Professional Communication Flashcards
What is the Pre-alphabetic Phase?
Phase 1: reading Development
Typical in preschool and kindergarten children with little or no alphabetic knowledge.
Recognise some words as pictures.
Uses visual cues like pictures, symbols, and logos to recognise words.
What characterizes the Partial Alphabetic Reading phase?
Phase 2: Reading Development
- Typical Kindergarton children and early readers
- Emerging use of grapheme-phoneme connections
- Phonetic cue reading incomplete or unreliable
Often involves using first letter sound and context to guess words.
What skills are important in Partial Alphabetic Reading?
Phase 2: Reading Development
Phonological and phonemic awareness skills
These skills support emerging reading abilities in early readers.
What defines Full Alphabetic Reading?
Phase 3: Reading Development
Complete connections between letters and sounds = improved novel word reading
Text reading is still laborious and slow
Involves segmenting words into all sounds + developing ‘sight words’.
What is a characteristic of the Consolidated Alphabetic Reading phase?
Phase 4: Reading Development
Familiarity with letter patterns and grapheme-phoneme correspondences
Reduced memory load for storing sight words
Recognises bigger chunks like consonant blends, morphemes, syllables, onsets, rimes.
What occurs in the Automatic Phase of reading development?
Phase 5: Reading Development
Proficient word reading with high automaticity and speed
More attention to comprehension
Involves using multiple strategies for identifying unfamiliar words.
Define Orthographic Mapping.
Connection-making process for creating sight words
Reduces cognitive and memory load; requires 4 to 14 exposures for new word recognition.
List the four methods of Word Recognition.
- Decoding
- Sight Words
- Analogy: using known words with similar spelling patterns
- Predicting: using contextual information and initial letters
Each method supports different aspects of reading comprehension and fluency.
What is Decoding in the context of Word Recognition?
Applying word attack skills to read unfamiliar words
Essential for developing reading strategies.
What are Sight Words?
aka: high frequency words
Recognising commonly used words and recognised instantly by sight
Important for reading fluency.
What does the Analogy method involve?
Using known words with similar spelling patterns
Helps in predicting the pronunciation of unfamiliar words.
What is the Predicting method in Word Recognition?
Using contextual information and initial letters
Supports comprehension by anticipating word meanings.
Fill in the blank: The Pre-alphabetic Phase is typical in _______ and _______ children.
preschool, kindergarten
This phase is characterized by limited alphabetic knowledge.
True or False: In the Full Alphabetic Reading phase, reading is still laborious and slow.
True
Despite improved skills, reading can remain slow as fluency develops.
What is a key feature of the Automatic Phase?
More attention to comprehension
As word reading becomes more automatic, readers can focus on understanding the text.
What is phonics?
Spoken language is represented by symbols (letters).
Before children begin reading words, they must first learn the relationship between sounds and letters in order to read (grapheme to phoneme correspondence) and spell (phoneme to grapheme correspondence).
we have 44 sounds
Phonics is this relationship between the 26 letters of the English alphabet and the 44 speech sounds
What is decoding?
Decoding basically refers to the need to “sound out” a word.
Once children are able to map letters to corresponding sounds, they begin the process of decoding
‘dog’ and sounding this out as /d/ /o/ /g/ before saying /dog/.
At around 12 months, children have entered the
locutionary stage of language development
meaning they can produce an utterance that has meaning and intent
From 12 months – 18 months children typically acquire
50 words in their spoken lexicon/vocabulary
What age does a childs receptive language precede their expressive language in the initial lexicon
From 12 months – 18 months
means children can understand many more words than they can produce
From 12 months – 18 months the majority (60-65%) of first 50 words are
Nouns
From 12 months – 18 months how do children learn so many new words?
fast mapping or “quick incidental learning (QUIL)
For example, if a child hears a new word, such as “ball,” in the context of a game of catch, they will make an association between the word and the object, even if they do not have a complete understanding of its meaning.
