Theories of Language Development & Models of Language Disorders Flashcards
What is an orderly set of statements that describes and predicts a behavior? It gives meaning to what we’re seeing
Theory
Psychological Theory
Provides framewor, human growth, how they develop, how they learn, & how they acquire language
Why do we have theories?
Provides us framework for understanding human behavior, thought, & development
When we start to change their behavior, it’s a good idea to have a ______ understanding to how this behavior is developed
Theorhetical
theories create a basis for ?
future research/hypothesis
Theories are ?
dynamic, grow, change, develop
T/F: There are no completely right theories.
TRUE
4 theories of language development we study
- Behaviorism
- Cognitive
- Nativist
- Social interaction
Name theory: Learning occurs when an environmental stimulus triggers a response or behavior
B.F. Skinner
Behavioral principals are used to reward children with the goal of what in the behaviorim theory?
- Increasing Positive behavior
2. Decreasing negative behavior
Another name for Behaviorism Theory
Language perspectivie
What do we mean by language perspective/Behaviorism theory?
Children imitate what they see, what they hear, and what is punished/reinforced
Skinner said:
adults shape speech of babies by reinforcing the sounds that sound most like words or babbling
most common behaviorism
Pavlov’s dog (dog salivated everytime bell rang/given powder)
What is it called when timing is key (how soon it happens to stimulus)
OPERANT CONDITIONING: consequence following immediately after the stimulus/behavior occurs
Behaviorism believes that by _______ kids get reinforced
IMITATING
When the target is hit, behavior is reinforced. When the target is not hit, the behavior is ignored/no reinforcement = what theory?
Behaviorism
Behaviorism theory has 4 components:
- positive reinforcement
- negative reinforcement
- positive punishment
- negative punishment
Learning occurs after behavior is either ________ or ________
reinforced or punished
Positive means:
giving something
Negative means:
taking something away (not necessarily bad)
Reinforcement =
getting more of desired behavior
punishment =
decreasing undesired behavior
Pleasant rewards to increase behavior: do something good, get a cookie
Positive reinforcement (name pics for vocab & get a sticker) ex 2: get 5 mins w/ favorite toy for saying right thing
Unpleasant consequence removed to increase a behavior
Negative reinforcement: think of subtaction/taken away & reinforces because causing behavior to increase
ex: obnoxious ding when no seat belt; desired behavior is to get you to wear seatbelt but obnoxious is noise, so you wear it that noise goes away
ex 2: if kid hates flashcards; do 10 words on flashcards then get favorite toy and flashcards get taken away
Unpleasant consequences to decrease a behavior
Positive Punishment: ex: give them red card meaning bad behavior
Taking something desireable away to decrease behavior
Negative Punishment: ex: throwing toy off high chir then take toy away/no more
Other key components to Behaviorism theory =
- shaping
- extinction
- antecedent
- chaining
Occurs when individual is expected to produce closer approximations to the behavioral target
Shaping
ex: workout example- baby steps getting closer. upping the anti because you don’t reinforce/break the goal into smaller steps
ignored behavior will decrease or disappear
Extinction
ex: stop reinforcing bad behavior: ignore
Stimulus that precedes a behavior
Antecedent: hat happened right before the bad behavior: could be working w/ kid on feeding. the antecedent could be sticking them in high chair.
- important to figure out antecednet so you can change it/work around it/change intensity of stimulus
- ask parents when it occurs if there are certain people they act around
- goal is to start to manipulate antecedent: ex: undesirable behavior is eating oreos…antecedent event is seeing oreo in kitchen …so manipulate by moving them! you can change physical effort- put oreos way up high
Activity that requires a number of linked steps
Chaning: complex behavior sequence broken down into smaller units so that the individual can be trained to complete a multistep task
ex: can work on one little piece eventually getting it together to complete the task-wash hands..hand over hand
Clinical implications of behaviorism theory
drill-and-practice activities
ex: i have 1 shoe, he has ____ shoes w/ child filling in
Limitations to Behaviorism theory
no explanation of individual complex and novel behaviors
What theory is based on writings of Jean Piaget?
