Language Development

Question 1

High Amplitude Sucking Procedure

Answer 1

Use to test infants from birth to 4 months
-relies on infants sucking reflex
-the number of strong sucks is an indicator of the infants interest

Question 2

Voice Onset time (VOT)

Answer 2

Length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start to vibrate

Question 3

Different speech sounds can be done in a very similar way. What distinguishes them?

Answer 3

VOT

Question 4

Categorical perception

Answer 4

We perceive speech sounds as distinct categories even though the differences between speech sounds is gradual. Ex. BA and PA. You hear a B if the VOT is smaller than 25. And a P if voice onset time is bigger than 25.

Question 5

Why categorical perception is useful

Answer 5

Focuses on sounds that are linguistically meaningful while ignoring meaningless differences. Difference between 10ms VOT vs 20ms VOT is meaningless in English, both a “B”.

Question 6

Do infants have the same speech perception as adults

Answer 6

Yes.
-Increase sucking when sound from new category (BA and PA)
-No change in sucking when sound from same category (PA and PA)

although both represent the same different in VOT

Question 7

True or false: Infants make more distinctions between speech sounds than adults

Answer 7

True. Study with “Ta” and “ta” in Hindi. ? months old get used to one of them. Increase sucking when hear the other speech sound.

Meaning infants are able to distinguish between sounds they have never heard before, in language they have never been exposed to before.

Question 8

Perceptual narrowing of speech perception

Answer 8

speech perception diminishes around 8 months

Question 9

At what age kids lose the ability to distinguish between non-native sounds

Answer 9

10-12 months of age

Question 10

At what age comes word segmentation

Answer 10

7 months of age

Question 11

How do children know where words begin and end in fluent speech

Answer 11

They pick up on patterns of native language via statistical learning. Sensitive to the patterns of language and use it to segment words.

Question 12

What are the two types of statistical learning that allow children to find words in speech

Answer 12

1) Stress-patterning.
Where you place stress, or weight in the sentence. In English, stress usually on the first syllable In french, stress usually on last syllable.

2) Distribution of speech sounds
“ba” and “by” occur together often because make word “baby”.
statistical learning: if it happens often, it’s probably a word.

Question 13

Preferential listening procedure

Answer 13

how much time they look at each sound.

Question 14

Developmental milestones

Answer 14

2 months: cooing & gurgling “ahhhhh”
7 months: “papapa”, “bababa”.
12months: first words
18 months: knows 50 words

Question 15

functions of babbling

Answer 15

-social function: practice turn-taking in a dialogue. elicit caregiver reactions which in turn elicit more babbling
-learning function: signal that the infant is listening are ready to learn. infants learn more when an adult labels a new object just after they babble vs. learning the world in the absence of babbling.

Question 16

around what age do infants appear to understand high-frequency words (words they hear often)

Answer 16

around 6 months of age. eye-tracking task. if experimenter says apple, infant is most likely to look at apple.

shows that infants understand more words than they can produce, and more words than their caregiver realize

Question 17

What is considered a first word?

Answer 17

any specific utterance consistently used to refer to or express a meaning. consistently being used to refer to a specific thing every time. like saying “gulgul” to refer to a turkey = first word.

Question 18

when are first words produced

Answer 18

12 months of age

Question 19

what do first words usually refer to

Answer 19

family members, pets, or important objects

Question 20

2 limitations of first words

Answer 20

overextension: using a word in a broader context than is appropriate
-like using dog for all 4 legged animals

underextension: using a word in a more limited context than appropriate
-like using cat only for the family’s cat

Question 21

what is vocabulary spurt

Answer 21

rate of word learning accelerates

Question 22

when do children know around 50 words

Answer 22

at 18 months of age

Question 23

children’s assumptions in word learning: mutual exclusivity assumption

Answer 23

a given object/being will have only one name.
-will turn their attention to the object they don’t have a name for when they hear a new word

Question 24

children’s assumptions in word learning: whole-object assumption

Answer 24

a word will refer to the whole object rather than to a part oor action of the object

Question 25

children’s assumptions in word learning: pragmatic cues

Answer 25

using the social context to infer the meaning of a word
-if adult says a new word, the child assumes that it refers to the object the adult is looking at, even if the chlid cannot see it.