Underextensions refer to
a child’s use of a word in a more restricted way than its conventional meaning
For example, a child may use the word “dog” to refer only to their own pet, rather than to all dogs in general.
Overextensions refer to
a child’s use of a word in a broader way than its conventional meaning
For example, a child may use the word “dog” to refer not only to dogs, but also to other animals, such as cats or rabbits. It is showing that the child’s language is developing, as they can associate the word with the semantic features of other items
What is the mean length of utterance measured in morphemes (MLUm)
the average number of morphemes in an utterance.
it gives important information about a child’s expressive language skill
Requesting action
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Attends to object or event; addresses adult; awaits response; most often performs gesture
Protesting
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Attends to adult; addresses adult; resists or denies adult’s action
Requesting answer
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Addresses adult; awaits response; may make gesture
Labelling
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Attends to object or event; does not address adult; does not await response
Answering
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Attends to preceding adult utterance; addresses adult
Greeting
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Attends to adult or object
Repeating
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Attends to preceding adult utterance; does not address adult; does not await response
Practising
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Attends to no specific object or event; does not address adult; does not await response
Calling
9 early vocal-gestural intensions, also known as primitive speech acts
Addresses adult by uttering adult’s name loudly; awaits response
receptive language development by 18 months:
responds to some questions e.g., “What doing?” “Where…”?
follows one stage commands with two linguistic elements e.g., “Throw the ball”
Receptive language development by 24 months:
- responds to some questions e.g., “What doing?” “Where…”?
- follows one stage commands with three linguistic elements e.g., “Give me the car and the spoon.”
- can follow directions that involve prepositions “in” and “on”
Receptive language development by 3 years
- follows two stage commands containing four linguistic elements e.g., “Give me the spoon and push the car.”
*understands some simple wh- questions
Pre-literacy development 1-2 years
Enjoys looking at picture books and being read to
“Requests” to be read to by gesture / handing adult a book
Points to and identifies some familiar items in books with adult support
Pre-literacy development 2-3 years
- Routinely shares books with adults
- Asks for favourite stories
- Looks through book alone and pretends to read
- Recognises pictures in books are symbols for real items
- Matches an object to a picture of the book
- Names familiar items in a picture book
- Completes rhymes or sentences in familiar books
- Starts to pay attention to specific print, i.e., letters of their name
As children’s production and use of speech sounds becomes more adult-like, their intelligibility ….
increases - how well they can be understood
Intelligiblity from 19-24 months
children are 25-50% intelligible to unfamiliar listeners
Intelligiblity from 2-3 years
they are 50-75% intelligible to unfamiliar listeners
Speech development 1-2 years:
Children have developed jaw control for speech by about 15 months
Fine motor lip and tongue control for speech continues to develop, so what we see is individual sounds are produced variably even within the same word
Can usually use consonants ‘p, b, t, d, m, n, w’ and sometimes ‘h’
At this age, children usually use simple word structures - so we more typically see single syllable words and phonotactic errors such as reduplication (doggie>/gogi/) and final consonant deletion
Use mostly simple vowels like ‘ee’ and ‘ah’
Commonly use a range of phonological processes
Speech development 2-3 years:
- Still mostly single syllable words (only about 12% of words have more than 1 syllable)
- Add new consonants ‘k, g, ng’
- Use 9-10 initial consonants and 5-6 final consonants
- May start to use consonant clusters e.g., ‘pw_, _ts, _nd’
- Extended vowel range e.g., use short and long vowels
- Will stop using phonological processes of **
** Final consonant deletion (about 2 years)
**Reduplication (from 2-2.5 years)
**Voicing (at about 2 years, 11 months)
Fluency refers to the
smoothness and ease with which a person produces speech
From around 25-37 months years of age, it is typical to see children go through
Fluency speech
a period of disfluent speech
At 2 years of age, disfluencies are commonly
Fluency speech
whole word repetitions (e.g., “I-I-I want”, interjections (e.g., “um”), and syllable repetitions (e.g., “I like foo-football”).
