Language acquisition 2

what did Quine (1960) say about learning words?

what did Quine (1960) say about learning words?

there are arguably infinite possible meanings for new words

what is fast mapping (Carey, 1978)?

the ability to quickly link (map) a novel name to a novel object, typically by applying to known info

what is word learning the product of (nested timescales)?

• what the child is seeing/doing now

• what the child just did

• the child’s developmental history

what did Gordan & McGregor (2014) find in relation to word learning?

it’s easier to point to something than to say a new word

what did Perry & Saffran (2017) find in relation to word learning?

it’s harder to choose a known object in an unfamiliar colour

what did Axelesson & Horst (2013) find in relation to word learning?

it’s easier to choose the correct object if nothing else was named

what did Flack & Horst (2018) find in relation to word learning?

it’s harder to learn words from books with illustrations

what did Twomey, Ranson & Horst (2014) find in relation to word learning?

it’s easier to remember object names if you were exposed to several examples from the same category

what did Goldenburg & Sanhofer (2013) find in relation to word learning?

it’s harder to do well if the experimenter changes

describe the results of Horst, Parsons & Bryan’s (2011) study?

• children who heard the same stories learned words significantly better than children who heard different stories

• children who heard the same stories also retained words significantly better

describe the results of Williams & Horst’s (2014) study

both story repetition and sleep facilitated word learning

what did Oller (2000) find in relation to babbling?

canonical babbling is a string of adult-like consonant-vowel sequences

what did McGillion et al (2017) find in relation to babbling?

onset of canonical babbling predicts onset of first words

what did Keren-Portnoy et al. (2009) find in relation to babbling?

children who begin babbling later have smaller productive vocabularies relative to their peers

key aspects of the vocabulary explosion

• occurs between 18-20 months

• children say about 20 new words per week

• the ‘sudden increase’ is really due to learning multiple words at the same time as some words are more difficult than others and take longer to learn

key aspects of combining words (i.e. forming sentences)

• children start speaking their first sentence around 24 months

• children begin showing signs of syntax with “telegraphic speech”

  • simple sentences

  • usually two words (noun + noun or noun + verb)

  • no function words

key facts about late talkers

• not all children experience such rapid productive vocabulary growth

• they learn 3-5 words per week

• they are in the bottom 15th percentile for language

• at 24 months they say fewer than 50 words and/or do not combine words

what happens to late talkers in later development?

• some are ‘late bloomers’ who catch up to their peers before they start school

• others go on to be diagnosed with Developmental Language Disorder

• 2 children per reception class have clinically significant language delays (often undiagnosed)

• weaker language skills put children at risk of poor social abilities, victimisation, self regulation, and poor self-esteem

what is overextension?

extending a known word to something beyond the current vocabulary (typically occurs between 12-30 months)

what is syntax?

how words go together in sentences

what is morphology?

how to change words to change meaning (e.g. singular to plural)