Language Development Flashcards
Langauge
structured, rule based system of communication using symbols to communicate meaning
Symbolic
Expresses meaning
Generative
Structure/rule-based
Language is symbolic
Written word, spoken word, signed word, etc. all conjure up same mental image
Language expresses meaning
When interpreting what’s being said you know they are expressing something meaningful
Elements that influence interpretation of meaning
Language is generative
Infinite number of sentences
All are interpretable by those who speak our language
Generate and interpret every sentence you haven’t heard before
Language Requires
Comprehension and production
Human brain and environment
Comprehension
Understanding what others say, sign, or write
Receptive vocabulary: what words you’d understand if you encountered them
Production
Speaking, signing, or writing to others
Productive vocabulary: what words you can spontaneously use yourself
Phonemes
Units of sound that compose speech
Change of phoneme changes the meaning of the word
Varies dramatically across languages
E.g. rake vs. lake
Phonological development: acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of a language (during first few years of life)
Morphemes
Smallest units of meaning
Alone or in combination constitute words
E.g. doghouse has two (dog + house)
Semantic development: learning the system for expressing meaning in a language
Semantics: study of meaning
Syntax
Permissible combinations of words from different categories (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives)
Syntactic development: process of learning to understand (and follow) the syntactical rules of one’s language (intuitive)
Universal grammar: set of highly abstract, unconscious rules common to all human languages (Noam Chomsky)
-sentences can make sense grammatically but not mean anything
Pragmatics
Understanding of how language is typically used in a specific cultural context
Brain-Language Lateralization
Hemispheric differences in language functioning
For right handed people language is primarily represented and controlled by left hemisphere
Left hemisphere predominantly processes linguistic stimuli from early in life (reasons unknown)
For sign language as well
Sensitive Period for Language Development
Time during which language develops readily and relatively effortlessly
From birth until somewhere in elementary school (exact end may vary)
Genie who was deprived of early linguistic experience and therefore didn’t ever fully speak properly
Bilingualism
Cognitive benefits to children who speak multiple languages
Best to start learning both as young as possible
Similar vocabulary sizes to monolinguals
Do better on executive function and cognitive control tasks
Improved cognitive flexibility from switching between languages
Infant Directed Speech (IDS)
Exaggerated speech accompanied by exaggerated facial expressions
Infants prefer IDS (because it is happy speech)
-when affect is constant preference disappears
Infants learn and recognize words better when presented in IDS
Prosody
Characteristic rhythmic and intonation patterns with which a language is spoken
Part of why languages sound so different from each other
Categorical Perception
perceiving speech sounds as belonging to categories
Voice Onset Time (VOT)
Length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating
E.g. VOT is shorter for b than for p
Young infants make more distinctions than adults do (at 8 months, not at 12 months)
Adults do not perceive differences in speech sounds that are not important to their native language
(perceptual narrowing)
Word Segmentation
Where the spoken words start and end
Words are distinct when written down but blend together in spoken speech
7M: Listened longer to words that they had heard in the passages of fluent speech
Infants remarkably good at picking up regularities in native language that help find word boundaries
Distributional Properties
Sounds that are part of the same word more likely to occur together than others
Sensitivity to regularities of speech demonstrated in infants
Infants as young as 4 ½ months listen longer to repetitions of their own name
Babbling
Between 6-10 months
Consonant-vowel sequences
Drawn from limited set of sounds, some not in native language
ASL babies babble with their hands
Early Interactions
Learning to take turns in social interactions
E.g. in peekaboo
Infant has opportunity to alternate between an active and passive role
Responses to babbling serves this function
12 months: understand communicative nature of pointing, many can point themselves
Early Word Recognition
6 months
When hear mom or dad, look toward picture of correct person
Infants can understand far more words than they can produce
Same for autistic toddlers
Early Word Production
Any specific utterance consistently used to refer to or express a meaning
First word produced around 10-15 months
Mispronounced in a variety of predictable ways
Often refer to family members, pets, important objects, routines
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Stress Patterning
Part of prosody
First syllable in two syllable words more likely to be stressed
8 months: expect stressed syllables to begin words and can use this info to pull words out of fluent speech
Overextension
using a word in a broader context than is appropriate
E.g. calling any four legged animal a dog
Underextension
using a word in a more limited context than appropriate
E.g. dog only refers to their pet dog
Holophrastic Period
window in which children use single words to communicate whole ideas
Vocabulary Spurt
18 months: about 50 words (variable)
Rate of learning accelerates from there
Originally proposed to be point in development where exponential growth suddenly occurs
Recent reviews suggests it’s not all that universal or all that exponential
Fast Mapping
rapidly learning a new word simply from hearing the contrastive use of familiar and the unfamiliar word
Monolingual infants: every object has one word
Cross-Situational Word Learning
using repeated co-occurrence across situations to map new words to their referents
Pragmatic Cues
using social information to learn words (e.g. eye gaze)
Syntactic Bootstrapping
figure out meanings of new words by using grammatical structure of sentences in which the words occur
Technology & Language Learning
Parent teaching group showed greatest vocabulary development
If parents liked the DVD, they thought their child learned more from it
Passive viewing doesn’t support learning, but if actively engaged do learn
First Sentences
End of second year start combining words into simple sentences
Telegraphic speech: two word utterances
Some children use short utterances for long time, others move on to 3+ word sentences
Grammar
Tool for building new words and sentences
Children as young as 4 know to apply the s for plural
Parents play limited role in grammatical development
Provide model of correct speech and fill in missing parts of children’s utterances
Over-regularization Errors
Treat irregular forms as if they were regular
E.g. mans, goed, mooses
Most children begin by saying the correct one and relapse to this
Collective Monologues
content of each child’s turn having little or nothing to do with what the other child has just said
Eventually become better able to stick to topic with conversational partner and talk about the past
Narratives
descriptions of past events that have the form of a story
5 years
Parents help children produce coherent accounts of the past by scaffolding conversations
Conversational Skills
Lag behind speech and language skills
Speech is often self directed (e.g. private speech to organize actions)