At approximately 3 years of age what are the most dominant disfluencies
Fluency of speech
revisions (e.g., “I want-I need that”)
A large percentage of children will grow out of these normal disfluencies, but a small percentage will not, and may also start to develop ‘stuttered’ disfluencies, such as sound repetitions (e.g., “p-p-p-pail”), prolongations (e.g., “ssss-snail”) and blocks (e.g., “g_irl”).
A normally developing voice to exhibit the following qualities:
Loudness – voice loud enough to be heard
Pleasantness – pleasant to the ear
Flexibility – flexible enough to express emotion
Representation - represents individual’s age and gender
Production - voice produced without developing vocal trauma & laryngeal lesions
From 3 years of age, children continue to develop their ability to understand and use a range of question words
Interrogative development
Basic relational concepts and preposition development
By the time they attend school, children have acquired the understanding of several concepts in the areas of:
Size, e.g., tallest
Spatial, e.g., in, on, under
Temporal (timing), e.g., before, after
Quantity, e.g., some, all
Other concepts, e.g., same, different
Prepositions related to location tend to be acquired first, followed by those related to timing:
36 months: under (locational)
40 months: next to (locational)
Approx. 48 months: behind, in back of, in front of, above, below, at the bottom (locational)
60 months: before, after (temporal)
2-5years
There are five stages of phonological awareness development:
5-7 years
here are five stages of phonological awareness development:
Overview of speech development 3-4 years
use many more two or more syllable words
add sounds ‘f, s, z, sh, l, y, r, ch’
use many more consonant clusters including ‘l’ and ‘s’
use even wider range of vowel sounds
may use cluster reduction, gliding, fronting, stopping, deaffrication
Overview of speech development 4-5 years
use multisyllabic words frequently
rare to omit sounds
add sounds ‘j, v, th, zh’
may still use cluster reduction, gliding, stopping or fricative simplification of ‘th’
Consonant development
Early 8 (average over 75% correct): ‘m, b, y, n, w, d, p, h’
Middle 8 (average 25-75% correct): ‘t, ng, k, g, f, v, ch, j’
Late 8 (average < 25% correct): ‘sh, th’ s, z, l, r, zh’
Vowel development
Early development – /i,iː/,/u,ʉː/,/oʊ,əʉ/,/a,ɐː/,/ʌ,ɐ/ (ee, oo, oe, ah, u)
Middle development – /æ/,/ʊ/,/ɔ,oː/,/ə/ (a, short oo, or, schwa)
Late development – /ɜ,ɜː/,/e/,/ɪ/,/ɚ/ (er, e, i, er with postvocalic ‘r’)
Voice development
From the ages of 3-5 years, we expect a child’s voice to continue to display the following qualities:
Loudness – voice loud enough to be heard
Pleasantness – pleasant to the ear
Flexibility – flexible enough to express emotion
Representation - represents individual’s age and gender
Production - voice produced without developing vocal trauma & laryngeal lesions
associative play
3-4 years
the child will begin to interact with others, however this interaction i
cooperative play emerges
From 4 years-5years
involves two or more children playing the same activity
may involve establishing some rules. Children begin playing group games with simple rules and participate in organised play with prescribed roles. Dramatic play continues to evolve, where children have defined roles and may dress up.
Speech is
the process of producing the acoustic representation of language. Features such as articulation, fluency, and voice interact to influence speech production.
Language is
a socially shared code that is used to represent concepts. This code uses arbitrary symbols that are combined in rule governed ways.
Stackhouse and Well’s (1997) speech processing model is a great way to conceptualise communication in both children and adults. By speech processing, we mean how the brain processes spoken language.
