Child Language Acquisition - AQA

Genie Wiley Case Study

Locked in her room for 13 years with no contact to anyone

What could Genie Wiley learn?

She initially learnt lots of words, but acquiring grammar was a skill she could never master

What effect did deprivation have on Genie Wiley?

Lack of contact/stimulation meant her brain (left hemisphere - language) had lost its ability to use language in an adult way.

What theory does Genie Wiley support?

Supports NURTURE

What is the heuristic function?

Language used to learn and explore the environment

What is the representational function?

Language used to communicate information

What is the imaginary function?

Language used to explore imagination

What is the instrumental function?

Language used to fulfil a speaker's need

What is the interactional function?

Language used to develop social relationships and ease interaction

What is the personal function?

Language used to express personal preferences / the speaker's identity

What is the regulatory function?

Language used to influence the behaviour of others

What is vegetative noise?

A child gets valuable vocal practice through crying at times of hunger/pain

What is cooing?

Involves the articulation of (mainly) vowel sounds, often isolated (one syllable).

What intonation does cooing have?

Lacks 'adult' intonation (usually monotone).

What sounds are common in cooing?

Sounds tend to be 'coo' or 'goo'

What is babbling?

More advanced 'sound making'.

What happens during babbling?

There's a greater range of sounds (more consonants now). Typically there is consonant/vowel reduplication: bababa, dadada

What are proto-words?

Babbling starts to resemble adult language, i.e. word-like vocalisations, which lead to the child's first words, although these may not be understandable

What is the holophrastic stage?

12-18m

What is the 2 word stage?

18-24m - At the two word stage, children will combine single words. Parts of speech are likely to be omitted, but some understanding of grammatical rules may still be evident.

What is the telegraphic stage?

24-36m - At this stage, utterances become longer and more grammatically correct, although there will be errors

What is the post telegraphic stage?

36m+ - Combine clause structures by using coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions to make complex and compound sentence

What verb forms are used more accurately in the post telegraphic stage?

Manipulate verb forms more accurately, for instance passive voice, e.g. 'The car was followed by a lorry? (although this isn't fully grasped until age 8 approx)

What is deletion?

Omitting a sound: for instance, the final one in a word like 'do' for dog, 'cu' for cup

What is substitution?

Substituting one sound for another, especially later, harder sounds like /ʃ/ ('dip' for 'ship') or /ð/ ('dat' for 'that')

What is addition?

Adding an extra sound to a word - for instance an extra vowel sound at end: 'cuppy'

What is assimilation?

A sound is substituted for a nearby sound that is elsewhere in the word: 'tat' for 'cat', 'lellow' for 'yellow'

What is reduplication?

Repeating a whole syllable: 'dada', 'dumdum', 'choochoo'

What are consonant cluster reductions?

Consonant clusters (ie 2 or more consonant sounds together) are difficult to articulate so children reduce them to smaller units: 'pider' for 'spider', 'pease' for please

What is deletion of unstressed syllables?

Omitting a syllable in a word: 'nana' for 'banana', 'member' for 'remember' (as here, often the 1st syllable)

What do phonological errors reflect?

Phonological errors tend to reflect the limitations of physical rather than intellectual development - they may not, for example, show misunderstanding of meaning.

What is articulation?

how children are able to physically make sounds, some seem easier than others for them BIOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS

What is perceptual discriminability?

how children are able to distinguish the sounds they hear

What is perceptual narrowing?

children's ability to perceive sounds gradually narrows to just the language they are exposed to

What is the Fis phenomenon?

A child's comprehension is often in advance of their physiological capacity to produce a sound

What does the Fis phenomenon show?

The child knows that the word should be pronounced 'fish' and can hear the distinction, even though they can't pronounce it

What do babies' first words fall into according to Katherine Nelson?

Babies first words fall into 4 predictable patterns

What is the most common type of first word?

Naming things/People (60% of first words)

What other categories do first words fall into?

Actions/Events, Personal/Social, Describing/Modifying

What are first words often like?

Often concrete nouns, 1-2 Syllables, Plosive

What are the 3 stages in Aitchison's theory?

Labelling, Packaging, Network Building

What is labelling?

Linking words to the objects to which they refer and understanding that objects can be labelled

What is packaging?

Exploring what labels can apply to

What is network building?

Making connections between words - understanding similarities and opposites in meanings and exploring semantic fields

What is a hypernym?

General group of words (Animal)

What is a hyponym?

Actual specific 'thing' (Cow)

What is over-extension?

An error that occurs when a word is extended to other objects and given a broader, more general meaning than it should have.

What is under-extension?

An error that occurs when a child restricts the things a word refers to e.g. using white only to describe snow, or 'car' only to refer to the family car.

What is categorical overextension?

Inappropriately extending the meaning of a label to others in the same category - a hyponym is treated as a hypernym (Calls all colours 'blue')

What is analogical overextension?

Extending a label from one item to another by connecting their functions or how they are perceived (Call a scarf 'cat')

What is mismatch/predicted statement overextension?

