Language Acquisition

Question 1

What is involved with the Naturalistic approach to language acquisition in babies?

Answer 1

• Diary studies

- Recording of sample utterances by trained researcher

Question 2

What is involved with the Experimental approach to language acquisition in babies?

Answer 2

• Comprehension
• Production
• imitation

Question 3

_______ acquired before ________

Answer 3

vowels

consonants

Question 4

______ acquired before other consonants

Answer 4

Stops

Question 5

_______ acquired before _______, ___________, and ___________

Answer 5

labials
velars
alveolars
alveolopalatals

Question 6

________ acquired last

Answer 6

Interdentals

Question 7

_______ sounds acquired before _______

Answer 7

Frequent

Infrequent

Question 8

What are the early phonetic processes of babies?

Answer 8

• Substitution
• Syllable simplification
• Assimilation

Question 9

What is Substitution?

Answer 9

The systematic replacement of one sound by another

Question 10

What is syllable simplification?

Answer 10

When under stressed syllables are dropped

Question 11

What is Assimilation?

Answer 11

When one speech sound becomes much like a nearby sound

Question 12

How do children learn Morphology?

Answer 12

By following rules and applying them, not by memorization and imitation

Question 13

What are the stages that a child goes through when they learn Morphology?

Answer 13

1. Perfection (almost) “Daddy came home”
2. Over-regularization (frequent) “Daddy comed home”
3. Perfection (gradual transition to this) “Daddy came home”

Question 14

Who developed the Wug Test?

Answer 14

Jean Burko-Gleason in the 1950’s

Question 15

Phonological development at 0-8 weeks

Answer 15

Only capable of reflexive crying

Question 16

Phonological development at 8-20 weeks

Answer 16

Cooing and laughter appear in child’s vocal expressions

Question 17

Phonological development at 20-30 weeks

Answer 17

Child begins to use verbal play with vowels and consonants (trying them out)

Question 18

Phonological development at 25-50 weeks

Answer 18

child begins to babble

Question 19

What are the two types of babbling?

Answer 19

• reduplicative babbling (CVCV) ex: baba

- variegated babbling (VCV) ex: adu

Question 20

Phonological development at 9-18 months

Answer 20

Child starts to produce melodic utterances (the presence of stress and intonation)

Question 21

Describe the holophrastic utterance phase of Language Acquisition

Answer 21

• This occurs at about 12 months
• Holophrase=one word
• One word can be used to indicate things or people
• Some words can be representative of whole thoughts

Question 22

Describe the two word phrase phase of Language Acquisition

Answer 22

• Occurs between 18-24 months
• They can use one or two word sentences
  (ex: my book)

Question 23

Describe the telegraphic speech phase of Language Acquisition

Answer 23

• Starts at two years and continues
• Sentences are adult like in structure but without function words
• Like a telegram (simplified speech)

Question 24

At what age does a child’s speech typically become mostly adult like in nature?

Answer 24

Three years (36 months)

Question 25

Describe "The kid's Problem" when it comes to innateness

Answer 25

``` -poor data: people make mistakes when talking -inconsistent data: different people use different dialects -many different grammars consistent with the data he hears: the kid has no way to know what people cant say. ```

Question 26

Describe the "poverty of the stimulus"

Answer 26

The "stimulus" (language) that the child hears doesnt provide enough information to determine what the details are of the language the child is learning

Question 27

Language ______ be taught to a child because it is ________ like walking or eating.

Answer 27

cannot | innate

Question 28

Why is the theory of imitation in language acquisition shown to be false?

Answer 28

Because children are able to say and understand things that they have never been exposed to before. A major example of this would be the over-regularization that children do (comed, holded, goed)

Question 29

Name the characteristics of innate abilities

Answer 29

- The behavior emerges before it is necessary - It is not a result of a conscious decision - Not triggered by external events - Direct teaching has little effect - Has a regular sequence or milestones in development - There is a "critical period"

Question 30

When do infants start to say their first words?

Answer 30

10-12 months

Question 31

Infants are sensitive to picking up language ______________ birth.

Answer 31

Directly after

Question 32

Many experiments confirmed that at________ infants can discriminate their native language from a foreign language!

Answer 32

4 days

Question 33

How did the researchers establish that the infants can discriminate languages?

Answer 33

The standard technique is a habituation- recovery procedure that exploits infants sucking behavior aka HAS (High Amplitude Sucking)