Input
output
Lexical Representations
Lexical representations are
speech processing model
Lexical representations - internalised knowledge of the linguistic information. This includes knowledge about:
The sounds in words (knowing that ‘cat’ is different to ‘pat’)
The semantic representation (knowing the word ‘cat’ means a pet, that says meow, and has four legs and a tale)
The motor program (knowing how to say the word ‘cat’ and not having to think about it every time it is produced)
Input is
speech processing model
receiving linguistic information through hearing and then being able to process what sounds are heard (hearing the word ‘cat’ and being able to know these are speech sounds ‘c’ ‘a’ and ‘t’)
Output it
speech processing model
producing words through the mouth. This involves sequencing the sounds in cat and saying them.
Biological / Neural Maturation Theory
explores the relationship between language development and brain development in children.
According to this theory, genes provide an initial map for brain development, however continued brain development, and therefore language development, is shaped by the child’s environment.
Researchers in neuroscience have concluded that the most critical period for language acquisition associated with brain structure is from
Biological / Neural Maturation Theory
birth to 2 years
After this time, other factors associated with the child’s environment, opportunity and personality play a bigger part in language acquisition.
Nativist / Linguistic Theory
roposes that children have an innate (i.e., inborn) ability to learn language due to their genetic make-up, and that language is acquired as a natural part of the human experience
Noam Chomsky, who is probably the most well-known native theorists, hypothesised that
children’s brains are equipped with a hard-wired language acquisition device (LAD).
children only require minimal language exposure to prime the LAD, and therefore language input and social interaction have minimal influence on development.
Behaviourism Theory
contrasts to the nativist theory, in that children are viewed as a ‘clean slate,’ and that language learning occurs as a result of responding to environmental stimuli.
Behaviourism Theory - Learning ouccurs when …
an environmental stimulus triggers a response or behaviour (i.e., language). The behaviour is shaped through positive or negative reinforcement (Kaderavek, 2011;
For example, a child sees a toy car (the antecedent event) and says, “Want car” (the behaviour) The behaviour is then reinforced. For example, the caregiver hands the car to the child.
Another important concept to behaviourism theory is operant conditioning or instrumental conditioning.
Positive Reinforcement: Involves presenting a motivating item (e.g., stickers, high-fives) after the desired behavior, increasing the likelihood of the behavior recurring.
Negative Reinforcement: Involves removing something unpleasant (e.g., stopping a stern or sad face) after the desired behavior, increasing the likelihood of the behavior recurring.
Punishment: Involves presenting a negative stimulus or removing a positive reinforcer (e.g., saying “no” or removing a favorite game) following undesired behavior, decreasing the likelihood of the behavior recurring.
Extinction (Ignoring):Involves not reinforcing a response (e.g., ignoring tapping), leading to the behavior eventually disappearing.
Cognitive Theory
Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, describes the process of how children’s intelligence or cognition changes during development.
Social Interactionist/ Sociocultural Theory
the central role of social interaction on a child’s language acquisition.
Infant-directed talk
Social Interactionist/ Sociocultural Theory
Specialised style of speech that adults and older children use when talking specifically to infants, which usually includes much inflection and repetition.
Scripts
Social Interactionist/ Sociocultural Theory
involve a scaffolded e.g. playing “peak-a-boo” or the parent encouraging the child to wave “bye-bye” whenever someone leaves the room.
Zone of proximal development
Social Interactionist/ Sociocultural Theory
Space between what a learner can do without assistance and what a learner can do with adult guidance.
- Self-talk - adult describes what they are thinking, providing a clear and simple match between actions and words.
- Parallel-talk - adult uses language to describe what the child is thinking, feeling, seeing or doing.
Other language facilitation techniques include:
Expansions
adult rephrases the child’s utterance so that it forms a grammatically correct and complete utterance
Other language facilitation techniques include:
Extensions
adult provides comments that add some additional semantic information.
Reduplication
Phonological processes: 1. Syllable structure processes
These involve simplification of the syllabic structure of words. The general tendency of young children is to simplify words with complex syllable structures to basic consonant-vowel (CV) structures.
