Lecture 6 - Language Development

Question 1

High Amplitude Sucking Procedure

Answer 1

Used on Infants 0-4 months old.
Utilities infant’s sucking reflex.
Infants hear a sound and sucking reflex is recorded.
More strong sucks= More Interest

Question 2

HASP - Discrimination

Answer 2

Used to tell if infant’s can differentiate between two sounds.
Same principles as habituation paradigm.
Record how much infants such to one sound until habituated, Then hear a new sound and see if sucking increases.

Question 3

HASP - Preference

Answer 3

Different stimuli are presented in one minute intervals, sucks recorded, stronger sucks indicated higher preference.

Question 4

What have HASPs Demonstrated?

Answer 4

Infants prefer speech over artificial sound
Prefer mother’s voice over other woman’s voice
Prefer Native Language
This means that infants can start learning language prior to birth

Question 5

What is used to distinguish similar speech sounds and why is this important?

Answer 5

Voice Onset Time: Length of time between when air passes through lips and when vocal cords start to vibrate. Important in differentiating similar speech sounds.

Question 6

What is unique about human perception of speech sounds?

Answer 6

It is categorical despite speech sounds being on a continuum.

Question 7

Why do humans have categorical speech sound perception?

Answer 7

Helps us focus on linguistically relevant sounds.

Question 8

Using a HASP Discrimination Test, Researchers found that the ability to categorise speech sounds is innate, True or False?

Answer 8

True

Question 9

How is infant speech discrimination different in native language then compared to adults?

Answer 9

Infants can recognise speech sound difference in non-native languages whilst adults can not.

Question 10

How Does perceptual Narrowing Play a role in Speech Sound Discrimination in Native VS Non-Native languages?

Answer 10

Before 8 Months, easily distinguish between speech sounds in both native and non-native language.
by 12 months, ability becomes refined to only native language.

Question 11

What is Word Segmentation and When does it Begin?

Answer 11

Around 7 months, the ability to decipher where words begin and end. (lookatthecutepuppy)

Question 12

What are two methods used for word segmentation in Native Language via Statistical learning?

Answer 12

Stress-Patterning
Distribution of Speech Sounds

Question 13

Stress Patterning

Answer 13

Different Languages emphasise different parts of a word.
English= First Syllable
French= Second Syllable

Question 14

Distribution of Speech Sounds

Answer 14

Sounds that appear together more often are likely to be words
Sounds that appear together less often are more likely to be boundaries between words

Question 15

Speech Development Timeline

Answer 15

Cooing= 2 Months
Babbling= 7 Months
First Words= 12 Months
50 Words Known= 18 Months

Question 16

Cooing

Answer 16

2 Months,
Mainly consists of Drawn out vowel sounds
Helps infants familiarise themselves with motor movements for speech
Elicits caregiver responses for back and forth cooing (early conversations)

Question 17

Babbling

Answer 17

7 Months,
Repetitive consonant vowels (papapa)
Not culturally or language bound

Question 18

Deaf Infants and Babbling

Answer 18

Deaf Infants still babble,
Meaning babbling is innate
However deaf Infants exposed to ASL can throw up portions of ASL words meaning that some parts of babbling are based on language exposure.

Question 19

2 Main Functions of Babbling

Answer 19

Social Function: Practising Dialogue and Turn-Taking in speech
Learning Function: Babbling signals that the infant is active and ready to learn. (Labelling a word after babbling VS labelling without).

Question 20

Can Infants Understand Words Before the Speak?

Answer 20

Yes, high frequency words are identified more times than chance.

Question 21

First Words

Answer 21

First Word=First Year
Any specific utterance consistently used to refer to/express meaning.

Question 22

Why are first words difficult to identify?

Answer 22

Since babbling often sounds like words (mamama)
Since the meaning of first words can differ from their standard meaning

Question 23

What are common ways that first words are mispronounced?

Answer 23

Omitting Difficult Parts of the Word
Substituting Difficult Parts of the Word
Re-order words to put easy sounds first

Question 24

What do all first words share in common despite cultural differences?