Cognitive Theory
4 sequence of progressively more sophisticated cognitive skills (4 stages) of cognitive theory –> Piaget believes kids must go in this order w/o skipping
- sensorimotor (birth-2)
- Preoperational (2-7)
- concrete operational (7-11)
- formal operations (11-15)
Sensorimotor Stage of cognitive theory
Birth-2: touch, crawl, motor stuff, object permanence
- kids start first words at 1 year old and piaget says that their ability to reach/grab starts at 6 months.
- not a cooincidence that first words then come 6 months…they are jus able to explore environment (piaget believes)
Preoperational stage of cognitive theory
2-7 years old
- language learning goes bananas!
- 2 years: 2 words
- 7 years: maybe full construction
- start to problem solve, defining feature of what piaget refers to as egocentricity (when kids talk about themselves through things like “i’m not going to do this. then i’ll do this”
Concrete operational stage of Cognitive theory
7-11 years old
- things start to get categorized, organized thinkers!
- think logical; when you get realy good stories and they start to make sense
- things still tend to be pretty concrete in this stage
Formal operations stage of Cognitive theory
11-15 years old
- kids become abstract thinkers
- metalinguistic & metacognitive skills (debate, argue)
Another important piece Piaget finds is:
MEMORY: memory and time both develop as children age he believes
Arguments against cognitive theory
- not all children go through all of these stages (ex: kid w/ cp)
- people can have pretty significant impairments in intellectual but can still make semantic/syntactic relationships
3 parts of cognitive theory
- Schema
- Assimilation
- Accommodation
What is a schema?
a concept, mental category, or cognitive structure
-the basic building blocks of intelligent behavior, a way of organizing information
ex: words that are in categories
ex 2: meaning of word (dog furry 4 legged)
ex 3: actions
ex 4: abstract ideas
as people grow & develop, their schemas become more sophisticated
What is Assimilation?
Evidences assimilation when a child takes new information and incorporates it into his existing schemata
ex: child’s schema for dog might just be their dog but as they assimilate new info that schema grows & they ralize other dogs they see are also dogs like their own and you can put in to a category
What is Accommodation?
When a child adjusts his/her schemata resulting from new information
- so adding new info
- ex: now your schema says ball found play thing but not necessarily dependent on color
2 additional parts of cognitive theory
- equilibrium
2. disequilibrium
Using assimilation to deal w/ new information
Equilibrium
-ex: what happens when you see a new ball or dog and assimilate it-it makes sense: we not have this equilibrium w/ what we see and what we’re experiencing
When a child recognizes that 2 schemata are contradictory
Disequilibrium
ex: have schema for what duck is; wood duck, donald duck but then you see duck that looks like duck but it has a furry tail so that doesn’t make sense?
* what we know doesn’t fit our schema!*
Clinical implications of Cognitive Theory
- SLPs look for evidence of representational thought to guage child’s readiness for symbolic language (language is simbollic so always looking for representational through play)
- in symbolic play stage they’re ready to develop more sophisticated language - helps understand how children use physical exploration to increase problem-solving abilities
- ex: helping kids w/ a fish
Limitations of Cognitive theory
- children do not always follow linear and step by step devleopmental progression
Noam Chomsky contributed to what theory?
NATIVIST THEORY
Other name for Nativist Theory
Psycholinguistic Language Theory
Preposed of Nativiest Theory means:
Children have innate ability to learn language
- Language Acquisition Device
- Similarities across cultures- parallel language abilities at similar developmental periods
Language Acquisition Device (nativist)
construct idea that there must be something that exists in your brain
children are born w/ ability to learn language & LAD contains knowledge of grammatical rules common to all languages
Because of ______
we can fix info/words in & that’s what helps children learn languages (why it’s hard for us to learn languages at this age)
Nativist theory also believes:
Deemphasizes the contribution of child’s evironment: children need only minimal language exposure to prime the LAD
All infants are set up w/ LADs for _______ __________
Universal Grammars
4 parts of Nativist Theory
- surface structure
- deep structure
- phrase structure grammar
- transformational grammar
Actual sentence speaker produces
Surface structure
ex: chris loves pat vs. chris is loved by pat
Underlying meaning of the sentence produced by the speaker
Deep structure
ex: chris loves pat vs. pat is loved by chris = same thing
Basic structure of the sentence in regardless of language spoken
Phrase structure gramar
ex: noun phrase verb phrase; he goes, the boy goes, the boy wearing the hat goes to the store
syntactic structures
Transformational grammar
ex: grammatical changes that transform or changes meaning of sentence
- phrase structure would be “i langued noun verb” now if you say “i don’t laught” transformational grama is involved
_______ theory is least attached to what we do as SLPs
NATIVIST
Clinical implications of nativist theory
- helps explain innate human ability to develop sophisticated language systems
- has fostered an exploration of cross-cultural language
Limitations to nativist theory
- doesn’t take into account child’s environment
2. focuses on syntax learning –> limited consideration of language content and use
What theory is based on the principle that communication interaction plays a central role in children’s acquisition of language?
