PSY2004 W6 Reading

Question 1

What is the paper focusing on?

Answer 1

Pragmatic development in deaf and hard of hearing children: A review

Question 1

Why do many deaf and hard of hearing children have language delays ?

Answer 1

Consequence of difficulty accessing a language model.

Question 2

What are the main delays that deaf adn hard of hearing children have from having difficulties acessing a langauge model?

Answer 2

These delays are often particularly pronounced in the domain of pragmatics, where the language user takes into account the people they are communicating with and their shared access to current context.

Question 3

What does the review consider?

Answer 3

This review considers the effect childhood deafness can have on pragmatic development, reviewing studies of the pre-linguistic stage, early linguistic communication and more advanced pragmatics as measured both by general pragmatic checklists and more specific assessments of information structure and inference, deception and non-literal language (including sarcasm),
and conversation

Question 4

Where can differences be observed?

Answer 4

Differences can be observed from the pre-linguistic stage, to early linguistic communication, and to later language use as measured both by general pragmatic checklists and more specific assessments of information structure and inference, deception and non-literal language including sarcasm and conversation.

Question 5

What other resources are used to better explain the delays and difficulties consistent with the limited access to acquisiton of lingusit form?

Answer 5

Cognitive adn social skills need to be used, inclduing social coggnition and thoery of mind, temporal cogntion and memory and executive function.
In essence, pragmatic development must be conceptualised as the learning of a complex set of skills that draw on many other cognitive resources.

Question 6

How can children learn about language?

Answer 6

Children learn about language through participating in dialogue and bring to bear ever more sophisticated inferencing skills as their knowledge of communicative tools and linguistic forms expands

Question 7

What delays are cuased by deafness adn hard of hearing (which are common)?

Answer 7

Language delays including pragmatic delay.

Question 8

What has implications for pragmatic development from infancy for DHH children?

Answer 8

DHH children are a highly heterogenous group and have families who are also very different in terms of communication preferences, capacities and personal circumstances, all of which has implications for pragmatic development from infancy

Question 9

What facilitates pragmatic development?

Answer 9

Each step in pragmatic development is facilitated by experience of interaction and access to a fluent language model. Since pragmatic development is a cumulative learning process, lack of access at any stage can lead to delays both in “downstream”pragmatic skills and associated social and cognitive abilities.

Question 10

What is a consequence of a lack of pragmatic development?

Answer 10

for social wellbeing that are felt keenly in the
classroom,playgroundandbeyond.S

Question 11

What do educators require?

Answer 11

Educators also require the time to be able to tune into everyday interactions between children, spot strengths and difficulties between conversational partners, and
provide feedback or modelling to encourage interactions in a positive direction

Question 12

What might help children to better understand and adapt to each other?

Answer 12

that explicit meta-linguistic discussions about how we communicate and differences in communication preferences will also help children to better understand and adapt to each other

Question 13

What is bimodal bilingualism?

Answer 13

Some parents are able to provide their children with access to both a fluent spoken language (e.g. English) and a fluent sign language (e.g. British Sign Language, BSL).
It is a rare but ideal outcome

Question 14

What is the difference in learning spoken language in infants with cochlear implants?

Answer 14

2- and 18-month-old deaf infants who were primarily learning a spoken language and did not have cochlear implants were observed to be delayed in the very pre-linguistic behaviours that are known to be predictors of spoken language, namely give and show gestures, index
finger pointing and gaze co-ordinated vocalisations.

Question 15

How do deaf children learn pragmatics differently?

Answer 15

Typically hearing children in a comparison group had mastered 44% of items by 3 years of age and 95.5% of items by 4 years. For DHH children, items not generally mastered by 7 years included repairing incomplete
sentences, requesting clarification, retelling a story, asking questions to problem solve, ending conversations, and making promises (a skill also late-acquired for typically hearing children).

Question 16

What is information strucutre?

Answer 16

concerns the use of anguage to convey information in a way that is senstive to the purpose of the communicatiive exchange and the interlocutor’s mental states, especially what they are aware of or can easily access from memory.

Question 17

How is information structure organised?

Answer 17

2 elements: information packaging and inofrmation status.

Question 18

What does information packaging involve?

Answer 18

linking what is currently eing said to the speakers model of the world and the prior discourse most importantly to the topic.

Question 19

What does information status involve?

Answer 19

the referents in a discourse identifiable and accessible by choosing appropriate referring expressions.

Question 20

What does the research in langauge strucutre say about DHH children?

Answer 20

Some studies of language comprehension suggest DHH children tend to have difficulty with making inferences.

For example, Mastrantuono et al. (2019) found severely and profoundly deaf adolescents had difficulties that were particularly pronounced for predictive inferences. However, other studies of cochlear implant users report promising outcomes for tests of reading comprehension (Mayer et al., 2016).

Overall, research in this area is in its early stages.

Question 21

Do delays appear for chidren who learn BSL who had ealry access to a fluent and accessibble language model ?

Answer 21

No they do not show to have delays?

Question 22

What is the most challenging type of non-literal language?

Answer 22

Irony: lack of access to a langaueg model and delays in handling sarcasm have been observed right into adulthood.
For the comprehension of both deception and irony, a major hurdle can be understanding the communicative intentions of the interlocutor, which involves mental state reasoning that itself can be delayed due to lack of access to conversation.

Question 23

What is a challenging pragmatic hurdle for DHH children?

Answer 23

Perhaps the most challenging pragmatic hurdle for DHH children is mastering extended discourse in the form of conversation. The fast flowing, unstructured exchanges taking place between peers with differing language access or preferences have received particular attention. As the nature of peer relationships shifts from play with the immediate surroundings to deeper relationships founded on shared values and moral support, the role of conversation becomes increasingly important. Indeed, social skills and pragmatics go hand in hand throughout childhood and even children with unilateral and mild hearing loss have been reported to struggle with social skills