Answer 24

The fact that they relate to family members, pets or objects interacted with on a daily basis.

Question 25

Limitations of First Words

Answer 25

Expression using one word utterances is unclear
Overextension= using a word for a broader context than appropriate
Under extension= Using a word in a more limited context than appropriate

Question 26

Mutual Exclusivity Assumption

Answer 26

A given object/Person only has one name. If shown a teddy bear and cup (they don’t know cup) hearing the word Fred (name of teddy bear) will prompt them to look at cup since they already know teddy bear is teddy so Fred must be the Cup.
Assumption doesn’t hold as strong in bilingual children.

Question 27

Whole Object Assumption

Answer 27

A word refers to a whole objects rather than a part/aspect of it.

Question 28

Pragmatic Cues

Answer 28

Social Context in order to infer meaning of a word.
Largely influenced by Adult Gaze, When an adult says a new word, child assumes that it belongs to whatever the adult Is looking at, even if the child can’t see it.

Question 29

Adult Intentionality

Answer 29

If an adult uses a new word for an object that the child already has a name for, the child will adopt the adult’s version so long as it was said with confidence.

Question 30

Grammatical Form

Answer 30

Grammatical Form of a word influences whether it is interpreted as noun, verb or adjective.

Question 31

Shape Bias

Answer 31

Children will apply a noun to a new object of similar shape even if it is of a different colour, size or texture.

Question 32

Cross Situational Word Learning

Answer 32

Determining Word meanings by tracking labels and objects across contexts.

Question 33

What are 3 Caregiver Factors Influencing Children’s Speech

Answer 33

Infant Directed Speech
Quantity of Speech
Quality of Speech

Question 34

Infant Directed Speech

Answer 34

Special way of talking to infants that is common across most culture but not all. Characterised by a simpler and more friendly way of talking.
Infants prefer this and pay more attention, hence better learning outcomes.

Question 35

Quantity of Speech

Answer 35

The more words that children hear, especially Directed towards them, predicts better learning outcomes.

Question 36

Link between SES and Quantity of Speech

Answer 36

Children from higher SES hearing more words hence have a more developed vocabulary.
Part of the achievement gap between low and high SES is due to language gap.

Question 37

Quality of Speech

Answer 37

Richness of dialogue from parents predicts child’s language capabilities through 1) Joint Engagement 2) Fluency 3) Stressing new words 4) Playing word Games 5) Naming objects that toddlers are interacting with

Question 38

Grocery Store Intervention for word gap

Answer 38

Signs in low SES grocery stores that prompted parents to ask kids to name foods and ingredients + increase quality and quantity of speech towards children.

Question 39

Peer influence on language

Answer 39

Children with poor language ability fair better in classroom where peers are more advanced and so is the teacher.

Question 40

Telegraphic Speech

Answer 40

Short utterances that leave out non essential words (mommy cake) (knee hurt)

Question 41

Learning Grammar

Answer 41

Age 5,
Allows for expression and comprehension of more complex ideas.

Question 42

How can we tell that children have learned the grammar of their native language?

Answer 42

By applying grammatical rules to newly learned words, seen through: adding “s” to plural words and overregularisation

Question 43

Overregularisation Errors

Answer 43

Treating irregular forms of the word as if they were regular. Evidence that they have learned grammatical rules but not their exceptions. (Mans, Goed)

Question 44

What is a caveat of parent and caregiver grammatical teaching?

Answer 44

They model grammatically correct speech but don’t usually correct grammatical errors.

Question 45

How does statistical learning play a role in grammar learning?

Answer 45

Infants (8 months) can pick up on re-occuring patterns (ko-ga-ga)

Question 46

Grammar and Sentence Timeline

Answer 46

Initially Private and Egocentric Speech.
Age 2, learn 2-3 word sentences
Between 2-5, Extend patterns (adding “s”) and overregularisation
5+, Able to engage in sustained conversation using emotional tone.