SOCIAL INTERACTION THEORY
Social Interaction theory
suggests that nature & nurture are both important in language development: when it comes to language, the interactionist theorist focuses on the social
Interactionist theorist focuses on the ______ theory
Social Interaction
A child’s natural desire to communicate is what’s inborn in the _____ ______ theory
Social Interactionist
-their brains predispose them to acquiring this information & they’re motivated to share with other people
Vgotsky is most associated with _____ _______ theory
social interactionist theory
Vygotsky believes
infants are driven to communicate, parents recognize this social interaction, & then provide language- this motivation to learn & communicate is what drives children
Positive parental influences/interactions/communications =
when children attend more frequent interactions/back & forth enjoyment (social interaction theory)
offset to this theory
interaction creates better language, more developed social skills so language & social skills becomes more mature-then parents language becomes more sophisticated/complex
Certain cases where kids fail to acquire normal language skills:
these sort of bad interactions negatively impact communication & social development- these kids are at very high risk for language & social disorders
Components of social interaction theory
- infant directed talk/motherese
- coordinated attention
- parent-child communication routines
Motherese
infant directed talk; addres babies in different ways than adults (slower, sing, exaggerated, concrete, vocabulary, things are in the present)
Coordinated Attention
adults follow an infant’s focus of attention and match their communication to the child’s eye gaze (parent’s naturally do,,nobody teaches that)
Parent-child communication routines
adults structure infant play routines in systematic patterns
- ex: scripts: predictablle patterns of action
- bath time, eating time, changing way we talk with infants help them learn
- scripts: when mom puts baby in carseat “okay we’re going to sit down, buckle up” over & over
Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
the gap between what a learner has already mastered (the actual level of development and what he/she can achieve when provided w/ educational support (potential development)
Biggest ideas to come out of the social interactionist theory
zpd: GAP BT. WHAT LEARNER CAN ALREADY DO & CAN’T DO
- what child is ready to learn next from peer, adult, whoever
* IT’S THE PEOPLE IN THE CHILD’S ENVIRONMENT THAT WILL HELP THEM WITH WHAT THEY NEED TO LEARN NEXT/THAT PURPLE BUBBLE*
Scaffolding
the adult support that allows the child to engage in a challenging activity
- what we do to help kid move from purple to green/independent circle
- fading!
Why is fading important?
