Week 4 - The Beginnings: Infant Communication Flashcards
This week content is split into 2 topics:
- The prelinguistic foundations for language (what are they? What do they look like? How do we recognise them?)
- Infant and Caregiver communication (What happens in the first year in the social-interactive domain?)
Topic 1: The prelinguistic foundations for language
- Cognitive skills
- motor skills
- speech perception
- milestones in infant speech
Interactive bases of infant communication:
- consolidate learning of models of language acquisition
Learning outcomes for week 4:
- Identify major milestones of communication during infancy
- Develop understanding of which motor, cognitive, and social developments contribute to infants’ communication behaviours
- Explore strategies to support the development of communication during infancy
- Begin to develop skills in observation by applying knowledge of milestones
- Consider family and cultural frameworks that impact on communication development focusing on language socialisation
Language Development is connected to infant development in other areas. Challenge in any of the areas can affect the development in the other areas.
Motor Development:
ie * Motor control of body
* Development of vision
* Gross and fine motor skills
Cognitive Development, ie
* Recognition * Imitation * Object permanence * Play * Categorisation
Social Development
ie * Eye contact *Social smiles *Preference for familiar people *Social play *intentional communication
3 main areas in prelinguistic development:
- Infant speech perception
- Prelinguistic development of speech
- Phonological nature of babbling
Some facts on Infant speech perception:
- Newborns can recognise their mother’s voice and their own cry
- Infants can perceive a greater range of speech sound categories than adults
- Phonetic contrasts not relevant to linguistic community are lost
research methods used with infants
- Non-nutritive sucking
- Preferential head turn studies
- MRI brain imaging
Categorical perception
Discriminating between sounds that vary only on one phonetic feature (ie +/- voice)
Categorical perception (important skill for phonological development)
Discriminating between sounds that vary only on one phonetic feature (ie +/- voice) that is relevant in the baby’s environment
Importance of social interaction:
*Infants don’t learn speech sounds from audio or video recording - input must come from an actual person.
Prelinguistic Development of Speech:
0-1 month -
Birth cry, vegetative sounds
Prelinguistic Development of Speech:
1-4 months -
Cooing
Prelinguistic Development of Speech:
4-6 months -
Marginal Babbling
Prelinguistic Development of Speech:
6-8 months -
Vocal play, reduplicated and non-reduplicated (variegated) babbling
Prelinguistic Development of Speech:
8-12 months -
Echolalia
Prelinguistic Development of Speech:
6-8 months -
Vocal play, reduplicated and non-reduplicated (variegated) babbling
Prelinguistic Development of Speech:
9-12 months -
Jargon