When a child makes a connection based on what is normally the case but isn't the case on this particular occasion - An association (Doll when looking at an empty cot)

What is affixation?

adding prefixes (like un-, re-) or suffixes (like -s) to words

What is conversion?

switching the grammatical class of a word (eg noun becomes verbs)

What is compounding?

putting 2 words together to form a new combo

What happens in stage 1 of negative formation? - Ursula Bellugi

Uses a negative particle ('no' or 'not') at the beginning or end of an utterance

What happens in stage 2 of negative formation? - Ursula Bellugi

Moves 'no/not' inside the utterance

What happens in stage 3 of negative formation? - Ursula Bellugi

Attaches the negative particle to an auxiliary verb or the verb 'to be'. Auxiliary verb (often 'do' added - 'dummy do' auxiliary verb)

What happens in stage 1 of pronoun formation? - Ursula Bellugi

Child uses his/her own name (favours nouns over pronouns)

What happens in stage 2 of pronoun formation? - Ursula Bellugi

The child recognises the I/me, he/him, she/her pronouns and that they are used in different places in a sentence, eg., I play toy; me do that. But the two forms are not always distinguished grammatically.

What happens in stage 3 of pronoun formation? - Ursula Bellugi

The child uses pronouns according to whether they are in the subject or object position in a sentence, eg., I play with the toy; give it to me

What is a free morpheme?

can stand alone - cat

What is a bound morpheme?

can't stand alone - suffix endings of: -s, -ed

What did the Wug test show?

Shows children acquired the rules of morphology through innate processes

What are virtuous errors?

Children make as they develop grammatically. Despite the fact that they aren't Standard English, they are perfectly logical (I goed)

What is pragmatics?

The part played by language in social situations and relationships

What is the LAD?

Chomsky proposed that humans have an innate language acquisition device (LAD), which enables us to learn language, based on universal grammar, regardless of culture or environment

What did Chomsky believe about language acquisition?

He suggested that the acquisition of language is a natural process up to the age of about six, from which point learning language (or other languages) becomes more of a conscious effort.

What did Chomsky believe about grammatical tendencies?

Chomsky suggested that speakers of all languages have inborn grammatical tendencies that scaffold language learning

What is universal grammar?

that all languages are fundamentally the same at their deep level.

What did Skinner believe about behaviour?

He believed that our actions as humans, and the probability that we will repeat them, are determined by the consequences of previous actions

What is operant conditioning?

He called the use of reinforcement to strengthen behaviour operant conditioning

What are the principles of operant conditioning?

positive and negative reinforcement

What is reinforcement?

Children are then 'rewarded' or 'punished' according to their imitation of these utterances

What is positive reinforcement?

might include being praised, told that something is right or given a relevant answer

What is punishment in language acquisition?

would equate to a correction

What happens with reinforcement of desirable behaviour?

will lead to it being repeated

What is imitation?

Children learn to speak by imitating (an 'echoic function') heard utterances.

What is the LASS?

Interaction is said to scaffold children's language development - and provides a Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)

What does interaction help children develop?

This helps them develop a grasp of not only the meanings of words, but also the practical realities of communication: turn-taking, pragmatics (what people really mean when they say things) and non-verbal communication.

What is scaffolding?

refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring

What is the Zone of Proximal Development?

To refer to what children can achieve on their own compared with what they can achieve with the help of caregivers or a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO)

What do children do when exploring their environment according to Vygotsky?

Children role play adult behaviours as part of exploring their environment.

What is important according to Vygotsky?

Importance of stimuli: actions, pictures and words are important

What ritualised activities are important according to Vygotsky?

Repeated performed actions

What is Child Directed Speech?

denote the speech patterns used by parents and caregivers when communicating with young children

How is phonology used in CDS?

Speak slowly, Exaggerated sing-song intonation, Exaggerated difference between questions, statements, and commands

What lexis and semantics are used in CDS?

Use of concrete nouns and dynamic verbs, Adopt child’s own words for things (diminutive forms - doggie), frequent use of child’s name and absence of pronouns

How is grammar used in CDS?

Repeated sentence frames: 'that's a…', 'can you tell us….', more simple sentences, more commands and questions, use of recasting where child’s vocab is repeated back

What happened in David Crystal's CDS experiment?

Gave son too much linguistic stimuli, he fell behind

What happened when Crystal stopped pushing new words?

When they let him 'grow' without pushing new words he was then ahead

What criticism is made of CDS?

There are some cultures in the world such as Papua New Guinea and Samoa, in which interaction with CDS is not believed to take place, BUT those children still learn language in the same way

What research supports CDS?

Other research, such as Thiessen et al (2005) and Henrichs (2010) have found a positive correlation between interaction with children at an early age and their subsequent educational and/or linguistic achievement.

What did Piaget believe about language development?

Piaget believed that language develops as children experience and come to question the world around them

How does understanding affect language according to Piaget?

Language develops as understanding develops

What is seriation?

The ability to sort objects or situations according to any characteristic, such as size, colour, shape, or type

What should you look for in seriation?

comparative and superlative adjectives

What is object permanence?

Knowing something still exists even when it’s not there

When does object permanence happen?

during the sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)

What should you look for in object permanence?

deixis (this, that); objects mentioned that cannot be seen.

What is egocentrism?

viewing the world from your own point of view - true of sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)