The second syllable becomes a replication of 1st
e.g wa wa for water
Weak Syllable Deletion
Phonological processes: 1. Syllable structure processes
These involve simplification of the syllabic structure of words. The general tendency of young children is to simplify words with complex syllable structures to basic consonant-vowel (CV) structures.
the omission of an unstressed syllable
e.g. nana for banana
Final consonant deletion
Phonological processes: 1. Syllable structure processes
These involve simplification of the syllabic structure of words. The general tendency of young children is to simplify words with complex syllable structures to basic consonant-vowel (CV) structures.
omission of the final consonant
e.g. /be/ for bed
/bi/ for beach
Cluster reduction
Phonological processes: 1. Syllable structure processes
These involve simplification of the syllabic structure of words. The general tendency of young children is to simplify words with complex syllable structures to basic consonant-vowel (CV) structures.
simplification of consonant clusters into a single consonant
e.g. poon for spoon
Fronting
Phonological processes: 2. Substitution/systemic processes
Place change whereby the sound is produced more anteriorly than intended sound
Velar Fronting
Phonological processes: 2. Substitution/systemic processes > Fronting
Velar sound replaced with alveolar sound
/ti/ tea for /ki/ key
Tongue does not hit soft palate for the consonant /k/ position
Palatal Fronting
Phonological processes: 2. Substitution/systemic processes > Fronting
Palatal sound replaced with alveolar sound
- the child substitutes sounds made at the front of their mouth for sounds made at the back.
/sip/ for /ship/, /seep/ for /sheep/
How is the Velar sound made
- Consonant sound made when back of tongue touches soft palate
- The tongue can move forward in mouth and often settles on a palatal or palato-alveolar position
K, g, ng /cat/, /go/ and /sing/
How is the palatal sound made
Produced by body of tongue touching the roof of mouth in the palatal area
/ch/ as in /chip/, /j/ as in /jug/ and /r/ as in /rat/
Stop sounds
Phonological processes: 2. Substitution/systemic processes > Stopping
Stop sounds: “P”, “b”, “t”, “d”, “k”, “g”
Examples: “Pan” for “fan” or “dump” for “jump”
Stopping of fricatives
Phonological processes: 2. Substitution/systemic processes > Stopping
Manner change, where a sound is replaced by a stop
A stop sound (“P”, “b”, “t”, “d”, “k”, “g”) replaces a fricative (“F”, “v”, “th”, “s”, “z”, “h”, “sh”, “zh”)
e.g. ‘poot’ for ‘foot’ or ‘too’ for ‘chew’
Stopping of affricatives*
Phonological processes: 2. Substitution/systemic processes > Stopping
Referred to as deafrication where a child substitutes a stop consonant: “P”, “b”, “t”, “d”, “k”, “g” for an affricative sound: “Ch”, “C”, “H”, “D”, “J”
e.g. too for chew
Fricative sounds
“F”, “v”, “th”, “s”, “z”, “h”, “sh”, “zh”
Affricative sounds
“Ch”, “C”, “H”, “D”, “J”
Place
Place, Manner, and Voicing in Speech Sounds
The place of articulation refers to where a sound is produced in the mouth
Manner
Place, Manner, and Voicing in Speech Sounds
The manner of articulation is how a sound is made.
Voice/Voicing
Place, Manner, and Voicing in Speech Sounds
Voice or voicing refers to the vibration of the vocal folds.
How do we produce sounds
Place of Articulation
constricting airflow using the lips, teeth, tongue, hard palate, soft palate, and/or throat.
A labial consonant involves
Place of Articulation
one or both lips when making the sound. Labial sounds include bilabials and labiodentals.
Coronal consonants are
Place of Articulation
made primarily with the front of the tongue. They include interdental, alveolar, post-alveolar, and palatal consonants.
Dorsal sounds are produced by
Place of Articulation
the back of the tongue contacting or restricting airflow to the soft palate or the throat. These sounds include velar and glottal sounds.
