will turn their head
At age 6-8 months, nearly all babies can discriminate between phonemes in _____ and _____, 2 different sounding languages. However this ability decreases at age __-__ months. This change is known as ______ _______
6-8mo - can discriminate between phonemes in english as well as hindi
ability decreased at 10-12 months
this is an example of perceptual narrowing
What is the main advantage of perceptual narrowing?
system efficiency - only discriminate relevant info (own language) and ignore irrelevant info (other languages)
Can exposure to non-native (second language) reduce perceptual narrowing?
yes but only for that language
What is the main critique of perceptual narrowing studies, and the claim of universality?
Most studies done in W.EI.R.D countries where english is the first language, and many families not bilingual
Speech segmentation is the ability to do what?
Identify where one word ends and the next one begins
By age __ months infants have the ability to detect target words in _____ speech contexts, using the ______ ______ paradigm.
by 7.5 months infants can detect target words in fluent speech contexts
using the preferential listening paradigm
What are the 3 main explanations for children developing word recognition/speech segmentation?
Infant directed speech
Implicit language cues
transitional probabilities
Infant directed speech refers to techniques used to _____ speech to help infants understand.
List 5 technique.
Tailoring speech to infants
Short utterances
long pauses
pitch changes
exaggeration
simplified sentence structure
Implicit language cues and transitional probabilities refer to the fact that __% of english words have their ______ syllable stressed.
90% of English words have the first syllable stressed
Juszcyk et al showed that after 9 months babies prefer what type of words?
A Short words
B Long words
C Words with the first syllable stressed
D Words with the last syllable stressed
C words with the first syllable stressed
Saffran et al showed using non words, that at __ months children can _____ continuous speech streams based on _)______ cues alone.
At 8 months children can segment speech streams based on statistical cues alone
Word comprehension refers to ______________
Word production refers to ______________
comprehension - refers to consistent and specific response to use of a word
production - consistent use of sound sequence in specific context
Comprehension requires an ___________, whereas production requires _______ ________.
Comprehension = an understanding
production requires verbal responding
What 3 ways can word comprehension be measured in infants?
Parental reports using Communicative developmental inventory
home observation/recordings
Laboratory
By 6-9 months children know the meaning of many common nouns such as ______ and _____ ______. Word understanding starts ______ but then ________ rapidly, using a technique called fast ________. By 16 months an infants word range is anywhere from __ to ____ words.
6-9 months babies know meaning of common nouns like foods and body parts
starts slowly then rapidly increases due to fast mapping
16 mo - infants word range from 70-270 words
Fast Mapping refers to the ability to form quick and _____ but ______ hypotheses about the meaning of ____ words based on how they are used in a ________.
Fast Mapping = forming quick rough but accurate hypotheses about meaning of new words based on how they are used in a sentence
