Quiz 5 Flashcards
language comprehension
refers to an individual’s ability to understand the linguistic information contained in a message that is almost always augmented by the message’s specific nonlinguistic context
**heavily rely on context
what are different contexts?
what is going on at the time?
who is speaking?
what was previously said?
what visual information is available?
listener’s world knowledge
fast mapping
children rely heavily on context to infer a new word’s meaning to then use it spontaneously
children who are successful ‘fast mappers’ have an advantage in vocabulary learning
those with lang. impairment struggle w this
what happens when a toddler (12-24 months) is exposed to a new word for the first time?
the child hears the word–> auditory cue
the child’s memory about sounds/syllables of the word are activated
phonological representation
activation from the phonological level is spread to the word meaning level–semantic level
up through the age of 2, what is comprehension characterized as?
highly context-dependent;
the mother monitors the child’s input to check the accuracy of fit and provide feedback
the child’s comprehension and production are fine-tuned at the same time
within the 1st 50 words, what does comprehension seem to precede?
production
what do toddlers rely on for comprehension?
basic semantic relations, use of objects and routines
strategy 1 for comprehension (verbs)
Do-what-you-usually-do
regardless of what the caregiver says the young child will think of items possible functions and does an action at random
strategy 2 for comprehension (verbs)
Act-on-the-object-in-the-way-mentioned
notes the action and does the action
strategy 3 for comprehension (verbs)
move from general verbs to more specific verbs
they understand everything as “do”
then as they get older, able to correlate other words that “things to do”
what may be an advantage for learning language at the beginning?
limited working memory and attention
because it forces us to model and use adaptations like infant-directed speech
toddler strategies for comprehension: REFERENCE PRINCIPLE
reference words stand for entities to which they refer e.g cup and spoon are different references
toddler strategies for comprehension: EXTENDABILITY PRINCIPLE
extendability- 1 symbol can stand for more than 1 referent
e.g. my cat Luna and all other cats are “cats”
toddler strategies for comprehension: WHOLE OBJECT PRINCIPLE
whole object assumes that a label refers to a whole entity rather than a part or an attribute
toddler strategies for comprehension: CATEGORICAL ASSUMPTION
a label can be extended to related entities
e.g. cup can be used to label all things you can pour liquid in