Lecture #6 Flashcards
Aphasia
an acquired language disorder in which there is an impairment of a
language modality
• provide evidence of specialisation for language within the left hemisphere
Receptive (wernicke’s) aphasia
• can speak with normal grammar, syntax, rate, intonation & stress, but
language content is incorrect
• use the wrong words, insert nonexistent words into speech, or string
normal words together randomly
• retain the ability to sing or to recite something memorized
Expressive (Broca’s) aphasia
- speech & writing difficult to initiate, nonfluent, labored & halting
- intonation & stress patterns are deficient
- language is reduced to disjointed words
- sentence construction is poor, omitting function words & inflections
Recent findings (non- invasive techniques) (brain and language)
the brain shows a consistent organisation for
language across the lifespan
– the left hemisphere shows activity when listening
to speech & the right shows activity when
processing the melody or rhythm of speech
– greater localisation in the left hemisphere in
men’s brains
– band of fibres (arcuate fasciculus) connects
Wernicke’s & Broca’s areas
Main elements of language
Phonology: the organisation of sounds in language
Semantics: the units of meaning in a language
Syntax: the rules for combining words
Pragmatics: the knowledge of how language is used
Prosody: the sound of speech
Phonology
– phonemes: basic speech sounds • English has approx. 41 phonemes • 1st 4 months universal linguists – can distinguish between all the sounds that make up speech
Semantics
– morphemes: the smallest meaningful units of a
language (symbols)
• e.g., antidisestablishmentarianism
• anti/dis/establish/ment/arian/ism
Syntax
– grammar
• specifies how morphemes & phonemes should be combined
• how words should be arranged to form meaningful phrases
& sentences
• much is learned tacitly
– “The crawled barn mouse the under”
– “The mouse crawled under the barn”
Pragmatics
- how to use language
Prosody
– the ‘melody’ of speech
Born with a preparedness for speech
- preference for speech sounds
- preference for mother’s voice
- language development is universal
Vocalisations
at around 6 to 8 weeks, infants begin producing
drawn out vowel sounds; cooing
– as the repertoire of sounds they can produce
expands, become increasingly aware that their
vocalizations elicit responses from others & begin
to engage in dialogues of reciprocal sounds
• between 4 & 6 months of age, infants begin to babble
– repeat strings of sounds comprising a consonant followed by a
vowel
• a key component of the development of babbling is
receiving feedback about the sounds one is producing
e.g., deaf infants
• as infants’ babbling becomes more varied, it conforms
more to the sounds, rhythm & intonation patterns of the
language they hear daily
7 ½ months: word segmentation • 8 months babble with an accent • comprehension proceeds production – at about 10 mths can comprehend, but not produce, approx. 50 words • How? – joint attention & syntax
Word Production
most infants produce their 1st words between 10-15 months
– 1st words typically include names for people, objects &
events from everyday life
• period of one-word utterances
– holophrases: because the child typically expresses a “whole phrase”
with a single word
Language achievement
experience a vocabulary
spurt at 18/19 months
- begin to produce simple
sentences at around 24
months - great variability in when
different children
achieve these milestones
How do children learn so quickly?
– with cognitive development comes a range of
improvements
• categorisation
• memory
• imitation
• perspective taking
• pronunciation
– fast mapping: the ability to connect a word with
its underlying concept after brief experience