take away help (parents can become dependent on someone else helping them)-fade scaffolding and let kid take over
Sociocultural Principles of language development by Vygotsky
- Mediation
2. Private Speech
Mediation
related to scaffolding
- goal is to provide the learner with insights in order to teach the learn “how to learn”
- humans put purposeflly something between where they are & whatever it is they want to accomplish
- think of plow plowing earth and tool is plow
- communication: language mediates whats in my mind and the environment
- idea is that by using mediators we’re able to modify our environment-so language is how we interact w/ our environment/other people
- when a child goes to grasp an object, the parents think they want the object-soon that behavior means give me that object/mediator
Private speech
occurs when children speak aloud as they are engaging in play
- not talking to anyone, just talking out loud
- they believe that private speech changed w/ age and the purpose of that was to help the child accomplish the task
Clinical implications for social interaction & sociocultural principles
- incorporation of caregivers into intervention (ones that get child to zpd)
- language behavior of adults is adapted to support acquisition (all about scaffolding-give them what we need)
- increased maternal responsiveness (train parents to be really responsive w/ their prelinguistic children)
- Zone of proximal development (most learning environments subscribe to this-classroom teachers scaffold a lot)
During assessment we look at ZPD
criterion referenced because we’re scaffolding and cue if needed
Limitations of social interaction & sociocultural principles
- do not explain everything about language development
Biological foundations & environmental influences on DLD
Environmental factors influence all (biological, cognitive, and behavioral)
environmental factors
external experiences that either increase risk of disorder or that are protective in the face of biological link
biological factors
differences in genetic risk and neurological structure and function associated with disorder
-causal factors don’t tell us everything we need to know; knowing etiology helps us know what to expect and treat child not disorder
cognitive factors
differences in perception and information processing associated w/ disorder
- things like working memory, attention, speed of processing-influence language development
- all disorders tend to work w/ each other
behavioral features
overt differences in behavior that characterize the disorder
genetics/twin studies
give us big clue
monozygotic = identical dna; if disorder is genetic, expect there to be a big difference between monozygotic vs. dizogotic
zebra finches
sing a song/learn particular songs from their parents so that’s a link to human development
-manipulate a certain gene; could no longer learn a song
Neurobiology development
begins in utero and continues through adolescence and early adults
- so it’s practice doing something that makes brain more sophisticated
- brain becomes efficient by connections you do often and ones you don’t use are pruning
- as you get older you have this localiztion of information processing
- see differences in both structure and function
Brain structure in DLD
how it’s built; size, symmetry differences
- not 100% of people w/ DLD have these characteristics-
- in general you see differences here
Brain Function in DLD
Different areas activate depending on the test
- how the brain works
- particular areas tend to be related to attention and memory
Environmental factors
SES and Bilingualism
Socioeconomic status
- economic
2. income
Kids w/ language disorders are at a much higher risk in low SES and it’s ________ that plays the biggest role
maternal education
-bec less rich vocab, less responsiveness, goes back to social interaction theory/poorer interaction
Bilingualism:
does not impact language development
-no studies show
Cognitive models of DLD
- auditory perception
- limited processing capacity
- procedural deficit
Auditory perception
kids w/ dld aren’t perceiving sounds probably! Not a hearing impairment-passed screening but somehow when sounds are going into brain, sounds aren’t being processed efficiently-kids have more difficulty processing if brief
-speech is fast
Limited processing capacity
basically your working memory-information you can hold in your memory when you manipulate information
- to test working memory test true false questions “lemons are yellow” then say what was last word i said?
- performance decreases as processing demands increase
Kids w/ dld have a much harder time w/ nonword repitition tasks
because syllables to make up non word, kids have hard time repeating it back-limited language that causes those results if given non word and good vocab
Procedural deficit
rule based memory
- kids w/ dld have difficulty w/ implicit learning- occurs at sub conscious level like walking to some place w/ somebody
- kids w/ dld have difficulty w/ procedureal memory
- things are not explicitly taught..declarative memory is explicitly taught
Autism is causing a pragmatic language disorder but autism and DLD are NOT _____
Comorbid
Alot of kids w/ ASD meet the criteria for DLD
The literacy component is a global language problem
Language learning disabilities
literacy/decoding the sound system- have to be able to decode properly
-also talking about comprehension/understanding language
Maternal responsiveness includes:
saying “did that scare ou?” when baby startles when dog barks
Private speech is associated with which theory
Social interaction (see in preschool aged)
Altering a sentence from “I sneeze loudly” to “I don’t sneeze loudly” is an example of _____
Transformational grammer: takes surface structure, turns it around, and changes the meaning
The language acquisition device is a region of the brain near Broca’s Area (T/F)
FALSE
The theorist associated with cognitive theory is:
Piaget
When a parent does not respond to a screaming child they are most likely using which component of behaviorism?
Extinction
Another name for Behaviorism Theory is?
The learning Perspective
A has concept of cow but is confused because he then sees a “cow” with crazy antlers (he is actually looking at a moose)- what is going on?
Disequlibrium: sees something that doesn’t fit concept
Which theory promotes the notion that children have an innate drive to socialize?
Social interaction
Using “baby talk” inhibits language development (T/F?)
FALSE
The zone of proximal development is what a child is able to do with support (T/F)
FALSE