Question 26

children’s assumptions in word learning: adult’s intentionality

Answer 26

if an adult uses a word that conflicts with child’s word for that object, they will learn the new word if it is said with confidence

“you’re not gonna believe this but his is actually a dog!” greater intention. kid will believe

Question 27

children’s assumptions in word learning: grammatical form

Answer 27

children pay attention to grammar

“this is sibbing”: knows it refers to the action
“this is a sib”: bowl
“this is some sib”: grains

Question 28

children’s assumptions in word learning: shape bias

Answer 28

Children will apply a noun to a new object of the same shape, even if that object is very different in size, colour, or texture

Question 29

children’s assumptions in word learning: cross-situational word learning

Answer 29

determining word meanings by tracking the correlations between labels and meanings across contexts

in context 1, someone says this is a dax. three things in front of you. in context 2, someone says again this is a dax, still three things in front of you. The thing that is common in both situation is the dax

Question 30

how can caregivers influence word learning (3 ways)

Answer 30

-Infant directed speech
-Quantity of speech: the number of words used around them
-Quality of speech: the richness of adult communication with their child

Question 31

function of infant-directed speech

Answer 31

draws attention to speech, which then faciliates their language learning

Question 32

study with 7-8months old: do they prefer IDS or adult speech words

Answer 32

IDS. look longer at words introduced in IDS

Question 33

true or false: the number of words heard by children differs across income groups

Answer 33

true. called “the 30 million word gap”. children from high SES have larger vocabularies than kids from low SES. differences in language exposure contribute to achievement gap between higher and lower SES children.

Question 34

first sentences: at around what age comes telegraphic speech (2-3 words phrases, like “ hurt knee”)

Answer 34

2 years old

Question 35

learning grammar: between what age children acquire the basics of grammar

Answer 35

between 2 to 5 years old. master grammar at 5

Question 36

what does this exercice allow us to see in children and at what age is a child able to respond. “This is a Wug. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two _____”

Answer 36

to see if children have learned the grammar of their language (applying rule to new context): around 5 years old

Question 37

how is grammar learned

Answer 37

-parents and other caregivers
-statistical learning

Question 38

from sentences to conversations: what what characterizes speech in children between 1 to 4 years old

Answer 38

• private speech: directed to themselves to organize actions.
  “this is blue. this one is pink. i’ll draw it pink.”
• egocentric discussion between children

Question 39

at around what age can children stick to the same conversation topic as their conversation partner

Answer 39

5+ years old

Question 40

what explains the sensitive period (from birth to before puberty) for language acquisition

Answer 40

due to maturational changes in the brain whereby language brain areas become less plastic

Question 41

what are evidences of sensitive period in language acquisition

Answer 41

1- Genie. rescued at 13. Never able to talk
2 - Children with brain damage usually recover full language vs teenagers and adults are more likely to suffer permanent language impairment
3 - Deaf individuals: if they could hear as children, perform better on language task. same thing if exposure to ASL. exposure to language, regardless of modality, is crucial for full language dev.
4 - Second language learners: first age of exposure

Question 42

bilingualism: what were the results of the study done with 2 groups of newborns, one group mom English-Tagalog bilingual, other group mom monolingual English

Answer 42

English monolinguals had a preference for English

English-Tagalog bilinguals showed no consistent preference for either language

-Suggest that bilingual infants start learning about two native languages pre-birth

Question 43

In follow up study, to see if children can actually discriminate betwen english and tagalog, they habituated children to either Tagalog or English. Then played other language. What happened

Answer 43

Increase sucking to new language for both Tagalog babies and English babies.

-shows that bilingual infants can differentiate between native languages despite showing similar preferences for both languages
-also shows that bilingual infants are developping two separate language systems, which goes against monolingual brain hypothesis

Question 44

what are evidences for two separate linguistic systems

Answer 44

1. language development in bilingual vs. monolingual children is very similar
   ex. say their first word roughly at the same time
2. children select language they use based on conversational partner
3. Even if children mix languages, not sign of confusion

Question 45

what are advantages of bilingualism

Answer 45

• bilingual children perform better on measures of executive functionning than monolingual children
• bilingualism seems to delay onset of Alzheimer’s in older adults

what explains that: bilinguals have to quickly switch between languages, which practices their executive functionning skills, especially cognitive flexibility