Learning Acquisition 1 Flashcards
What skills are needed to learn a language?
Association (sounds w/ words, words w/ meanings)
Generalisation/ extension (to new items, diff. speakers, etc.)
Recognition (wounds, words, learned meanings)
Retrieval
How do patterns linked with language acquisition?
Acquisition = learning patterns
Patterns for which sounds fit together to make a word
Patterns for which word types fit together in which order
domain-general learning processes.
What are the language milestones?
Birth = Recognise own languages
1-4 = Cooing
4-8 = Understand highly used words
4-10 = Babbling
10-14 = First word
12+ = Understands hundreds of words
16-20 = Possible vocab spurt
18-30 = First sentence
30+ = Longer sentences
36+ = Uses grammar
What does comprehension mean?
understand what others say (/sign/write)
What does production mean?
actually speaking (/signing/ writing) to others
True or False?
Comprehension precedes production in using language.
True - Caselli et al (2012)
How does socio-economic status effect (SES) how babies use language?
Hart and Ridley (1995) = infants vocab size differs between Socio-Economic Status (SES) groups bc middle/ high SES are more talkative
Fernald et al. (2013) = @ 18mths, children from from ↓ SES backgrounds produce fewer words + @24mths, there is a 6mths language gap between SES groups
Huttenlocher et al. (2020) = children from ↓ SES backgrounds produce simple sentence
What is the Matthew effect?
Shelley (1891) = the richer have become richer, and the poor have become poorer’
Gaps between groups widen over time e.g Wagovich et al. (2014) but other studies show gaps don’t widen.
When children recognise language?
Foetuses can hear from 15-18 weeks. Sounds = muffled in the womb. Infants initially prefer muffled sounds + their mother’s voice
Later, infants prefer mother’s voice, parents over strangers +own language(s) over another language(s)
What is a cadence?
rhythm of language/speech
What does DeCasper and Spence (1987) show in their study?
Mothers recited stories twice/day in the last 6 weeks of pregnancy (3.5 hrs total exposure)
At 55 hours of age, infants “worked” to produce the story they had heard over a different story (control group did not + no preferences for story, preferred mothers voice)
Foetus and infants can learn and recall cadence (and learn contingencies)
How do infants find breaks within words?
Pitch
Pauses
Statistics + correlations (patterns). Transitional probability (patterns) = Sounds that occur together often = ↑ likely to be from the same word. Jones et al (2018) = stat learning is domain general
What is Saffron et al. (1996) study?
Shows infants can segment speech
8mths infants listen to a language of 3-multi syllable passwords for 2mins
No pauses/ pitch cues = only stats
Transitional probs within words = 1.0
Transitional probs between words = 0.33
Test = infants to indvdl words/ part words
Results = infants preferred part-words, could distinguish between words + part words (even though both had been heard before) + can use patterns to learn language
What is infant direct speech?
Speech that has characteristics to help children isolate words
What are the characteristics of infant direct speech?
↑ pitch + wide range of pitch
Exaggerated intonation
Simple structure
Fernald (1995) = infant-directed speech is ↑ pitch than adult-directed speech across languages
Thiessen et al. (2005) = when presented w/ identical speech streams, 7mths infants learned the ‘words’ significantly better if IDS was used . Infant direct speech aids segmentation
What did Fernald (1995) say about IDS?
infant-directed speech is ↑ pitch than adult-directed speech across languages
What did Thiessen et al. (2005) say about IDS?
When presented w/ identical speech streams, 7mths infants learned the ‘words’ significantly better if IDS was used . Infant direct speech aids segmentation
Can older children be helped to learn words w/ child directed speech?
Yes
Leung et al. (2021) = parents adjust their speech based on words they think their children don’t know
Foursha-Stenson et al. (2017) = 5 years understand sentences in CDS
Ma et al. (2020) = CDS helps adults learn words in new languages
How do infants recognise words?
Mendel et al (1995) = @4.5mths infants recognise their names
Tincoff and Juscyzk (1999) = @6mths infants understand the words ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’
Bergelson and Swingley (2012) = @6-8mths infants show understanding for some words for familiar objects e.g food + body parts
Kartushina and Mayor (2019) =. Failed replication of the study
What happened in Miller et al.’s study (2017)?
‘Orient to name’ task given to infant siblings of children w/ + w/out ASD
Tested + retested = 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 + 24mths = 36mths children = 3 groups
Groups w/ ASD
↓ risk group
↑ risk group
Results
From 9mths ASD behaved diff. from other groups
Children w/ ↑ repeated failures diagnosed w/ ASD earlier than other children w/ ASD
Name recognition @9mths = could be useful for prescreening application (Earlier responses examined w/ new insight )
How are infants successful in speech-processing tasks?
Werker et al (2009)
Monolingual + bilingual children develop similarly in learning word association + differences in categories
Macrostructure = flexibility + robustness of language acquisition
Microstructure = insights how children learn language
How does language affect categorisation?
Samuelson and smith (1999)
Input children hear = for categories (nouns)
Most children’s early vocab = words for solid, shape-based categories w/ count noun syntax (count noun syntax: noun that can be made plural)
Althaus and Westermann (2016)
Present 10mth infants w/ dragon drawings = same dragon morphed several times
Prototype dragons = can be categorised little wings (4), big wings(16), all dragons (10) + completely new
In silence condition = infants formed 1 category (all prototypes familiar)
o 1 word condition = infants formed 1 category
o 2 word condition = infants formed 2 categories
o Shows anguage influences categorization
Why do categories help w/ learning?
Smith et al.’s (2002) 4 step process
1. Early on children = learn words for indvdls words
2. Buckets are bucket shaped, hammers are hammer shaped
3. Object is object shaped
4. Pencil shaped thing is a pencil
Samuelson (2002) = 17mths children learned 12 real nouns for 9 weeks + 1mth follow up
Shape bias = learned through learning words
o Taught through vocab training
Names for categories = learned later after 26mths
o Shape training = bucket, pear, ladder, boot…
o Material training = lotion, chalk…
Results
o Children trained on shape categories = precocious shape bias
Children trained on shape categories overgeneralised to non-solid substances
o Children trained on material categories didn’t develop any bias
o Shows that categorisation influences language
Shape bias = product of word learning.