Gliding of liquids
Phonological processes: Substitution/systemic processes
Manner change occurs when a child replaces a liquid sound “l” or “r” with a glide sound “w” or “y”
For example, ‘wed’ for ‘red’ and ‘wabbit’ for ‘rabbit’
Liquid sounds: produced by partially closing the mouth with the tongue
manner: how sound is produced
Fricative simplification
Phonological processes: Substitution/systemic processes
When a child replaces a fricative sound with a simpler sound.
For example, “fum” for “thumb”
Pre-vocalic voicing
Phonological processes: Substitution/systemic processes
Phonological process where a voiceless consonant voiceless consonant (e.g. k, f) at the beginning of a word is replced by a voiced consonant (e.g. g, v)
For example: “Gup” for “Cup”
Prevocalic voicing is common until a child is around 3–6 years old
What is a fricative
denoting a type of consonant made by the friction of breath in a narrow opening, producing a turbulent air flow.
A fricative consonant e.g. f and th
Labial assimilation
Phonological processes: Assimilation processes
A phonological process that occurs when a non-labial consonant sound is replaced by a labial consonant sound due to the influence of a nearby labial consonant
For example: “cup” pronounced as “pup”
A labial sound is
a consonsant made by using the lips
A non-labial sound is
a consonsant made by not using the lips
Bi (2) labial (lips) sounds are
consonant sounds made by pressing the upper and lower lips together to create constriction
Velar assimilation
A phonological process that happens when a non-velar consonant sound is changed to a velar consonant sound due to the influence of a nearby velar consonant
For example: “dog” to “gog” “tack to “kacK”
Nasal assimilation
Phonological processes: Assimilation processes
A phonological process that occurs when a non-nasal sound is changed to a nasal sound due to the influence of a nearby nasal sound
For example: “mom” for mop
Three stages in the development of intentionality: First stage
Perlocutionary - birth to 8 months - caregivers attribute intent to child’s actions
Three stages in the development of intentionality: Second stage
Illocutionary - 8 months - intentions expressed through signals to others, but the child uses gestures and vocalisations, rather than conventional language
Three stages in the development of intentionality: Third stage
Locutionary - 12 months - the child starts to use words to express inten
Stage 1: Phonation stage
Speech and expressive language development
Early vocalisations occur at 0-2 months of age
* Reflexive crying: and include the natural sounds that babies make, such as burping or crying. These are called reflexive vocalisations, as they seem to be automatic responses reflecting the physical state of the child.
* Vegetative sounds include grunts and sighs associated with activities and clicks and other noises associated with feeding.
Stage 2: Primitive articulation stage (cooing and laughter)
Speech and expressive language development
From 2-4 months of age, babies produce vocalisations to show they are happy and content.
These include vowel-like sounds with brief consonantal elements produced at the back of the mouth (velar sounds). From 12 weeks onwards, crying decreases and vegetative sounds (e.g., grunts) begin to disappear. From 16 weeks, sustained laughter emerges.
Stage 3: Expansion stage (vocal play)
Speech and expressive language development
Vocal play begins around the ages of 4-6 months, although there is some overlap between stages 2 and 3.During vocal play, the baby begins to string together longer series of segments and production of prolonged vowel (full vowel-like sounds) and consonant-like sounds (marginal babbling). Vowels have more variation in tongue height and position. During this stage, we see literal vocal play exemplified by extreme variations in loudness and pitch, squeals yells and bilabial trills (think blowing raspberries).
Exploratory play
Play development from birth to 6 months
dominates in infancy. It involves the investigation of the properties of toys, the self and others. It usually involves interaction with a single object through reflexive or random actions, such as manipulating, banging, throwing and mouthing.
Sensory motor play
Play development from birth to 6 months
Sensory motor play involves the child learning to use their muscles through repetitive movements Play centres on combining objects and learning their meaning. The child is beginning to classify objects and develop purpose in their actions
