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
Jargon occurs approximately when in prelinguistic development of speech?
9-12 months
Echolalia occurs approximately when in prelinguistic development of speech?
8-12 months
Vocal play occurs approximately when in prelinguistic development of speech?
Vocal play, reduplicated and non-reduplicated (variegated) babbling
Vocal play occurs approximately when in prelinguistic development of speech?
6-8 months
Non-reduplicated (variegated) babbling occurs approximately when in prelinguistic development of speech?
6-8 months, after reduplicated babbling
Marginal babbling occurs approximately when in prelinguistic development of speech?
4-6 months
Cooing occurs approximately when in prelinguistic development of speech?
1-4 months
Vegetative sounds & birth cry occur approximately when in prelinguistic development of speech?
0-1 month
Prelinguistic development of speech milestones are important in clinical observations or when taking case histories. Why?
Indicate potential issues in communication development ie Red flag if baby isn’t babbling at appropriate age or doesn’t progress through these skills.
Which sounds are predominant in the babbling phase?
Front and middle stops/plosives (ie /b/ and /d/)
Which sounds are predominant in the babbling phase?
Front and middle stops/plosives (ie /b/ and /d/) POA bilabial, alveolar, MOA stops/plosives. (sound inventory grows as babies do more vocal play and exploration)
What is the current view on babbling?
Babies babbling shifts to approximate the language environment that they are in (Continuity hypothesis)
Older babies babble more in the sounds that they hear around them, and the order of sounds that they babble is reflected in the order that they master sounds. ie babies follow the same order of sounds produced in babbling, when they later produce the same sounds in words. T/F?
True. Backed by research.
What is the Discontinuity Hypothesis?
Babbling has no connection to later speech sounds (not the currently accepted hypothesis)
What is the Continuity Hypothesis?
Babbling gradually approximates the language in the infant’s immediate environment. [current view - supported by research]
To master babbling babies rely to 2 important components. What are they?
- Motor skills (coordination and strength to move the articulators to make these speech sounds)
- Auditory processing (reflective skills to process the sounds they’re making and fine-tune their own production)
Babies’ sound repertoire increases to a core group of sounds by what age?
12 months
Infant and caregiver communication: Prelinguistic development and speech act theory -
-Birth-12 months + (Perlocutionary)
-
Speech is action and we use our words to actually perform actions ie “I apologise” is the act of apology
Searle - Speech Act theory
The transformation from prelinguistic to linguistic speech can be captured by speech act theory (Jerome Bruner (1974))
Perlocutionary phase - 1st 6 months of baby’s life. Not yet developed consistent, easily interpreted communicative skills. Communication is particularly 1 sided, it is caregivers that interpret the behaviours they observe (perlocutionary force).
Illoctionary stage - (6 months +) infants can produce readable signals to indicate their intentions.
Locutionary stage (12 months +, around time of first words) - using words to express their intentions
pp. 192-212 in McLaughlin (2006)
Perlocutionary stage [caregiver’s acts play important role in communication development]:
-caregiving, nurturing acts are also social acts ie soothing crying baby
Babies…?
Babies respond to caregiver initiations:
- Cry
- Eye gaze (mutual gaze, gaze coupling, daietic gaze)
- Smile (reflexive smile-> more intentional social smile)
- Vocal behaviour
As babies gain greater skills in responding, caregivers adjust their skills accordingly.
Perlocutionary stage: Caregivers respond to babies as if they were intentional. Ascribe meaning to babies. Initiate interaction as if babies were communicating. Examples of caregivers behaviours - …?
Caregivers behaviours:
- baby talk/motherese
- Joint attention
- turn-taking
McLaughin (2006) p. 199 different features of motherese
Perlocutionary stage - caregivers interpret behaviours they observe
Focused initially on social/emotional well being (needs, hunger, changing nappies etc initially) -> older babies focus is on shared attention -objects, actions, dropping things on floor.
In the perlocutionary phase, how do caregivers model turn-taking?
By treating baby behaviours as intentional - ie baby coughs, mum and dad respond with words.
Illocutionary Stage - babies communication becomes intentional - use their behaviour to directly influence someone or something. Their actions have illuctuionary force because….
Caregivers are able to recognise the intentionality, the desire behind the action.
Babies not only respond to initiations of joint attention from the caregiver, but they also learn how to initiate bids for joint attention. How?
Can start a favourite game ie peekable, dropping things from highchair
- have the cognitive skills to recognise a routine
- social skills to enjoy the social interaction
How are gestures part of baby’s intentional communication repertoire?
- Protoimperative gestures (babies demand for action, ie point “give me that”)
- Protodeclarative gestures (used to direct caregiver’s attention. ie, point to initiate joint attention, or elicit comment on object from adult)
Phonetically consistent forms.
- not actual words, but appear just prior to words (protowords)
- consistent phonetic shape.
- used in same context repeatedly (often with gestures)
- suggests that babies are recognising the conections beween sounds and objects (naming) but are not quite there yet.
[cf. theoretical descriptions of early intentional communication - Dawes’ ‘Primitive Speech Acts’, Halliday’s ‘Communicative functions’]
How to study for this week:
- Use the summary section in McLaughlin (2006)
- do multiple choice questions
- summarise your learning (including participating in forum activities - prep for Assignment 2)
